For my contribution to "RANT DAY" - Google Earth Imagery still grossly out of date
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
A plotline on one of the US cop shows (it may have been CSI) showed a felon using Google Earth (or some generically named impostor) to check houses to see if they were occupied before burgling them! Now that is up to date info!
==================================== Transvestites - Roberts in Disguise! ====================================
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
If they are *too* up to date there could well be privacy issues... and even out of date as it is, there are some countries complainign about national security - nothing but whinging of course, but if the images were current it'd be harder to argure against them...
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Hey, 1991 car! The Mark 2 you know, I sold it and bought an XJS, but the wife hated that, "it's too big" she would cry, so I bought her a Peugeot 206 cc, just to stop the whinging!
------------------------------------ "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion" Arthur C Clarke
Heh heh... 90's MR2, the poor man's F355. Actually, the "relatively-well-off-but-still-not-astronomically-wealthy" man's F355... Actually those 206s were a good giggle as well. Dammit I miss the Hot Hatch days...
Smokie, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. www.geticeberg.com
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
I can tell you the last time I looked at my house (Pittsburgh PA) on satellite view the image was at minimum 10 months old. I know that because 2 summers ago we had some landscaping done and I could see from the pictures that the grass had all been dug up.
John
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
Every time I've dated an image on google earth it's been at least a year old. I suspect it's because they can buy older imagery for a small fraction of what the photo recon companies charge for their most up to date versions (assuming they were willing to sell to someone who'd just give it away in the 1st place).
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
Actually, Google has to buy all that imagery for the entire globe. Not exactly cheap, even if you do it once. It may take them 5 years to come around again. Our city was using the same imagery for 8 years, then they started doing it every 2. It can only be done on clear days, when the leaves are off the trees, and they try to get the same time each day. Each area has multiple passes at different angles so they can see the buildings from all sides (and the buildings block the streets at some angles). After that process, the images have to be georeferenced to the maps. It could be months. I'm sure if a government called Google up and asked when the next update would be they'd get a polite answer. :rolleyes:
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
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Yeah I know more important stuff happened today - but I felt like getting into the swing of things today on the Lounge. I live in Honiara, Solomon Islands There are no such things as reliable street maps, unless you have friends in the Lands department and don't mind getting a dump of 3Tb of data and figuring it out for yourself. So everyone uses Google Earth for doing up maps. Just one problem, the imagery is soooooo out-of-date that vital stuff like new buildings that have been there for a few years, new roads, etc. just don't show up. I will have to admit that for Honiara the imagery is now only a bit over a year out of date, instead of around 4 years out of date, but it still rankles when 9deg24min48sec S and 160deg01min07sec E still shows a swamp masquerading as a field when it should show three rather large warehouses. It seems that Google don't give a s**t unless there's advertising money to be made out of it, which in a least developed country like the Solomons there ain't.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
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Actually, Google has to buy all that imagery for the entire globe. Not exactly cheap, even if you do it once. It may take them 5 years to come around again. Our city was using the same imagery for 8 years, then they started doing it every 2. It can only be done on clear days, when the leaves are off the trees, and they try to get the same time each day. Each area has multiple passes at different angles so they can see the buildings from all sides (and the buildings block the streets at some angles). After that process, the images have to be georeferenced to the maps. It could be months. I'm sure if a government called Google up and asked when the next update would be they'd get a polite answer. :rolleyes:
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
Richard Jones wrote:
It can only be done on clear days, when the leaves are off the trees, and they try to get the same time each day.
If you have a look at a lot of our imagery you can see more than a few clouds, and of course we're in the tropics so there's always leaves on the trees (those that haven't been cut down). What I have noticed is that some of the imagery has copyright dates from last year, but the image is plainly from around 4 years ago - why the mislabelling?
Richard Jones wrote:
I'm sure if a government called Google up and asked when the next update would be they'd get a polite answer.
Been there - There was a massive earthquake and Tsunami in the Western Solomons in April 2 2007. I was on four days later helping out. Part of what I did was helping the local disaster management office and the UN disaster guys get up and running. We were using Google Earth for some of the higher resolution imagery than what was on the maps that we had. Only problem is that some of the imagery was just too far out of date even to use in such a crisis - the maps (drawn from 80s data) were still more useful. I made a formal request on behalf of the provincial government for Google to update whatever imagery they could to help the disaster relief effort - no response whatsoever - so much for their "social awareness" campaigns, when it really mattered they just couldn't be bothered. As at this time there are still people in the Western Province living in tents. Gizo township has had some imagery updated. But Ranongga, a large island uplifted so much that its coastline expanded by 50-75m all around still hasn't had any update to its relatively low res imagery.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
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Lee Humphries wrote:
the imagery is soooooo out-of-date
Recruit a group of terrorists to train on the island. That should get you faster updates.
Member 4723455 wrote:
Recruit a group of terrorists to train on the island.
They're already here - and no I'm not kidding - still doesn't help.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
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Richard Jones wrote:
It can only be done on clear days, when the leaves are off the trees, and they try to get the same time each day.
If you have a look at a lot of our imagery you can see more than a few clouds, and of course we're in the tropics so there's always leaves on the trees (those that haven't been cut down). What I have noticed is that some of the imagery has copyright dates from last year, but the image is plainly from around 4 years ago - why the mislabelling?
Richard Jones wrote:
I'm sure if a government called Google up and asked when the next update would be they'd get a polite answer.
Been there - There was a massive earthquake and Tsunami in the Western Solomons in April 2 2007. I was on four days later helping out. Part of what I did was helping the local disaster management office and the UN disaster guys get up and running. We were using Google Earth for some of the higher resolution imagery than what was on the maps that we had. Only problem is that some of the imagery was just too far out of date even to use in such a crisis - the maps (drawn from 80s data) were still more useful. I made a formal request on behalf of the provincial government for Google to update whatever imagery they could to help the disaster relief effort - no response whatsoever - so much for their "social awareness" campaigns, when it really mattered they just couldn't be bothered. As at this time there are still people in the Western Province living in tents. Gizo township has had some imagery updated. But Ranongga, a large island uplifted so much that its coastline expanded by 50-75m all around still hasn't had any update to its relatively low res imagery.
I just love Koalas - they go great with Bacon.
Lee Humphries wrote:
What I have noticed is that some of the imagery has copyright dates from last year, but the image is plainly from around 4 years ago - why the mislabelling?
That doesn't make sense, unless they changed something that isn't visible.
Lee Humphries wrote:
I made a formal request on behalf of the provincial government for Google to update whatever imagery they could to help the disaster relief effort - no response whatsoever
Sad they couldn't even be bothered responding with a form letter saying they couldn't do anything right now. How recent is the New Orleans imagery? After the Katrina flood GE was used on CNN constantly.
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon