The Map Room: Satellite & Aerial

Satellite & Aerial

Google Earth Updates: World War II Iimagery, Higher-Resolution Sea Floor Data: Recent updates to Google Earth include higher-resolution underwater terrain data for some parts of the ocean floor and historical aerial photography taken over European cities during the Second World War…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 4:01 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Google Earth, Historical Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Aerial Photography of New York in 1924: Kottke notices that New York City’s mapping portal has aerial photos of the city from 1924. Deroy Peraza has some fun comparing them to aerial photos from the present day. Previously: NYCityMap…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 9:29 AM
Categories: Historical Maps, New York, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Radar Image of Port-au-Prince: NASA has released a post-earthquake radar image of the Port-au-Prince region: “JPL’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) captured this false-color composite image of the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the surrounding region on Jan. 27, 2010. Port-au-Prince is visible near the center of the image. The large… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 9:01 AM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
Haitian Earthquake: Links for January 24: A series of maps based on satellite imagery, including maps of damaged building density and oil spillage, from SERTIT. In English and French. Via Dave Smith. Gaia GPS has released a free iPhone app that is intended to help disaster relief workers; it includes OpenStreetMap maps and imagery, as well… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 4:35 PM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Mobile Devices, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Haitian Earthquake: Links for January 22: This false-colour image of Haiti was taken by the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite yesterday. The 15-cm-resolution imagery I mentioned in an earlier entry is available for download from Google; the very large files are intended for GIS professionals. GeoEye-1 imagery is also available. A Bing Maps application… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:16 AM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
Haitian Earthquake: Links for January 20: Satellite and Aerial Imagery Last night, Google released imagery of Port-au-Prince at even higher resolutions (15 cm) than before (above). The images were taken on Sunday, January 17, and will be available in Google Maps, in Google Earth by some time today, and directly to relief organizations. Google has also… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Categories: Copyright, Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
Haitian Earthquake: Links for January 16: NASA’s Earth Observatory on the above image: “While not detailed enough to reveal earthquake damage to houses and buildings, this regional view of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, on January 15, 2010, illustrates some of the physical obstacles that have complicated the job of aid workers in the aftermath of the recent… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 11:52 AM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
ESA Satellite Imagery of Port-au-Prince: The European Space Agency says that new satellite maps of Port-au-Prince are being produced. Data are being collected by various satellites including Japan’s ALOS, CNES’s Spot-5, the U.S.’s WorldView and QuickBird, Canada’s RADARSAT-2, China’s HJ-1-A/B and ESA’s ERS-2 and Envisat. These data are being processed into maps that show… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 15, 2010 at 8:40 AM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
Mapping the Destruction in Port-au-Prince: The New York Times has produced an extremely effective interactive map showing satellite imagery of Port-au-Prince before and after the earthquake in Haiti. The trouble with looking at the GeoEye-1 satellite’s post-earthquake imagery in its raw form is that it isn’t annotated — if we’re unfamiliar with Port-au-Prince (and I… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 15, 2010 at 8:22 AM
Categories: Earthquakes, Haitian Earthquake, Satellite & Aerial
It’s Cold All Over: It’s not just Europe: NASA’s Earth Observatory provides the same data mapped to a polar projection of the entire northern hemisphere: “This image illustrates how cold December was compared to the average of temperatures recorded in December between 2000 and 2008. Blue points to colder than average land surface… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 4:41 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate

Exploring Ways of Using SRTM Data: The Integrity Logic blog looks at some of the things that can be done with elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM); it gets particularly interesting when the SRTM data picks up artificial structures like skyscrapers and landfills. Via Slashdot (where, being Slashdot, commenters noted the potential for… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 5:18 PM
Categories: GIS, Satellite & Aerial
Baby It’s Cold Outside: It’s been awfully cold in Europe this month, and this map shows just how much colder than normal it’s been, based on measurements taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite between December 11 and 18. The colours show how much colder or warmer the… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 at 7:03 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
2005 Global Land Survey: NASA’s Earth Observatory site has a feature article on the 2005 Global Land Survey, a collection of 9,500 Landsat images captured between 2004 and 2007: The images are detailed enough to make out features as small as 30 meters (about one-third the length of an American football field), they have… Read more →; Posted on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 8:21 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Mapping Ice Sheet Thinning: Maps compiled from data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) reveal the extent of ice sheet thinning in Antarctica and Greenland. ICESat’s precise laser altimetry instrument, launched in 2003, has provided a high-density web of elevation measurements repeated year after year across the Greenland and Antarctic… Read more →; Posted on Monday, September 28, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Categories: Environment, Satellite & Aerial
GOES 14 Full-Disk Thermal Infrared Image Shows Hurricane Bill: The first full-disk thermal infrared image of the Earth from the GOES 14 geostationary satellite, taken on August 17, shows Hurricane Bill forming in the Atlantic. In this image, the hotter a surface, the darker it appears; from the NASA Earth Observatory writeup: In the heat of the midday… Read more →; Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 at 9:36 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Declassified Satellite Images Show Loss of Arctic Sea Ice: Earlier this month, previously classified images showing the dramatic retreat of Arctic sea ice were released by the U.S. government. The one-metre-resolution images were taken by spy satellites on behalf of scientists studying climate change who were looking for images of Arctic sea ice during the summer, but the… Read more →; Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 at 7:05 PM
Categories: Environment, Satellite & Aerial
New Digital Elevation Model Covers 99 Percent of the Earth: A new digital terrain map for the planet is now available. Based on imagery from the Japanese ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, the new global digital elevation model covers 99 percent of the Earth’s landmass to a resolution of 30 metres; the previous digital elevation model, the Shuttle… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 7:43 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Mapping Tehran: Google has made available recent satellite imagery of Tehran from the IKONOS satellite via a Google Earth layer. How recent? Last Thursday. It would have been higher resolution if it had come from the GeoEye-1 satellite, but weather apparently played a factor there. Brady Forrest compares the maps of Tehran… Read more →; Posted on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 8:44 PM
Categories: Current Events, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Earth Observatory: World of Change: Earth Observatory, celebrating its 10th anniversary, showcases 10 slideshows of “satellite images documenting how our world — forests, oceans, human landscapes, even the Sun — has changed during the previous decade.” Previously: Growth in Las Vegas…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009 at 6:57 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
An Arctic Roundup: The Geological Survey of Canada has produced a geological map of the Arctic; the map is available in several formats online and will be published in print next year. Agence France-Press reports that the map is the result of data collected by several countries at a cost of a… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 8:42 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Satellite & Aerial
True Orthophotography: Ryan has a couple of posts on the difference between orthophotography — geometrically corrected aerial photography — and “true” orthophotography; true orthophotos “add the dimension of correcting for the distortion of buildings. Or, simply stated, true orthophotos do not show building lean.” Significant in urban areas rich in skyscrapers, where… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Red River Rising: Google LatLong points to a couple of resources for residents of the Fargo-Moorehead area affected by the flooding of the Red River: this My Map, put together by the owner of several Fargo-area radio stations (see above), and this Google Earth layer released by Google itself. Though the exact… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Categories: Current Events, Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
An International Virtual Earth Imagery Update: This past week’s Virtual Earth imagery update is notable not for the terabytes of data, says the Virtual Earth evangelist blog, but for the number of countries covered — from Albania to Zimbabwe. Previously: Imagery Updates for Google Earth, Virtual Earth…. Read more →; Posted on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Go Fly a Kite: Speaking of low-cost aerial photography, The Fiducial Mark links to a research paper on the use of kite-based aerial photography to produce high-resolution aerial imagery at a cost much lower than the usual method (which at that scale usually involves a helicopter). The idea that useful high-resolution imagery was obtained… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Student Balloon Gets Images from 30 Kilometres Up: That’s one hell of a science project: four Spanish students, using an inexpensive latex balloon and a Nikon Coolpix camera, managed to record images and meteorological data from an altitude of as high as 30 kilometres before the balloon burst. They managed to recover the sensor package 10 kilometres… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 10:33 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
GeoEye-1 Satellite Imagery Previewed: Google has exclusive access to the GeoEye-1 satellite’s high-resolution imagery for online mapping purposes; sample imagery from the satellite, which was launched last September and began commercial operations last month, has been posted as a sign of things to come. Google LatLong, GeoEye press release…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 3:38 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Historical Imagery Update: It hasn’t been that long since the release of Google Earth 5.0, which added historical satellite and aerial imagery via a slider, but Google LatLong is already announcing a significant update to Google Earth’s archive of historical imagery; the blog entry gives some pertinent examples of just how useful such… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Imagery Is Not Real-Time: Frank Taylor isn’t the first person to explain at length how Google Earth imagery isn’t real-time imagery, but it’s something that seems to require repeating; his explanation also goes into considerable depth about how old the imagery can be (months to years), and, more importantly, why it’s as old as… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Imagery Updates for Google Earth, Virtual Earth: Both Google and Microsoft announced updated imagery for Google Earth and Virtual Earth last week; detailed lists of what areas have been updated are available on Google LatLong and the Virtual Earth evangelist’s blog…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, March 9, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
