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Saturday, May 01, 2021

Google Earth Becomes a (Selective) Time Machine

Quite an interesting development.    Look forward to testing it soon.   Always have been a fan of Google Earth and how it has changed geography.    But do understand the data you are seeing over time and location is selectively chosen by Google.  By what criterion I do not know.  Most likely is cost, availability, needs ...   This selectivity occurs even in non-time lapse Google data.   Data from big cities is gathered in much more detail than that from out in the country.   Some of our own tests showed this.  Why?  Because more people want the detailed city data.  The specific availability will vary over time based on new sources.  But the statistics of your data may be insufficient for hoped for conclusions.  Not criticizing, just pointing  this out.   - FAD 

Google puts 20 petabytes of historical satellite data into the Google Earth globe.   By Ron Amadeo  in ArsTechnica

Google has pushed out what it says is Google Earth's "biggest update since 2017" with a new 3D time-lapse feature. Entering the new "Timelapse" mode of Google Earth will let you fly around the virtual globe with a time slider, showing you satellite imagery from the past 37 years. Google Earth Timelapse has been around for years as part of Google Earth Engine (which is a totally separate interface from Google Earth; it's a weird Google branding thing), but it was previously only available in 2D. Now, Google has mapped all this data across the 3D Google Earth globe, where you can watch cities being built, forests being cut down, and glaciers receding.

Google Earth Timelapse isn't just a huge amount of data; properly mapping it across the globe means correcting the images for artifacts and problems. The company had to get clouds out of the way, correct images for perspective, and ensure seamless transitioning through zoom levels. Luckily, Google happens to have some really big computers to handle the load.  ... " 

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