Satellite imagery

[Anders Troberg]

Every once in a while, a program comes by which makes you go "WOW!". This is one of these.

If you havn't tried it yet, download Google Earth. It is a free download at http://earth.google.com/, and it is just about the coolest map system I've seen yet, even though I've worked with GIS software for a decade.

It is a global map, mainly based on satellite imagery, but it has thematic data like roads and borders included, even street names. What makes is special, though, has nothing to do with this. It is the speed with which it works and the amazing resolution of the satellite images. In major cities, you can even see cars and people!

The download is a small package (11 MB), the satellite images are downloaded on the fly in the background, blazingly fast. The images are also fairly up to date, I noticed road constructions that were made less than two years ago. And this amazing package is free!

I spent hours of nostalgia looking at the places I remember from my time in Jordan and other places I've visited. The quality is good enough to remember even small things like small shops and cafés.

Some of interesting places (just add the coords in the search box):

60°30'20.51"N 15°25'6.69"E (my house)
31°57'19.26"N 35°51'43.59"E (my flat in Jordan)
31°57'11.45"N 35°50'49.98"E (my office at the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Jordan)
31°57'6.12"N 35°56'21.58"E (the Roman theatre in Amman)
33°18'16.62"N 44°24'33.08"E (the palace of Saddam Hussein)
38°53'51.44"N 77° 2'11.45"W (the palace of W Bush)
37°58'17.45"N 23°43'35.60"E (Parthenon)
37°58'5.44"N 23°44'26.19"E (I've ran here, but you were not allowed to BBQ hotdogs in the fire...)
29°42'58.50"N 35°17'43.81"E (here I got stopped by the desert police because they wanted to offer me tea, I can't even imagine where else that would happen)
29°32'11.55"N 35°25'7.15"E (here I wandered through the desert in July wearing black jeans and black leather jacket)

Oh, I forgot, you can also tilt the view to get a perspective where you see the height differences. Try that on the coords in Amman, Jordan, it is a very steep city.

[steve]

I discovered it about a year ago- it really is a great little program!

[Hank]

Hello- Yes, Google Earth is worth the download effort. I've had it for about a week now. The only complaint I have is some lack of continuity in adjoining images and contrast.
Interesting to note that the holes made by some of the shells fired at me are still there.

Regards, Hank

[Dang911]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/14 ... n_results/

~`~`~`~`~`ENJOY`~`~`~`~`~