California Assemblyman Wants to Censor Satellite Imagery: Stupid Republican California Assemblyman Joel Anderson has introduced a bill to censor online satellite imagery of public buildings. “His bill would restrict the images such Web sites could post online. Clear, detailed images of schools, hospitals, churches and all government buildings — what he calls soft terrorism targets — would… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Satellite & Aerial
Growth in Las Vegas: NASA’s Earth Observatory provides Landsat 5 images of Las Vegas in five-year intervals from 1984 to 2009. The images show the city’s incredible rate of growth over that period. They also line up perfectly, so once again I’ve taken the liberty of turning them into a slideshow: Update (March 2):… Read more →; 1
Posted on Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Categories: Las Vegas, Satellite & Aerial
Mapping Australia’s Bushfires: NASA imagery of the bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria can be found here (from which I took the above image) and here. See also Universe Today. Imagery from NASA’s MODIS imagery is apparently being updated twice daily. This imagery has been incorporated into Google’s response to the… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Categories: Current Events, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Oblique vs. Top-Down Imagery: Ryan Strynatka compares oblique imagery to top-down imagery. In a nutshell, tall buildings. “One problem with nadir imagery is that it can be difficult to tell how tall buildings are, or gather any information about buildings (or anything other features with a ‘vertical’ aspect). Oblique photography allows users to see… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 6:29 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Wants Your Aerial Imagery: Got aerial imagery? Google wants it — and now that Google Earth 5.0 supports historical imagery, it doesn’t matter how old it is (Google LatLong). James makes a valid (albeit snarky) point that this is another example of Google wanting your data for free, but for governments, non-profits and educational… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 6:21 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Imagery Update and Other News: January’s Virtual Earth imagery update includes a total 37 terabytes of data, Microsoft’s first use of Digital Globe satellite imagery, and, among other things, bird’s-eye imagery for Paris and other French cities (see also, naturally, GeoInWeb. In other Microsoft mapping news, Live Maps India has been updated, and Microsoft… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 7:09 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Paris, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth 5.0: Oceans, Historic Imagery and Mars: Google Earth 5.0 was released today, with a bunch of new features. The ocean layers were not unexpected: ocean floor bathymetry was released a couple of weeks ago (see Stefan’s critique), and the previously announced presence of Sylvia Earle at today’s launch (CNet, Google Earth Blog) telegraphed the focus… Read more →; Posted on Monday, February 2, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Earth Envi Reviewed: iPhone Central’s review of the $1 satellite photo application for the iPhone, Earth Envi, suggests that a small mobile device may not be the best location to appreciate satellite imagery. “Truth is, many of pictures you see on Earth Envi need to been viewed in a larger format to be… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 7:34 AM
Categories: Mobile Devices, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Obama’s Inauguration from Orbit: As usual, I’m just about the last person to mention GeoEye’s high-resolution satellite image of the crowds attending President Obama’s inauguration, less than an hour before he was sworn in. It’s available as a KML layer for Google Earth; Stefan has some notes on the resolution of various available… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 23, 2009 at 2:03 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Mapping the Inauguration: A Roundup: Last month, the Armed Services Inauguration Committee revealed to the public a 40×40-foot map used to plan the inauguration (via Vector One); another view is here (thumbnail above; via MapHist). New Google Earth imagery for Washington, D.C. finally de-pixellates the U.S. Naval Observatory; censored aerial imagery is being replaced… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 8:19 AM
Categories: Big Maps, Censorship, Security & Privacy, Current Events, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
The Big Picture Meets Earth Observatory: I’m a huge fan of The Big Picture; today’s entry features some “standout photographs” from NASA’s Earth Observatory site, which I’ve mentioned before but which bears mentioning again. Above, volcanic rock in Harrat Khaybar in Saudi Arabia, taken by an astronaut aboard the ISS on March 31, 2008…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 6:08 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Online Map Updates: Google Earth Imagery, Yahoo International Coverage: Another Google Earth imagery update; details at Google Earth Blog and/or Google LatLong. Yahoo’s expanded its international map coverage. “We’ve added detailed coverage to 45 new countries, with new data in a further 30 countries,” says the Yahoo Geo Techonologies Blog…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 6:35 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Earth from Above: Yann Arthus-Bertrand Comes to New York: An exhibition of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s amazing aerial photography is coming to New York next spring: Earth from Above, the exhibition, will run from May 1 to June 28, 2009, at the World Financial Center Plaza. The Big Picture has a selection of Arthus-Bertrand’s photography; you can also go to his… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 2:09 PM
Categories: Exhibitions, Satellite & Aerial
Georgia Damage Assessment Maps: Maps and satellite images from UNOSAT showing the damage caused by the conflict between Russian and Georgian forces over South Ossetia and Abkhazia last month. Via Catholicgauze…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 8:01 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Hurricane Season: With even more hurricanes on the way, Google has added a “Hurricane Season 2008” folder to Google Earth. Previously: Post-Gustav Imagery; Mapping Hurricane Gustav…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, September 5, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Categories: Current Events, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Post-Gustav Imagery: Google LatLong points to NOAA aerial imagery taken after the passage of Hurricane Gustav; the imagery has also been processed into a KML file for use in Google Earth, which would allow for some useful before/after comparisons. (The entry also points to a KML file of health facilities in the… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 7:21 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Mapping Hurricane Gustav: Hurricane Gustav Tracking Maps Firstcoastnews.com FLHurricane.com IbisEye MIBAZAAR MSNBC StormAdvisory (click on Gustav) Wundermap Some are better than others; IbisEye, MSNBC and Wundermap are standouts. Via Anything Geospatial, Google Maps Mania, Kottke and La Cartoteca. Hurricane Gustav in Google Earth Google Earth Blog on tracking Gustav in Google Earth: Frank’s… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 7:18 PM
Categories: Current Events, GIS, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
The Eyes of the Division: A real find via Slashgeo: an internal document about the Imagery Interpretation Section (5 MB PDF) of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Division, dating from 1963. The document’s purpose was to promote the Section’s work to unit commanders. It also gives a real sense of the work of aerial reconnaisance… Read more →; Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 at 10:02 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
The Journal of Terrestrial Observation: The Journal of Terrestrial Observation is a new peer-reviewed journal that is published simultaneously online and as a hardcopy quarterly. Its mission is “to examine the multi-disciplinary theories, models, technologies, and applications associated with earth observation in the broadest sense. The Journal will cover a wide range of topics including… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Scholarly Journals
Mapping the 2008 Olympics: You may be aware that, in addition to The Map Room, I have another project that I work on during the Olympics: DFL, which chronicles last-place finishes. I’m at it again — this is my third kick at the Olympic can — and I expect it will take up the… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Categories: Beijing, Google Earth, Olympics, Satellite & Aerial
Britain from Above: Considerable buzz about an upcoming BBC series, Britain from Above. This preview (screen capture above; I wish I could have embedded the video here, it’s pretty good) uses GPS traceroutes to show sea, road and air traffic; it also shows telephone network usage (thanks, Neil). The first episode airs… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 9:26 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Tracerouting, Video
Landsat Data Will Be Available Online: All Points Blog: “Speaking at the ESRI UC Senior Executive Summit in San Diego, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the 35 years of archived Landsat data will be made available over the Web free to the public by the end of the year.”… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 8:28 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Mapping Atmospheric Water Vapour: A NASA satellite, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2, primarily measures the height of the ocean surface with a radar altimeter. It also has a sensor to measure atmospheric moisture; this map represents water vapour in the atmosphere measured during the sensor’s first week of operations. Earth Observatory, JPL… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 9:18 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Virtual Earth Imagery Updates: Speaking of which, the Virtual Earth evangelist blog also reports on 14.3 terabytes of new imagery for Virtual Earth…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps: Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps, a compilation of locations whose aerial imagery has been obscured in Google Earth and Maps. Categories range from government and military facilities to power generation sites; the list includes instances of pushback against Street View as well. Thanks… Read more →; Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Abstract Satellite Images: Environmental Graffiti reprints a collection of beautiful false-colour Landsat 7 images — 30 in all — first put on display by NASA at the Library of Congress in 2000. Via Andrew Sullivan…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 5:05 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Oceandots: Oceandots is a collection of NASA satellite and astronaut imagery of the world’s islands and atolls — and not just the tiny, isolated ones like Pitcairn, Clipperton or Tristan da Cunha, either, though they’re certainly well represented and are what you’ll find if you click on the Southern or… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:25 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Imagery Updated: Google Earth Blog has a roundup of the latest imagery updates to Google Earth. Update, 7/16: Google LatLong post…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:36 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Thermal London: This is interesting: thermal images of London from space, from the air, and from a high vantage point. Part of a site dedicated to thermal imagery of London, but this page is what’s of interest to us. At right, a false-colour thermal image of the English Channel and surrounding… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Categories: London, Satellite & Aerial
Aerial Photography in 1936: The wonderful blog Modern Mechanix reprints another contemporary article about early aerial photography: “He Made Sky Mapping a Big Business” was first published in the May 1936 issue of the eponymous magazine. Previously: “Flying Cameras Map America for War”: Aerial Photography in 1939…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 9:40 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
