# Google Earth



## Timber (Nov 16, 2006)

Any one pay for the premium service, is it woth it?


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## Road Guy (Nov 16, 2006)

timber what happened to your other thread? I was going to crunch some #'s??


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## EdinNO (Nov 16, 2006)

Don't know much about it. My brother in Florida used it as a platform to send us maps of his sea kayaking escapades. I couldn't load it onto my laptop. But its an old laptop on its last leg.

Ed


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 17, 2006)

I've got the free download at work. Just use it to play though, nothing practical.


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## Road Guy (Nov 17, 2006)

pi mole: anyone find Area 51 yet?


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## DVINNY (Nov 17, 2006)

> pi mole: anyone find Area 51 yet?


uh, how do you think the Grand Canyon got there? Someone told the Aliens that is where we keep all of the GOOMBAASHEES. :true:

If a river can cut a hole like that, then why aren't all of our river beds that deep?

I think the river came second. Once you have a hole that big, water is going to drain to the bottom of it, and MAY even make a river. DOOOOHHH.


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## Road Guy (Nov 17, 2006)

I was under the impression the sat imagery on google earth is several years old? When I pull up my house it doesnt have anything but the nice farm that used to be there...


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## Road Guy (Nov 17, 2006)

well google is pretty liberal so maybe by putting up to date images on there server for Iraq they are true communists as well..

some of the shipping ports and big cities are pretty cool to look at though..

Also Santa's workshop is pretty sweet as well...


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## MetroRAFB (Nov 17, 2006)

I was wondering if the "pay for" version would have better images than the free version. I tried it to get some pics of some hunting property in the middle of nowhere and it's pretty good, but at maximum magnification you can't tell what the hell you're looking at. It's OK for "big picture" views of 500 acres or so, but zoom in much tighter than that and it's pretty grainy. (at least where I was looking)


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## Road Guy (Nov 17, 2006)

I think the pay version really only gives you a license to actually use the images, and you can buy a square so that it will be "to scale" but I dont think the quality is going to be better, it seams they only have a useable quality in urban areas.


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## MetroRAFB (Nov 17, 2006)

Yeah, that would make sense. On the free version, if you print out images they print with a big-ass watermark over the whole thing.


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## GeigerBC (Nov 17, 2006)

All versions of GE use the same Sat images.


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## Dleg (Nov 19, 2006)

The age of the sat imagery must be different for different areas. The Mariana islands weren't available on google earth until last year, and the imagery was taken in early 2005. (I can see my truck!)


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## GeigerBC (Nov 20, 2006)

That's correct. The ages of the sat photos will be different in different areas, but they are fairly constantly being updated in bits and chunks.


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## MA_PE (Nov 20, 2006)

It is my belief that Google Earth uses the available Geographical

information Survey GIS images for each given area. It is pretty impresive how they have the images merged to a fairly continous landscape. Here in MA there is a GIS site supported by the State, that you can go and download images from. Google uses the exact same images. Therefore, images are only as recent as the last government sponsored GIS survey. Urban areas are updated amd logged more frequent than rural areas, I suspect to monitor urban spread.

Has anyone tried the real estate site http://www.zillow.com ?

It appears Zillow has commissioned thier own aerial survey and if you are in a "hot" area they provide aerials of property from all sides. This data is cross-referenced with assessor/sales data for the area and house details and values are superimposed ontop of the images. Not bad for free, but take the vaules with a grain of salt and confirm things on your own.


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## TouchDown (Nov 20, 2006)

I have looked up different cities and stuff, too... I looked up my brother's house in the Rockies, and he's about at 8500 ft above sea level. I just assumed that because you could barely make out roads that it was because of the lack of being able to change the focus at that elevation, but maybe it's like you guys said and they just don't get great pics of rural areas.

PS - his house he said is at 8500, but on the GE site, it says it's aroudn 12500... so elevations may not be the best reference.


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