How Does Google Earth Get its Imagery?

Filed under: Google Earth

Over the years I’ve read countless complaints about imagery that’s years old in various locations on the Earth when viewed in Google Earth.  While Google Earth is always working to update its imagery, increase the resolution of images, I thought you might like to know how the whole procedure works

Google Earth acquires and licenses its satellite images from many different sources, including government organizations, directly from satellites, and from companies who sell their imagery to clients such as Google Earth.

When Google receives imagery, they have to edit it in the same way you would edit family photos before posting them, cutting off irrelevant bits, inspecting the quality of the photos, and then stitching them together with their already-existing imagery to create a “seamless” view of the globe.  Colors have to be matched, as they will change depending on the season, the weather and the time of day the photos were taken.

And all of that, apart from being tedious and time-consuming, is an ongoing process.  So what you see today will most certainly be better, clearer and even more fascinating next year.  Not to mention the new areas over coverage in Google Earth like Sky and Mars.  So stay tuned.

{tags]google earth, satellite imagery, satellite maps, google sky, google mars[/tags]

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