More on Cyclone Nargis and Burma: More on the devastation wrought on Burma (Myanmar) by Cyclone Nargis: UNOSAT has maps of the affected regions (as PDF files); the maps show the extent of flooding and the villages that have been completely submerged or flooded. Via Glenn. Google LatLong has two posts on using Google Earth in… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Categories: Current Events, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Cyclone Nargis: Satellite images from before and after Cyclone Nargis struck the Burmese (Myanmarese?) coast…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 8:13 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Cities at Night: NASA’s Earth Observatory has a page of photos of cities at night taken from space; at right, Tokyo. “Astronauts circling the Earth have the wonderful vantage point of observing the nighttime Earth from 350-400 kilometers above the surface, taking in whole regions at once. Onboard cameras and a bit… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 6:52 PM
Categories: Cities, Satellite & Aerial, Tokyo
Historic Aerial Photography: Historic Aerials “provides free online access to historic and current aerial photography. You can view aerial photography from the 1930s through today. Use our multi-year comparison tools to detect changes in property.” Covers a good chunk of the U.S., with multiple years available for some urban areas. Imagery is freely… Read more →; Posted on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:39 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
The Media and Google Earth’s Satellite Imagery: What drives Glenn nuts about media coverage of Google Earth “is that most of these ‘writers’ refer to the imagery as being ‘Google’s’ as if a big bird is circling the Earth capturing high-res imagery almost daily. Hey man, the imagery is licensed from commercial image providers (like DigitalGlobe), government… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 6:37 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo Updates Imagery: I will have something on the Microsoft Live Maps/Virtual Earth update presently (once I go through all the material, and there’s a lot to go through). In the meantime, though, Yahoo Maps hasn’t been idle either, with a huge imagery update: “Going wide, we’ve made big improvements in our wall-to-wall… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 5:20 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Mary Meader: The New York Times: “Mary Meader, who as a spunky new bride in the 1930s took off on a 35,000-mile journey to advance geographic knowledge by making unprecedented aerial photographs of South America and Africa, died Sunday in Kalamazoo, Mich. She was 91.” Via MAPS-L…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 9:42 PM
Categories: Obituaries, Satellite & Aerial
‘Flying Cameras Map America for War’: Aerial Photography in 1939: “Flying Cameras Map America for War”, an article from the May 1939 issue of Popular Science, has been reprinted on the always-fascinating Modern Mechanix blog. The article looks at the state of the art with respect to aerial photography just before the Second World War, with a focus on the… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
True Marble Satellite Imagery Freely Available: Unearthed Outdoors has made its True Marble 250m-resolution satellite imagery available for download under a Creative Commons licence; their 15m-resolution imagery costs money. The files are available either in GeoTIFF or PNG format and range from 32-kilometre to 250-metre resolution. At higher resolutions the world must be downloaded in… Read more →; Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Updates: Imagery and Transit: A couple of quick updates about Google’s mapping stuff — quick updates seem to be all I have time or energy for at the moment, what with the full-time contract and the resulting lengthy commute. Google Transit’s features have been integrated into the main Google Maps site. And yesterday there… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 7:43 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Mass Transit, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google, Censorship and Washington, D.C.: An Update: Nikolas Schiller writes: The other day you featured my analysis concerning Google’s censorship of downtown Washington, D.C. I am contacting you with two updates concerning this research. 1. I discovered that the area in question is the exact same area that features Google’s 3D buildings (Google is placing priority of… Read more →; Posted on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 9:31 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
A Cryptic Imagery Update: Google announces the latest Google Earth imagery update with a cryptic blog entry inviting us to guess from the clues; those with less patience can turn to Digital Earth Blog for the answers. (Update: Google’s official answers.) If the Ottawa-area update is any indication, these imagery updates have not yet… Read more →; Posted on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 8:09 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Mars HiRISE Images: If you also like satellite images of other planets, proceed immediately to the home page of the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: “During its mission, HiRISE will collect thousands of images of the Martian surface, covering only one percent of the planet. The camera’s advanced optics allow… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 9:07 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Satellite & Aerial
Google, Censorship and Washington, D.C.: Nikolas Schiller writes to point out an article in today’s Washington Post about Google’s updated imagery of Washington, D.C., and how Google massaged the fact that the most recent imagery available — 2005 imagery from the USGS — censored several sensitive locations in the U.S. capital: The newer photos on… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 7:51 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Censoring Satellite Imagery at the Source: Even though the new street-level imagery from Google is getting all the attention lately, the issue of censoring satellite and aerial imagery has not gone away. Not by a long shot. Via Ogle Earth: Henri Willox noted yesterday that French air bases are now pixellated in Google Earth — a… Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, June 4, 2007 at 1:58 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Imagery and Terrain Update: A big update to Google Earth’s imagery and terrain layers on Saturday that includes Canadian, German and French cities, U.S. counties, Japanese cities/regions, 50-cm-resolution imagery for England, 60-cm imagery for many areas including Antarctica and Greenland, and 10-metre terrain for the western U.S. and Canary Islands. Among many other things…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, June 4, 2007 at 7:12 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Another Microsoft Imagery Update: Probably not fortuitous that Microsoft’s monthly Virtual Earth imagery update (see previous entry) also took place today: the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog has the details; I note with interest that Ottawa, the closest city to me, is among the cities receiving 3D building coverage. Not that I can see any… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 6:44 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Quadrocopter: DIY Aerial Photography: Fed up with waiting for aerial photography for your area to show up in online maps? Take your own with a quadrocopter! The Universal Aerial Video Platform is an open-source project from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Via MAKE: Blog and Engadget…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, May 6, 2007 at 11:04 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth’s Source Images: From last year, a brief article on Google’s Librarian Central on the sources of Google Earth imagery. We collect it via airplane and satellite, but also just about any way you can imagine getting a camera above the Earth’s surface: hot air balloons, model airplanes — even kites. The traditional… Read more →; Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 at 8:28 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Imagery Updated Monthly: Virtual Earth imagery updates are apparently a monthly thing now: here’s news of the latest, which includes updates for Italy, France, Mexico, Canada and the U.S., including more U.S. bird’s-eye imagery…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, April 27, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Real-Time Satellite Imagery: EarthNow vs. The Simpsons: Live, accessible satellite imagery is a pipe dream, but EarthNow is probably as close as we’ll ever get: it’s not live, but (updated; see below) it is real-time — just delayed a few hours. It’s essentially a Java applet that displays the feed from the Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 satellites… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 7:56 PM
Categories: Fun, Satellite & Aerial, Video
Aerial Imagery on a GPS: Tim likes the idea of aerial photography on a GPS unit, which is now starting to become available: it adds a layer of information that you might otherwise miss with topo maps — he cites vegetation as an example…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 7:43 PM
Categories: GPS, Satellite & Aerial
Google Updates New Orleans Imagery: Google has updated its New Orleans imagery in response to the outcry over its decision — made last September — to update that imagery with higher-quality images that were unfortunately, and impolitically, before Hurricane Katrina. The Official Google Blog: [I]n September 2006, the storm imagery was replaced with pre-Katrina aerial… Read more →; Posted on Monday, April 2, 2007 at 11:37 AM
Categories: Google Earth, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial
Google Reverts to Pre-Katrina New Orleans Imagery: Google has apparently replaced post-Katrina images of New Orleans with imagery from before the hurricane clobbered the city, and people are upset about that, the AP reports (choose your source for the same article: Boston Globe, Guardian, Houston Chronicle, Huffington Post, USA Today). My reaction to this depends on… Read more →; Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 8:42 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
More Virtual Earth Imagery Updates: Hot on Google’s heels, there’s a major imagery update for Virtual Earth, with dozens of cities in Europe and the U.S. getting bird’s-eye photography, as well as high-resolution orthoimagery coming to a number of U.S. and Canadian locales. Previously: Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye Imagery for Europe…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 8:07 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Imagery Updates for March 29: Yet another imagery update for Google Earth: updates to Spain, Connecticutt and Austin, Texas; high-resolution imagery for a number of English locations, a number of U.S. counties, the French cities of Poitiers and Rennes, and downtown Vancouver, B.C. Via Ogle Earth. Previously: More Google Imagery Updates…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 8:51 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Misconceptions: Chad tries to address the confusion about a series of high-resolution images appearing in Google Maps and Google Earth. It seems to me that there are two misconceptions: that they’re all satellite images, and that they are real-time (or that real-time, high-resolution satellite imagery could be possible in the… Read more →; 3
Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 9:03 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Nikolas Schiller: Yesterday’s Washington Post had a major piece about Nikolas Schiller, who’s been doing artful things with aerial photography and doing his best to stay under the web’s collective radar. (Sorry.) Excerpts from the Post article: Schiller barely pauses on the way to his computer, which he fires up to… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 3:11 PM
Categories: Art, Satellite & Aerial
Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica: The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica “combines nearly 1100 hand-selected Landsat satellite scenes that are being digitally woven together to create a single, seamless, cloud-free image of the Antarctic continent — the most detailed color representation of this vast and frozen landmass ever produced,” according to the press release…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 at 8:52 PM
Categories: GIS, Satellite & Aerial
More Google Imagery Updates: Recent updates to the satellite and aerial imagery in Google Maps and Earth include 50-cm resolution imagery for Switzerland and Denmark, high-resolution (10 m) terrain for Switzerland, several French cities, full coverage for Utah and Wyoming, and a number of other local improvements, Google Earth Blog reports. Previously: High-Resolution Satellite… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 1:39 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Detroit Through the Years: I can’t see it because I’m on a Mac and this is a Virtual Earth mashup, but Detroit Through the Years, which displays aerial views of Detroit from 1949 to the present, sounds like a fascinating project. Let me know how it looks, would you? Via Live Maps/Virtual Earth…. Read more →; 2
Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 5:57 PM
Categories: Cities, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Portland LIDAR Survey: A $1-million project to map the terrain of Portland, Oregon will take place over the next few weeks, the Oregonian reports. The aerial LIDAR survey is intended to create a hyper-accurate terrain map that will be particularly useful in predicting areas at risk of landslides, to which Portland is… Read more →; Posted on Monday, February 19, 2007 at 12:34 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Portland, Satellite & Aerial, Surveying
World Wind 1.4: World Wind 1.4 is now out: it’s Windows-only and requires .Net 2.0; Chad says the cross-platform Java version is expected around May. Previously: World Wind Update…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
High-Resolution Satellite Photos of Europe in Google Earth: Stefan broke the news this morning that Spot Image’s 2.5-meter-per-pixel imagery had been added to Google Earth; this is apparently a substantial improvement over the 15-meter-per-pixel base layer. More from Spot Image itself; the countries affected include Belgium, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. Frank notes: “[T]his is the first… Read more →; Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 1:35 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Two More Blogs: Stefan has discovered two brand-spanking-new blogs that have started up this very month: the Google Earth Hacks blog accompanies the site of the same name; MapWrapper.com is a GIS blog with an interest in earth sciences and remote sensing. Previously: Google Earth Roundup…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 10:11 AM
Categories: Blogs, GIS, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye Imagery for Europe: New bird’s-eye imagery for Virtual Earth, this time covering more than 100 European cities — mostly in Italy, France and Germany, but also the Netherlands, Spain, and one city in Norway. (Though technically we should also say Monaco, since Monte Carlo is listed but as part of France.) Update, 1/23:… Read more →; Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 7:40 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Microsoft Inks Deal for Improved Imagery: And the satellite imagery arms race continues. Via James comes news of a deal between Microsoft and GlobeXplorer that will add more than a million square kilometres of high-resolution imagery to Virtual Earth…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
World Wind Update: Like ArcGIS Explorer (previously), NASA World Wind is another application to which I’ve been giving short shrift, a consequence of my Mac-only household. And the Java version that would run on Mac OS X and Linux that was scheduled for last September has, I guess, yet to make an… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 5, 2007 at 9:16 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
Fishing Maps from Aerial Photographs: Still catching up on some older stories. Two weeks ago, the Florida Times-Union profiled a local home-based business, Outfitter’s Mapping, that produces aerial photographic maps of Florida fishing areas. Via All Points Blog…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at 7:12 PM
Categories: Publishers, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Updates: 3D City Textures, Italy: A major update to Virtual Earth this week: new three-dimensional city textures for Minneapolis-St. Paul, Tacoma, Sacramento, the L.A. suburbs and Irving, Texas on the one hand; a massive imagery and terrain update for Italy on the other. James explores terrain, interface and 3D texture upgrades; Stefan surmises that the… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 8:23 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
More Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Updates: Yet another round of terrain and imagery updates for Google Earth; Stefan and Frank pass along the details. The updates include, among other things, a terrain upgrade for Mt. Saint Helens. Previously: Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Upgrades; Another Google Imagery Update; Google Imagery Update…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 2:24 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
EWG U.S. Mining Database: There has been an explosion in mining claims lately; the Environmental Working Group’s U.S. Mining Database uses the Google Maps API to show active mines and claims on federal lands in the western United States. (There’s also a Google Earth option.) My, there are a lot of them. Using satellite… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, December 17, 2006 at 7:04 PM
Categories: Energy & Resources, Environment, Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Upgrades: Improvements to Virtual Earth announced this week include a new navigation control for bird’s-eye imagery and a new distance-measurement tool; James likes…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 at 11:10 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Earth from Space: The Smithsonian’s Earth from Space is an online exhibition of satellite imagery; images include climate, geology and human activity. It’s also a physical exhibition, on a tour that began last month and continues until January 2010. Lesson plans are also available. Via Catholicgauze…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 8:42 AM
Categories: Education, Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo! Imagery on OpenStreetMap: This is an interesting development: Yahoo! is letting OpenStreetMap use its aerial imagery. If that isn’t a boost to the project, I don’t know what is. I wonder what’s behind this move. See also The Earth Is Square and Geobloggers. Previously: National Geographic on OpenStreetMap; OpenStreetMap at Where 2.0; OpenStreetMap… Read more →; Posted on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 9:01 AM
Categories: Copyright, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Upgrades: Ogle Earth reports on terrain and imagery upgrades in Google Earth; locations updated include 12 German cities, six British regions, the island of Oahu, and the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2006 at 8:02 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Another Virtual Earth 3D Roundup: Links regarding the Virtual Earth 3D launch last week have been piling up in my files; time once more to clear out the queue and share them with you. Brian Flood takes a good look at some of Virtual Earth 3D’s details (controls, API, file format). Pace Frank Taylor’s initial… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 8:07 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth for Japan: In other Virtual Earth news, a localized version for Japan was also launched yesterday, replete with geocoding, yellow pages, road maps and satellite imagery…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 at 11:10 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth 3D Roundup: Reactions to, and follow-up stories about, yesterday’s announcement of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth 3D thingy (previously): The AP story focuses on the Microsoft vs. Google implications of this release (via MapHist). In that vein, Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog says, noting the specific system and browser requirements (IE 6 or… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 at 10:53 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
The Top-Down View: Between high-rise buildings and easily accessible satellite imagery, buildings’ roofs are getting a second look — not just by casual viewers dinking around with Google Earth, but by architects, the L.A. Times reports. Sometimes the impact of new mapping technology turns up in surprising places. Via All Points Blog… Read more →; Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth 3D: CNet reports the launch of Virtual Earth 3D, a component of Live Search that integrates three-dimensional models of 15 U.S. cities (so far) into search results — a flyover/Flight Simulator view, I suppose. Comes with virtual billboards for advertising. Microsoft’s press release is here. Update, 6:25 PM: The WLL/Virtual Earth… Read more →; Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 at 5:54 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
BBC’s Click on Aerial Imagery: The BBC program Click featured aerial photography on last weekend’s episode; the online article discusses the imagery’s use and impact on life, business and so forth. Via Ed Parsons and Very Spatial…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, October 30, 2006 at 9:19 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Twisty Table: Here’s something different. While at PopTech, Jason Kottke discovered the Twisty Table, which was developed as a way to navigate high-resolution satellite imagery. “When you spin the table, the map zooms in and out and tilting the table scrolls it.” Take that, mouse scroll wheel…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006 at 12:59 PM
Categories: Miscellany, Satellite & Aerial
Imagery Comes to MapQuest: What? MapQuest now has satellite/aerial imagery? When did that happen? See previous entries: More About MapQuest’s Future; MapQuest at 10; AP: MapQuest and the Competition…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 at 8:29 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Online Maps Help Aerial, Satellite Imaging Companies Thrive: The popularity of online mapping sites is having an impact on aerial- and satellite-imagery companies, Newsweek reports. Long dependent on government contracts, these companies now find their new clients — Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! et al. — contributing increasing amounts to their bottom line; in one firm’s case, it’s approaching 20… Read more →; Posted on Monday, October 9, 2006 at 5:17 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Another Google Imagery Update: Another update to Google’s satellite imagery today, Maps and Earth at the same time. Here’s an announcement. Via Google Earth Blog; I expect Frank Taylor will be adding to the list as more updates are discovered. See previous entry: Google Imagery Update…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 3:49 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
UN Atlas Presented via Google Maps: The UN Environment Programme’s atlas, One Planet, Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, was announced in June 2005 and has been available as a free download since at least last February. (You can always buy the book, of course.) Now it’s available in online, with a Google Maps-based interface… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 9:25 AM
Categories: Books, Environment, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Earth Wallpapers: Earth Wallpapers is a collection of desktop backgrounds created from Google Maps satellite images. Each image comes in several sizes; the back end is powered by Flickr (the images are available through Flickr here). Copyright issues notwithstanding, these are some very pretty pictures. Via Kottke…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 12:39 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Imagery Update: There are reports here and there that Google has updated its satellite imagery. The images are certainly loading differently for me: lower-resolution photos are being used at wider zoom levels, and they seem to be cached differently. More as more reports come in. Update: Frank’s list of updated locations is… Read more →; Posted on Friday, September 8, 2006 at 1:38 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
