New Google Earth Imagery

Google has just pushed out another update, and they’ve already pushed it completely out, as this imagery can already be found in Google Maps and in the official updated areas KML file. Thanks to GEB reader ‘Andreas’ for letting us know about it!

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The updated areas include:

  • Brazil: Many small patches across the country
  • Chile: Various areas
  • India: Mumbai
  • Iran: Various areas
  • Italy: Patches in the northern part of the country
  • Japan: Various northern areas
  • Namibia: Various areas
  • Pakistan: Central area
  • South Africa: Various areas
  • Sudan: Many areas in the southern part of the country
  • Switzerland: Large area just south of Bern
  • United States: Parts of California, Florida, Kentucky and Virginia
  • Zimbabwe: Various areas

A few other areas have been updated as well, but those are the main ones. To see all of the updates, simply load the updated areas KML file and check them out for yourself!

Travel inside of Art Galleries with Street View

Google has just unveiled the Google Art Project, which offers some amazing tools to help art lovers explore the venues and paintings that they enjoy.

One of the neatest new features is the “brushstroke-level detail“, which allow you to see some of the images in astoundingly high resolution; nearly 7 billion pixels, roughly 1,000 times higher quality than you can capture with a digital camera. For an example of one, check out “The Merchant Georg Gisze” and use the [+]/[-] controls in the upper left corner to zoom in and out.

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The other great new feature they’ve added is Street View imagery inside of many of the world’s most famous galleries. To view them from Google Maps, simply go to maps.google.com/museums and browse the list of museums on the left.

Even better is that you can view all of them from Google Earth, as long as you’re running Version 6. To enter a museum, simply grab the “Peg Man” from your controls in the upper-right corner and drag him onto one. You’ll see the blue Street View lines appear more “blob-like” over museums, as seen below:

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This kind of imagery is currently available for 17 galleries, including places such as the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (KML), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (KML), and the National Gallery in London (KML).

For more information, check out the post on the Official Google Blog, or simply head over to www.googleartproject.com.

New Google Earth Imagery – December 9

As pointed out by GEB readers ‘Jorge’ and ‘Ika’, Google has just pushed out some fresh new imagery!

nasca.jpg

As is usually the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn’t in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what’s new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they’re not identical, that means that you’ve found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

[UPDATED — 9-December, 12:57pm EST]

  • Georgia; Tbilisi — thanks ‘Ika’
  • Peru: Nasca — thanks ‘Jorge’
  • Switzerland: Various areas — thanks ‘Chris’
  • Thailand: Various areas — thanks ‘Andy’
  • United States: Alabama (Birmingham, Tuscaloosa), Arkansas (Little Rock), Illinois (Peoria), Missouri (St. Joseph) — thanks ‘Andreas’
  • Uruguay: — thanks ‘Enrique’ and ‘Sam’

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!