New Google Earth Imagery – April 19

Just in time for Where 2.0, Google has pushed out some fresh imagery! Thanks to GEB reader ‘Munden’ for pointing it out. I’m not able to dig into it too much right now while I’m at the conference, so the extent of it is unknown. Dig in and see what you can find.

japan.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 – 19-April, 9:54pm EST]

  • Germany: Various areas — thanks ‘sladys’
  • Japan: Ishinomaki — thanks ‘Munden’
  • United States: Arizona (Phoenix, Tucson), Kansas (Wichita), Massachusetts (Cape Cod), New Mexico (Albuquerque) and Texas (Amarillo, Austin) — thanks ‘ChrisK’, ‘ChrisZ’, ‘GT’ and ‘Jonahrf’

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

New Google Earth Imagery – April 5

It’s been just a few days since the last (minor) update, but it appears that Google has just loaded some more fresh imagery into Google Earth. Thanks to GEB reader ‘ChrisZ’ for spotting it first!

UPDATE: The updated areas KML file is out, and this seems to have been a pretty substantial update. View the file to see it all.

romania.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 – 5-April, 3:23pm EST]

  • Canada: Quebec (Lac-Simon) — thanks ‘patrice’
  • China: Beijing and Guangzhou — thanks ‘Cristobal’ and ‘LiuX’
  • New Zealand: Christchurch (new historical imagery)
  • Romania: Constanta — thanks ‘ChrisZ’
  • United States: Georgia (Columbus)

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

Google adds higher-resolution, post-earthquake Japanese imagery

In the past few weeks, Google has added a ton of new data and information related to the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan. Much of that information is summarized here for you.

However, all of that has come in the form of add-ons to Google Earth, such as image overlays. In an effort to post data quickly, that is their best option. However, Google has now made their first major update to the base layer imagery with some brand new imagery from the area around Sendai:

sendai.jpg

The imagery was collected this past Sunday and Monday, so it was very quick work for them to get it posted already! You can visit Sendai to see it for yourself by flying there using this KML file.

Google is planning to publish more fresh imagery in the near future, and you can read more about that over on their Lat Long Blog.