NAIP: The National Agricultural Imagery Program collects aerial photographs of farmers’ fields during the growing season. According to an NPR story, one of NAIP’s purposes is to check on what farmers are planting — to make sure that they qualify for their subsidies. The story also has a bit on… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, September 7, 2006 at 11:18 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Hurricane-Ready Sea Temperatures: Earth Observatory’s weekly mailing is a good way to discover some of the latest satellite imagery, both true- and false-colour; this past week, there was this startling look at ocean temperatures in the hurricane zone. Yellow and up are above 28°C, and as such conducive to hurricane formation…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at 4:46 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Yahoo! Updates Satellite Imagery for Cities: Yahoo! reports that it has added high-resolution satellite imagery for nearly 30 metropolitan areas outside the United States, and upgraded the imagery for U.S. cities as well. See previous entries: Yahoo! International Satellite Imagery; Yahoo! Maps Satellite Imagery…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 8:54 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
DigitalGlobe Imagery Exclusive to Google: Ben has posted an e-mail exchange to the Geowanking mailing list that confirms that, according to a DigitalGlobe representative, “Google has signed an exclusive agreement with us to display our full-resolution imagery on the web,” which means that Google Maps and Earth are the only way to access their sub-10-metre… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at 5:54 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Windows Live Local and Australia: The Windows Live Local/Virtual Earth blog: “This week we rolled out a new release of Live Local featuring full support for Australia.” Streets, geocoding, directions, business listings and more aerial imagery…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 9:29 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Fire!: BLDGBLOG’s been having fun with images from NASA’s Earth Observatory again (see previous entry), linking to this collection of MODIS images of Africa during 2005, showing the occurrence of fires deliberately set by people as part of their agricultural cycle. The colours used on the choropleth layer are a… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 8:14 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Energy & Resources, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Map of Paved Surfaces: NASA’s Earth Observatory reports on a new satellite-imagery-based mapping — the example is of the Washington-Baltimore area — that shows how much “impervious surface” there is in the area: “These space-based maps of buildings and paved surfaces, such as roads and parking lots, which are impervious to water, can… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 at 7:15 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo! International Satellite Imagery: Yahoo! has added high-resolution satellite imagery for a number of “international” (read: non-U.S.) cities. They list a fair number in Mexico, a few in Canada, and several in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Cartography compares the imagery with Google Maps by looking at how each service displays a single… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 9:34 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
ESA Earth Observation Images: The European Space Agency has released more than a thousand high-resolution satellite images, most of which were acquired by the Agency’s Earth Observation satellites. Here’s the site for the images; it’s searchable rather than browseable, unfortunately. Via Cartography and La Cartoteca…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 8:38 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
New Satellite Imagery Comes to Google Maps: Google Maps Mania reports that, as expected, the new high-resolution satellite imagery that came to Google Earth earlier this month has now trickled down to Google Maps…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 10:43 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Lightning Map: Ooo. A map of lightning strikes based on NASA satellite data (more on which here). Via BLDGBLOG. Update, June 20: Frank has made a Google Earth layer out of this map…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 at 9:04 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
CloudSat: NASA’s new CloudSat satellite takes cross-section images of cloud interiors, allowing researchers to see cloud formations in 3D. The images are essentially transects rather than maps, but can supplement and inform weather-related satellite imagery the same way as ground radar can. The image above is from a warm front… Read more →; Posted on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 8:51 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google Earth Imagery Update: Google Earth Blog and Ogle Earth report that more areas of the planet now have high-resolution imagery in Google Earth, many of which are low-population areas like South Georgia Island, Siberia, the Australian interior and — wow — the Himalayas. The Caribbean got an update, too, says Frank. Alas, my… Read more →; 1
Posted on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 8:06 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Indonesian Earthquake Update: Cartography links to more maps and imagery of the Indonesian earthquake, including satellite images here and here, as well as situation maps from ReliefWeb. See previous entries: Indonesian Earthquake; Indonesian Earthquake in Google Earth…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, June 6, 2006 at 8:54 AM
Categories: Current Events, Earthquakes, Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Imagery Captures Settlement’s Destruction: While governments fret about losing security at the hands of publicly available, high-resolution satellite imagery, it’s worth remembering that revealing things that governments would rather leave hidden is frequently a very good thing. Last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as part of a pilot program to… Read more →; Posted on Monday, June 5, 2006 at 11:34 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Indonesian Earthquake: Via Cartography and Catholicgauze, maps and satellite photos produced by UNOSAT of the earthquake-stricken areas of Indonesia, both before and after the quake…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 8:26 PM
Categories: Current Events, Earthquakes, Satellite & Aerial
Severe Weather Imagery for Google Earth: Real-time data (or at least near real-time data) exists in the online mapping world, just not the real-time satellite and aerial imagery that uninformed people get exercised about — take traffic congestion data, for example. Weather data is another possibility for satellite imagery, and radar images are even more up… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 8:11 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Earthshots: Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change is a collection of Landsat images of certain locations from different years (usually from 1972 to 2000) that show the changes to agriculture, urbanization and other activities in Landsat’s false-colour imagery, from the Ogallala Aquifer to the Aral Sea. A little dated — the… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 5:35 PM
Categories: Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth vs. World Wind: Via Ogle Earth, a comparison of Google Earth and World Wind. Though I detect a distinct preference for World Wind’s open/free terms of use (it is, after all, a page on World Wind Central’s wiki), it’s quite positive about both programs: “[T]he truth is that they are two very different… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 9:55 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
Major Windows Live Local Update: Windows Live Local got a major update today; see the official blog for an overview of what they call “the biggest release yet of Windows Live Local.” The update includes real-time traffic data (the TechCrunch post covering the launch has an example and comparison with Yahoo!’s service) and, according to… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 10:11 PM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Views of the Earth: I love looking at the images on Views of the Earth: Artificial Images of Our Real Planet, where Christoph Hormann has taken satellite images and reprocessed them. The end results are astonishing: views from a height, on cloudless days, that take into account the Earth’s curvature, particularly in high-altitude images…. Read more →; 2
Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
A Look at the Aerial Photography Business: A rising tide lifts all boats, it’s said, and the interest in the satellite and aerial imagery available through the online mapping services and Google Earth has been very good to the aerial photography industry, who are able to capitalize in at least three ways: selling additional imagery layers to… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 3, 2006 at 7:32 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Major Google Maps European Update: First there was a massive update of Google Earth’s satellite and aerial photography, much of which affected (and improved) the imagery for Europe. Then that imagery was carried over to Google Maps, which again had an impact on European views. Then, yesterday, driving directions came to some European locations in… Read more →; 4
Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at 7:27 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Triangulations: March 13: The Batch Geocoding Blog has a comparison of the Google, MapQuest and Yahoo! mapping APIs; it’s a quick outline of what the author sees as the pros and cons of each. Via Very Spatial. Alex Stengel says MapMemo 2.5 is now out; see previous entries about MapMemo’s previous releases… Read more →; Posted on Monday, March 13, 2006 at 10:00 AM
Categories: Blogs, Collecting, Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial, Triangulations (Links)
Fake Tilt-Shift Photography with Photoshop: SF, the model city, uploaded by mathowie. Barbieri’s stunning photography, which I posted about in January, uses an expensive tilt-shift lens to make aerial photography look like photos of models rather than the real thing. But you can fake the same effect through Photoshop; here’s a tutorial. People are trying… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 at 5:05 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for February 6: Now that it’s available for the Mac, Macworld reviews Google Earth. Robert Gelb reviews Chandu Thota’s Programming MapPoint in .NET: “The bottom line is that if you are developing anything mapping related with Microsoft components, you gotta buy this book. Period.” (Via Chandu Thota.) The Miami International Map Fair took… Read more →; Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 at 7:15 AM
Categories: Books, Collecting, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Triangulations (Links)
One Planet, Many People Redux: The UN atlas One Planet, Many People has been making the rounds of the mapping blogosphere lately — see, for example, Very Spatial and Le Petit Blog Cartographique — probably due to it being featured on the Landsat project news site last month. I posted about it last June. Since… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 at 1:35 PM
Categories: Books, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Gateway to Astronaut Photography: The Gateway to Astronaut Photography is an enormous collection of photographs taken by astronauts over a period of decades. From the site: “Beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken photographs of the Earth. Our database tracks the locations, supporting data, and digital images for these… Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 29: I’ve been off my feed a bit this past week, so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll start with a few random links from here and there about this and that. From the Google Blog: “Not only have we added extensive 6-inch imagery for many parts of the… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 at 6:05 PM
Categories: Current Events, GPS, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Olivio Barbieri’s Model World: Olivo Barbieri’s model world: “It’s often hard to convince people that Olivo Barbieri’s aerial photographs are real. They look uncannily like hyperdetailed models, absent the imperfections of reality. Streets are strangely clean, trees look plastic, and odd distortions of scale create the opposite effect of what we expect from aerial… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 2:11 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 21: A clickable map of Tlingit tribes, clans and clan houses in the Pacific Northwest. Via Plep. MapPoint B2B on the future of MSN Maps and Directions, viz., none: “The time has come to say good-bye to MSN Maps and Directions and say hello to Windows Live Local. The product team… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 7:50 AM
Categories: Books, Historical Maps, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 17: I’ve got to hunker down and produce a big post about the controversial Chinese map that purportedly proves that the Chinese discovered the Americas, but in the meantime, here are a few links about satellite images, online maps and advertising. This AP wire story about satellite images and privacy raises… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 9:44 AM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual India: The first public build of Virtual India (the Microsoft Research project with imagery that satisfies Indian security concerns; see previous entry) is now online, according to the Virtual Earth blog. Four languages; street maps for Bangalore only; works in Firefox but not in Safari…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 9:48 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Utah Atlas of Panoramic Images: Dr. William Bowen writes to tell us about his project, the Utah Atlas of Panoramic Images: “This latest web publication includes 887 photorealistic mathematical simulations of Utah’s complex landscape.” He adds that “it is important to realize that the panoramas are not photographs. They are photorealistic, mathematical simulations created from… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 14: Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum). MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities — it’s the capital of Alberta, for those who don’t… Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 8:32 AM
Categories: Blogs, Books, Cartography, Education, Mapping Errors, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 13: If I make these posts a regular occurrence, I’ll have to come up with a catchier title. Anyway, onward, with a few things about online maps and a couple of conferences to tell you about: Ads appearing on Google Maps? We kind-of, sort-of knew it was coming. Blue pins representing… Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 13, 2006 at 8:30 AM
Categories: Conferences, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Google Earth Basics: Our friend Frank Taylor of Google Earth Blog has put together a page of Google Earth Basics for people new to Google Earth. That’s basically me: while I’ve been reporting what I could about Google Earth since its launch, I haven’t played with it until this week (I didn’t download… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 4:36 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 12: As an experiment, a lot of new links at once: A new Google Earth blog with a rather unwieldy title: Using Google Earth for Earth Science and Remote Sensing (via Ogle Earth). The Prejudice Map is built by querying Google with phrases like “Germans are known for” and pasting up… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 9:41 AM
Categories: Blogs, Conferences, Groups & Societies, Libraries, Map Thefts, Miscellany, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth for Mac Officially Released: A busy day for Mac users, and not just because of the Macworld keynote. Google Earth for the Mac is now officially available (via GPS Review). Key system requirements: OS X 10.4 (Tiger), a 400-MHz processor, and 16 MB of video RAM, minimum — essentially, even a G3 iBook from… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 3:41 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial
Early Reviews of Google Earth for OS X: Frank Bisono and Jaron Brass have managed to take a look at the Google Earth OS X preview that seems to be making the rounds; both have dual or quad G5 Power Macs, so naturally they report good performance. Commenters on the TUAW post have (a) posted a link to… Read more →; Posted on Friday, December 9, 2005 at 8:28 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth for OS X Being Developed: AppleInsider: Mac rumour site AppleInsider claims that a long-hoped-for OS X version of Google Earth is under development: “Earlier this month, a pre-release version of Google Earth for Mac OS X that uses OpenGL rendering reportedly began making the rounds overseas. The 40MB application packs a hefty set of preferences, allowing… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, December 8, 2005 at 6:49 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth, India and Security — Again: India doesn’t seem to want to leave Google alone: after complaining about the satellite data in Google Earth, the Indian government is back to complaining about the labelling of Kashmir (via GeoCarta). See previous entries: Google Earth: Indian Reactions, Google Earth and Disputed Borders and Names. Meanwhile, the Christian Science… Read more →; 6
Posted on Thursday, December 1, 2005 at 3:27 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Satellite & Aerial
Free Australian Maps, Images and Data: The Australian government makes satellite imagery, geology maps (1:250,000 scale) and spatial data available free of charge. Via Glenn’s GISUser Weblog. See previous entry: Satellite Images and the Weather…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, December 1, 2005 at 3:23 PM
Categories: GIS, Satellite & Aerial, Topo Maps & Trails
Landsat Roundup: Landsat data in MrSid format, from Landsats 4 and 5 in 1990 and Landsat 7 in 2000, from NASA’s Applied Sciences Directorate. Via All Things Geography. Meanwhile, Landsat 5 is apparently experiencing technical difficulties. Via Very Spatial…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, December 1, 2005 at 3:09 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
GTA Digital Mapping Project: Plep points to the Greater Toronto Area Digital Mapping Project, done by the University of Toronto’s map library. It’s old-style and not very accessible (it requires a plugin), but it’s got a collection of old maps and more recent aerial photos…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, November 13, 2005 at 11:07 AM
Categories: Antique Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Toronto
Tracking Hurricane Wilma: Here we go again. Google Earth Blog has a collection of downloadable automated storm tracking tools (KMZ file). Google Maps Mania points to a couple of Google Maps based storm trackers. Spatially Adjusted links to ESRI’s existing hurricane viewer and the Geospatial One Stop Hurricane page. Many of the sites… Read more →; 1
Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 9:17 AM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Pakistani Earthquake Satellite Imagery: The always excellent Kathryn Cramer points to satellite imagery of the earthquake-stricken areas of Pakistan: one-metre-resolution photos from Space Imaging, an image from NASA’s Earth Observatory showing the quake epicentres and fault line, and a page of images from the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters.” See previous entry: Mapping… Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, October 13, 2005 at 10:12 PM
Categories: Current Events, Earthquakes, Satellite & Aerial
A Small Hurricane Update: Kathryn Cramer reports that new Rita overlays for Google Earth based on updated NOAA imagery are now available. Meanwhile, Wired carries an AP story about mapping the storm surge from Katrina: surveyors are trying to create an atlas of the storm surge, essentially, to prepare better for the next one…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, October 10, 2005 at 8:00 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Google and NASA: The big news this week for Google watchers this week is the announcement Wednesday of a memorandum of understanding between Google and NASA’s Ames Research Center. Press releases from ARC and Google; news coverage from the San Jose Mercury News (reprinted in the Miami Herald); via Google Earth Blog and… Read more →; 2
Posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 at 9:30 AM
Categories: Astronomy, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth: Indian Reactions: Once more into the breach. India is the latest country where concerns are being expressed about the high-resolution imagery in Google Earth, now that several Indian cities have had their photos updated. As usual, the concern is about sensitive installations — this time military. (Apparently, the Pakistanis might see something…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 8:54 PM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
First Post-Hurricane Rita Images: Kathryn Cramer reports that the first post-Hurricane Rita images from the areas hardest hit by the storm have been posted by NOAA. As was the case with Katrina, the interface — starting with a base map index page — is not the most intuitive or user-friendly, and the images are… Read more →; Posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 10:03 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
State Comptroller Threatens Google: Ogle Earth reports that New York state comptroller Alan Hevesi is the latest politician to freak out about Google Earth as a potential tool for terrorists. But Hevesi does it in a particularly odious manner, invoking his status as trustee of the New York state pension fund, which owns Google… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, September 25, 2005 at 8:28 AM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
That Roman Villa Discovery Story: I’m totally the last person to be reporting this. A couple of weeks ago, Ogle Earth pointed to the story of Italian blogger Luca Mori (whose site seems to be down at the moment), who used Google Maps and Google Earth to discover the ruins of a Roman villa on… Read more →; 1
Posted on Saturday, September 24, 2005 at 3:36 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Imagery Desktop Wallpaper: UCSB graduate student Jeff Hemphill’s home page has a marvellous collection of satellite and Landsat images as desktop wallpaper. They’re all in 1280×1024 resolution — too bad for those of us with widescreen monitors. Via both Very Spatial and MetaFilter…. Read more →; 2
Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 10:18 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Hurricane Rita Update: Fantastic multidimensional satellite imagery of Hurricane Rita from NOAA; via Spatially Adjusted. Also, you can now track Hurricane Rita with Virtual Earth; via Scoble. On an organizational note, I’ve combined entries about Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita into a new Hurricanes 2005 category; links to the old Katrina category archives… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 8:28 AM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Tracking Hurricane Rita, Part Two: Directions has compiled a page of links to U.S. government maps related to Hurricane Rita; this will be updated as new information becomes available, they say. James Fee, in re ESRI helping various government agencies: “It seems that everyone has learned much about what happened after the devastation of Katrina… Read more →; 1
Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 7:27 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Oh No, Not Again: Tracking Hurricane Rita: There are several resources for keeping tabs on the next volley of tropical storms to hit the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. NOAA’s Storm Tracker page for Rita and Philippe has tracking maps and satellite photos. Google Earth users can download a live hurricane tracker that lists all… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 9:30 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google Imagery Updates: While I wait for the long-promised Mac version of Google Earth (hint), I note with interest that both Google Earth and Google Maps got their satellite imagery updated (Google Earth Blog, Google Maps Mania). But a separate enhancement is even more interesting: National Geographic layers for Google Earth that index… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 9:23 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Software
More Post-Katrina Maps and Photos: Glenn of GISuser.com has been collecting photos, maps and other graphics related to hurricanes — Katrina in particular, naturally — on his Flickr account. Late to the party, but Microsoft has put in a solid, if buggy effort with this Virtual Earth powered feature on MSNBC’s web site. Conceptually,… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 8:10 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
More Post-Katrina Maps: It’s been a few days since I last posted on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Here are a few more links. Apologies for letting them accumulate. ESRI’s Hurricane Katrina Disaster Viewer is, according to ESRI’s Lisa Kensok, who submitted this link, “designed to provide more detailed information than satellite imagery… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 at 8:58 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google Earth Privacy and Security Roundup: When the satellite-photo version of Google Maps came out earlier this year, there was some apprehension about the impact of these high-resolution photos on individual privacy. For example, some nervousness about being able to see the car in your driveway. I’m sensitive to privacy concerns, but for the most part… Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 at 10:34 AM
Categories: Censorship, Security & Privacy, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Mississippi Channel; New Orleans Flood Map: Over on GeoCarta, Roger goes beyond the latest satellite and aerial photography of New Orleans (which is what’s getting the lion’s share of attention); he looks at NOAA’s survey of the damage to the Mississippi River shipping channel and has posted a copy of FEMA’s flood map for New Orleans…. Read more →; 3
Posted on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 at 7:27 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google and Katrina: In addition to the Forbes article I mentioned yesterday, both the BBC and New York Times (free registration required) cover the use of Google Maps and Earth by ordinary users to collect and distribute information about the disaster — i.e., the “non-official” Google Earth overlays and Google Maps hacks (via… Read more →; Posted on Monday, September 5, 2005 at 11:50 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Hurricanes 2005, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Hurricane Katrina: Google Maps and Other Imagery: I’ve been getting e-mail from people asking about the state of various locations in and around New Orleans and other areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. I’m not the best person to answer such questions — I’m just someone from small-town western Quebec who runs a site about maps; I haven’t… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, September 4, 2005 at 9:38 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
More New Orleans Satellite Photos: Orbimage’s satellite photos of New Orleans post-Katrina, here and here, are in black and white; as a result, the detail is much sharper and the flooded parts of the city are much more visible, as the example above (courtesy Orbimage) shows. False-colour images can be more revealing than straight… Read more →; 2
Posted on Friday, September 2, 2005 at 1:26 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Hurricane Katrina Update: I’ve been reorganizing my categories a bit; my Hurricane Katrina entries now have their own category. More satellite imagery: Before and after satellite images from GlobalSecurity.org. Landsat’s before and after images seem to have more detail than the others. NASA has posted a new photo of the levee breach which… Read more →; Posted on Friday, September 2, 2005 at 10:29 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Hurricane Katrina: More Satellite Images: (Updated) More satellite imagery from the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina is being made available. Space Imaging’s Image Gallery has images of New Orleans before Katrina and Mobile, Alabama after Katrina (via Cartography). Digital Globe’s Hurricane Katrina Media Gallery has before/after images of New Orleans and post-hurricane images of Biloxi,… Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2005 at 7:05 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Hurricane Katrina: Before and After: (Updated) Susan Kitchens has compiled and sent along an animated image (680-KB animated GIF) that shows the New Orleans area before and after Hurricane Katrina passed through; per her suggestion, I’m hosting it on my server. See previous entries: Hurricane Katrina; Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath. Update, 10:30 PM: Boing Boing… Read more →; 3
Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 at 5:30 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google Earth Blog: Another new blog to bring to your attention: Frank Taylor’s solid and eponymous Google Earth Blog. Via Ogle Earth. Map blogging is coming on fast and furious; that’s the fifth new blog I’ve reported on this month, and I know there are more out there…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 at 3:44 PM
Categories: Blogs, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath: (Many updates) Watch Hurricane Katrina’s path via satellite imagery or radar; both are NOAA pages and both require Java. Via Paulo. Kathryn Cramer has been collecting aerial images of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, along with some screenshots from Google Earth. Speaking of which, over on Boing… Read more →; 5
Posted on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 at 10:18 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Weather & Climate
Satellite Images of European Natural Disasters: In other natural disaster news, Vector One has linked to ESA satellite imagery of the Portuguese wildfires and floods in Austria, Switzerland and Germany…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, August 29, 2005 at 10:26 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Hurricane Katrina: (Many updates) I’ve been looking for maps and satellite imagery of Hurricane Katrina. So far, I’ve found this page from the National Hurricane Center and this page (a popup) from the NOAA Storm Tracker site, which has many of the same maps but adds satellite images. More links welcome. Update,… Read more →; 15
Posted on Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 10:29 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Flash Earth: Flash Earth presents Google Maps and Virtual Earth satellite imagery through a Flash application. Why a Flash application, you may ask? The creator, Paul Neave, explains why: [T]he interface is much smoother to use. You get a sense of location because you can zoom in and out without the display… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 at 6:30 PM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Alabama Maps: Alabama Maps is a big collection of maps from the University of Alabama’s Cartographic Research Laboratory, in three main sections: contemporary maps, which features maps generated by the laboratory; historical maps, a collection of digitized images of old maps (not necessarily limited to Alabama, but from Alabama based collections); and… Read more →; 1
Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 at 8:00 AM
Categories: Antique Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Directions on MSN Virtual Earth: A week after the launch, Directions’s Adena Schutzberg takes a sober second look at MSN Virtual Earth, its features — including “Locate Me” and the Scratch Pad — and its (lack of) hacks. “While I tend to agree that for now MSN Virtual Earth is not ‘killer’ either as an… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, August 4, 2005 at 7:54 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Ogle Earth: I don’t know how I missed Ogle Earth, but now that I’ve found it I’m keeping an eye on it. Written by Stefan Geens, with a mandate is to focus on Google Earth and its competitors, Ogle Earth has been very active during its month-long existence. If you’re dead interested… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, August 4, 2005 at 7:31 PM
Categories: Blogs, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
More Satellite Landmarks: Best of World Maps: Another site collecting interesting satellite images from the online mapping services in the Google Globetrotting idiom: Best of World Maps, which provides links to landmarks through Google Maps, Google Earth, and NASA World Wind, which is a new twist. No Virtual Earth links for some reason. Via Plep…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, August 4, 2005 at 7:09 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Vintage Imagery from Virtual Earth: By now you’ve no doubt heard the one about MSN Virtual Earth “deleting” Apple’s headquarters. But it’s obviously not a case of Microsoft editing out its rivals; Microsoft is simply using very old imagery. For another example, the World Trade Center is still standing in Virtual Earth. The Manhattan imagery… Read more →; 4
Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 4:41 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
MSN Virtual Earth Launches: Scoble was dropping hints Saturday that the launch of MSN Virtual Earth (previous entry) was coming up. The official launch is, in fact, mere minutes away as I write this. But, thanks to some last-minute testing, Virtual Earth was live for about 15 hours this weekend. People noticed, media embargoes… Read more →; 2
Posted on Sunday, July 24, 2005 at 11:39 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Maps Hybrid Mode: Google Maps has introduced a so-called hybrid mode that overlays a street grid, names and route numbers on the satellite/aerial imagery. I have to confess that I’m awfully impressed by this; it really renders moot the question of switching between maps and photos, or creating a transparency between the two…. Read more →; 3
Posted on Friday, July 22, 2005 at 7:50 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Ordnance Survey Overlays on Multimap Aerial Photos: Nick writes on Here Be Dragons: “I was just playing with multimap.com’s aerial photograph feature, and noticed something I hadn’t seen mentioned on here before — Ordnance Survey map overlays applied dynamically on mouseover over the aerial photo.” Nick’s example. Google may get all the attention (here too, I have… Read more →; 1
Posted on Friday, July 15, 2005 at 11:07 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Roundup: I’m in the awkward position of having to write posts about Google Earth without so much as being able to download it — at least, not until their promised Mac version comes out. Until that hopefully-not-too-long-off day, I can only go by what other people say. For example, my dad… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, July 14, 2005 at 9:32 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Measuring Sunlight by Satellite: The European Space Agency’s ENVISOLAR project is mapping the amount of sunlight received around the globe. Solar radiation data is useful not only for solar energy generation, but also for agriculture, tourism, and even health care (rickets, skin cancer). Via WorldChanging…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, July 6, 2005 at 6:55 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Wired on Google Earth: Wired’s article on Google Earth examines a heretofore overlooked feature: “Google Earth’s true special sauce is the way it allows users to create markers for just about any venue or location, write a note describing it and then share it with the application’s entire user base.”… Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 at 9:08 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Downloads Halted: Google has halted downloads of Google Earth for now; it seems that their plan was to limit the number of users of the new, beta service. It’s something they’ve done before with betas — think Gmail — and is probably related to the capacity of their infrastructure. They say to… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 at 10:00 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Sprol: Sprol is a relatively new blog that uses satellite imagery to draw attention to the effects of environmental predation. Via MetaFilter…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 at 4:34 PM
Categories: Blogs, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth: Google Earth is out. Requires a fast Windows PC. Three subscription levels, the basic one free. More once I’ve had a chance to look through the site; post your take in the comments. Via Google Blog. See previous entries: Google Earth Preview; Google Factory Tour: Google Earth, Map API? Update:… Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 at 11:05 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
High-Resolution Google Satellite Maps for the Rest of the World: Pyramids, uploaded by Alison Biggs. Scavengeroogle and WorldChanging are among those who’ve discovered that Google Maps’s satellite imagery for the rest of the world just got a lot more detailed, with high-resolution images available for a number of cities and other locations outside North America. Which means a lot more… Read more →; 2
Posted on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 at 10:33 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Lewis and Clark: A Satellite View: The USGS uses satellite imagery to trace the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It’s good for showing the topography, but the subsequent development and cultivation, particularly east of the Rockies, shatters the illusion somewhat. Via Gadling…. Read more →; Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 8:14 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
One Planet, Many People: A new atlas announced Saturday by the UN, titled One Planet, Many People, shows the impact of the last 30 years of human development in a dramatic way, by showing before and after satellite photography of various locations. Sample images can be found here. News coverage from the BBC and… Read more →; 1
Posted on Monday, June 6, 2005 at 11:35 PM
Categories: Books, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Google Maps Wallpapers: Google Maps Wallpapers is another hack (see previous entry) allowing you to build wallpapers — think posters or desktop backgrounds — from Google Maps satellite images. Via MAKE: Blog…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Sunday, June 5, 2005 at 3:09 PM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Preview: Stephen DesRoches downloaded a beta of the upcoming Google Earth (see previous entry) the other day, and has a report and screenshots. Looks impressive. Update: See also Windypundit (via MAKE: Blog)…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 at 3:27 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Mixing GPS Data and Orthographic Images with Perl: Tony has written up a Perl script to take the data from his GPS watch and overlaid it on orthographic imagery from the USGS. These are ridiculously huge and detailed files, but the end result is an extremely precise map of his run. Via MAKE: Blog…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 at 11:12 AM
Categories: GPS, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
MSN Virtual Earth: Microsoft’s response to Google Maps comes in the form of MSN Virtual Earth, which was announced yesterday at the D: All Things Digital conference and will debut for real some time this summer. The key feature is the service’s “oblique” perspective — aerial photography from a 45-degree angle — which… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 11:47 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
World Wind for the Pocket PC: As, I guess, a challenge to himself, Casey Chestnut went and made a Pocket PC version of NASA World Wind (see previous entry), porting its basic functionality. Also via MAKE: Blog…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 at 11:29 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
Feel Small Project: Yet another riff on Google Maps on Flickr: the Feel Small Project, wherein participants take screenshots of their location on Google Maps satellite imagery at every zoom level, then build a slideshow that zooms from the tightest to the widest view. It’s like a DIY version of Powers of Ten…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, May 8, 2005 at 10:41 PM
Categories: Groups & Societies, Satellite & Aerial
More Sites About Google Maps: Since its launch a little less than three months ago, Google Maps has generated more buzz than any other mapping site since I’ve been paying attention to them. Adding satellite photos only made it worse. That buzz can be measured by the number of web sites that chronicle Google Maps,… Read more →; 2
Posted on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 at 11:15 PM
Categories: Blogs, Groups & Societies, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
The Beeb on Google Maps: Nothing you haven’t already seen before, but this BBC story briefly covers the recent excitement over the Google Maps satellite stuff, including Memory Maps (see previous entry) and Google Sightseeing (see previous entry)…. Read more →; Posted on Sunday, April 17, 2005 at 7:34 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Vatican Satellite Images: DigitalGlobe’s Vatican Gallery, including a satellite shot of St. Peter’s square on April 5 (1.5 MB JPEG, 2168×2164 resolution), showing mourners in line to view the Pope’s body. Via Jason…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2005 at 11:25 AM
Categories: Current Events, Rome, Satellite & Aerial
Reaping the World Wind: As I said in my brief entry about NASA World Wind last November, my lack of access to a Windows PC — at least one I can install big software packages on — prevented me from checking it out. Manuel de Freitas wrote me last week to say something about… Read more →; 1
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2005 at 2:54 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
A Google Maps Update: I’ve been saving up a bunch of Google Maps satellite imagery links for you over the weekend. Google Maps and Accountability: Dave Shea explores the possibilities of using Google Maps as a tool for whistleblowing rather than a threat to privacy, by posting images of clear-cut logging areas in central… Read more →; Posted on Monday, April 11, 2005 at 12:30 AM
Categories: Blogs, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
More on Google’s Satellite Images: Flickr users have gone nuts with posting screenshots of Google Maps’s new satellite photo feature (see previous entry), if the “map” and “maps” tags are any indication. There’s also a new Flickr group called Memory Maps, the idea of which “is to take a satellite image of your neighborhood from… Read more →; 3
Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 at 4:48 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Maps Adds Satellite Images: Google Maps has added satellite images to its service as of late Monday, and it’s done so in a really useful manner: one click toggles between maps and satellite photography. Try zooming in without your jaw hitting the floor. The photographs, which aren’t available in all resolutions for all areas,… Read more →; 4
Posted on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 at 1:23 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Dubai Aerial Photography: Aerial photography of Dubai, which is apparently in the midst of a beggar-the-imagination construction boom. Via Things Magazine; see MetaFilter (1, 2) for background…. Read more →; Posted on Monday, February 7, 2005 at 10:24 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Images and the Weather: A couple of links tonight; the tenuous connection is that they both have to do with the weather and satellite imagery. I’ve never heard of Software MacKiev before, but they appear to do educational software for the Mac. They’ve released a $40 program called 3D Weather Globe and Atlas, which… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 11:44 PM
Categories: Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial
Question: Long Island Aerial Map?: (Questions are coming in fast and furious here at The Map Room; I’m afraid I’ll have to be selective. This little experiment is working far better than I had expected.) Rocco Cammarota writes, “Can I get a map (aerial view) of the North Fork of Long Island to create a… Read more →; 2
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2005 at 9:44 AM
Categories: Questions, Satellite & Aerial
Tsunami Wave Height Images and Animation: More on the Indian Ocean tsunami. The NOAA has a page of images that show the height of the tsunami wave as it progressed (and expanded) over time, using data collected from radar satellites. There’s also an animation of the tsunami wave that shows it spreading across every ocean on… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 at 12:40 PM
Categories: Indian Ocean Tsunami, Satellite & Aerial
Before and After the Tsunami: Satellite Photos: A collection of satellite photos showing areas of Sri Lanka and Indonesia before and after they were devastated by the tsunami. The photos from the Banda Aceh region are particularly horrifying. Via Rebecca’s Pocket. Tsunami Relief…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, January 7, 2005 at 4:43 PM
Categories: Indian Ocean Tsunami, Satellite & Aerial
Keyhole and World Wind: Joel takes a look at a couple of software packages that do neat things with satellite imagery: Keyhole, which was taken over by Google a while back; and NASA World Wind. They’re Windows-only, so I can’t try them out — if you have, comment on this thread or drop me… Read more →; Posted on Monday, November 29, 2004 at 9:46 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
World Sunlight Map: The World Sunlight Map is a neat trick: it shows which parts of the Earth are currently in daylight and which are in darkness. It’s a simulation that begins with composite images of the Earth by day (sans clouds) and by night (with lights), and it adds clouds from current… Read more →; Posted on Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 9:30 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
More Satellite Imagery: A couple of satellite-imagery links from Plep; I don’t think I’ve seen these before. Satellite Images of Earth at Night, from the International Dark-Sky Association. Usually you see night maps of the entire planet (e.g. see previous entry: APOD: The Earth at Night); this time we get details of various… Read more →; Posted on Thursday, November 4, 2004 at 10:58 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Flipping Between Satellite Images and Maps: MultiMap uses JavaScript to toggle between maps and satellite images of a given locale. One of a part of London has been making the rounds of the blogosphere this week (see Boing Boing and MetaFilter)…. Read more →; Posted on Thursday, October 7, 2004 at 12:49 PM
Categories: London, Maps Online, Satellite & Aerial
SatBlog: SatBlog is a blog about satellite imagery; since its restart last August it’s been focusing mainly on the Middle East (especially Iraq) and on all those bloody hurricanes. A lot of news stories can be illuminated by satellite photography — I’m sure there will be something about Mt. St. Helens… Read more →; Posted on Monday, October 4, 2004 at 3:17 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
La terre vue du ciel: La terre vue du ciel is a collection of aerial photography. The photos are uncaptioned and unattributed: you pretty much have to guess what they are, where they’re from and from what altitude they were taken. Via Making Light…. Read more →; 2
Posted on Tuesday, September 28, 2004 at 8:37 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
APOD: The Earth at Night: Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was a composite photograph of the Earth at night, replete with all the lights you’d expect. High-resolution versions also available. Via Slashdot…. Read more →; 4
Posted on Monday, August 23, 2004 at 5:30 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
London Tube Map Satellite Image: For you Tube map freaks: R. Gardiner has taken a geographically accurate map of the London Underground and superimposed it on a satellite image of the city. Very effective. Via Here Be Dragons…. Read more →; 1
Posted on Thursday, August 12, 2004 at 11:01 AM
Categories: London, Mass Transit, Satellite & Aerial
Window Seat: If you’re into maps, then you’re also probably the sort of person who, when flying, asks for a window seat and does nothing but stare out the window for the duration of the trip. Though I frequently ask for an aisle seat for medical reasons, that’s me in a nutshell…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 at 9:12 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Ryongchong Explosion: Satellite images of Ryongchong, North Korea, before and after the explosion (via MetaFilter)…. Read more →; Posted on Friday, April 30, 2004 at 8:39 AM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Ikonos Satellite Image Galleries: Space Imaging presents what they call the top ten Ikonos satellite images for 2003 (via MetaFilter). And there’s some more neat stuff in their gallery (also via MetaFilter)…. Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, March 3, 2004 at 7:30 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Eurasian SRTM Data: SpaceDaily reports that NASA has released data covering Eurasia from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). [T]he new digital elevation data set showcases some of Earth’s most diverse, mysterious and extreme topography. Much of it previously had been very poorly mapped due to persistent cloud cover or inaccessible terrain. The… Read more →; Posted on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 at 8:12 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Bam After the Earthquake: This is a little dated now for breaking news; I was saving it during the downtime. But still relevant: one-metre-resolution satellite images of Bam, Iran, after the earthquake. Via Here Be Dragons…. Read more →; Posted on Saturday, January 17, 2004 at 8:53 PM
Categories: Current Events, Earthquakes, Satellite & Aerial

Note: Entries from 2003 were not categorized and will not appear in the category archives. Please consult the monthly archives.

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