I’ve started getting reports of new imagery available in Google Earth today! The update is occurring as I write this because not everyone is seeing the new images yet, but it will probably be fully deployed within a few hours. Here are a few places I’ve confirmed (I will update this list as people tell me about other places – leave comments below please):
[UPDATED 1130, 1143, 1150, 1410, 2220 EDT – Thanks to all the input from GEB readers around the world!]
[UPDATED July 15: Wow, looks like GEB readers got it right. Check out the official details on this imagery update from Google (a pretty close match to our list – actually, ours is a little more informative).]
- Catalonia/Spain – My story about 3D Roses is a popular story right now, and that’s where people first started reporting the new imagery. The entire Catalonia area has new imagery mostly dated September 2006 by the Institut Cartográfic de Catalunya. Also, Murcia, Zaragoza, Toledo, Granada, Cuenca and Cáceres (see comment below). Also, Valencia. Also: Lleida, Tarragona, Barcelona
- Portugal – Looks like areas in Portugal have new imagery.
- Czech Republic – entire country has Spot Image (medium resolution 2.5 meter)
- Slovakia – entire country with Spot Image
- Hungary – entire country with Spot Image
- Croatia – Notheastern part
- Australia – All of western Australia has Spot Image as well! Also, some new low resolution imagery for the Great Barrier Reef area off North Eastern Australia (see dark colored imagery). Adelaide, Brisbane, Tasmania
- USA – Looks like all of New Mexico has high resolution now. Credits to NMR GIS dated July 2005.
- Mexico – Central Mexico has Spot Image imagery
- Italy – Rome, Naples
- Venezuela – Maracaibo (Thanks Gerardo!)
- Germany – center of Munich
- Canada – Quebec, Southern Ottawa
- California – Areas around San Francisco, San Diego, Benicia, Solano County, Monterey, Palo Alto, Los Angeles (unconfirmed)
- England – Bristol, Worcester, Evesham
- Cote d’lvoire – Bouaké
You can confirm whether the imagery is new by clicking on the “View in Google Maps” icon in GE – the imagery in Google Maps isn’t showing the new data yet. If you find new areas not in my list above, please leave a comment and I’ll update the list.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
There is also new high-resolution imagery in Murcia, Zaragoza, Toledo, Granada, Cuenca and Cáceres (Spain)
More things: most imagery for Catalonia is not new, it has just been re-coloured. However, imagery for Lleida, Tarragona, Barcelona and some Catalan coastline is in fact new and hi-res
Rome and Napoli has been updated too
Greater San Diego and areas around San Fransisco, but not the city itself
Just a report on what I found 😉
Australia: Adelaide and Brisbane 🙂
Canada: Quebec
Those Spot Images also covered the area in southern Poland where I live 😀 I mean many counties in southern Silesian voivodeship, in the middle of Katowice – Kraków – Ostrava triangle, quite densely populated.
Looks like some of the border areas of Poland have also been updated.
Germany: center of Munich
center of Munich
– Benicia, CA. (stealth ship Sea Shadow 38° 4’9.96″N 122° 6’4.61″W)
– Solano County, CA. (Boeing E-6 “Mercury” at Travis AFB 38°15’34.12″N 121°55’25.34″W)
Bristol, (England) has been updated! 🙂
It appears the sattelite image of southern Ottawa (Canada) has been re-colored. It is the exact same image but it looks like it was taken at a different time of the day.
I wonder why Google would change the color of a sattelite image instead of update it: In google maps it is a dark green/blue color, where as in Earth it is now a bright pinkish tint.
Odd.
CROATIA – northeastern part
1 new tile for Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire (West Africa)
Austria: Spot image near Czech Republik, Slovakia and Hungary. Quite a big area in Lower Austria and in Styria.
monterey , CA
palo alto, CA
los angeles, CA
A part of Croatia has also been updated (Drvenik, Podaca, Gradac, Ravca, Trpanj, Oskorusno, Donja Vrucica etc.)
I never expect much from Google. As far as I can see, there has been no update for Victoria, Australia. It is still good to see new SPOT imagery added, especially to the Northern Territory (having a bright yellow spot in the middle of Australia was the first thing I noticed when i started up GE). Good to see Adelaide and Brisbane also receive high resolution imagery. Adelaide’s is less than 5 months old! and the surrounding area standard resolution is only 6 months old! 5 capitals down, Perth, Hobart and Canberra to go.
great stuff!
BTW, we made pretty much all the Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese high-res stuff for G.
G also has the entire Netherlands and some Belgian data from us.
More to come 😉
Cheers,
Ezra
http://www.aerodata-surveys.com
Western Romania has also been updated quite a bit…and the images are fairly recent because you can see the construction site from the Transylvania Motorway
In the UK it is good to see at least two more areas with excellent coverage flown in April 2007, when conditions for photohaphy were exceptional – you can spot the extensive new rectangle between Malvern and Stratford on Avon, including the city of Worcester, by the yellow of the many fields of flowering oilseed rape.
But not for the first time on this blog – why nothing in Scotland, not even any decent new coverage, let alone updates?
With about 5% good high resolution plus 5% poorer, the rest only basic, and a good part of that under cloud, Scotland is bottom of the GE European league along with Norway.
Braga in Portugal as a brand new imagery. The date is June 26, 2007. Before the imagery was from 21 March 2004.
There is a small problem with the new imagery: The 3D buildings, panoramio dots and wikipedia (I think Everything) are not in place, but some meters to west.
This in Braga, Portugal, Do you know about the other places?
Austin and Travis County, TX are sadly still outdated (March 2003). Nearby San Marcos is even older (Feb. 2002), but what really disappoints me is that the label for Austin Bergstrom International Airport is *STILL* incorrectly pointing to the long-defunct Robert Mueller Airport. Even using the March 2003 date for the imagery, Robert Mueller Airport had been closed for nearly 5 years. Oh, well; I only have the free version so I shouldn’t complain too much. Otherwise, I’m very pleased with GE.
that footage was updated shortly before the football euro cup 2008, austria, tirol.
footage is supplied by the state run GIS office, if you check innsbruck, austria, the info shows “Geoimage Austria” as the source and copyright holder, i think it’s the whole state of tirol that was updated, at least where that state office has shot aerial footage. date of the footage is 2006/2007.
there’s a new funicular station in innsbruck, called hungerbahn, and the new tracks are not on the new footage. on the old footage construction for that funicular was included, now it’s gone… but overall it’s better to have the new high resolution aerial footage!
probably all the cities in austria have gotten that treatment where there’s aerial coverage by Geoimage Austria…!!!
since it’s very high resolution data austria is now one of the high rez countries;-)
“Scotland is bottom of the GE European league along with Norway.” Add Ireland to that too!
The border between eastern United States and Québec has been corrected with the true coordinates from the International Boundary Commission (http://www.internationalboundarycommission.org).
What is happening to ‘my’ Google Earth? After about 30 seconds, the whole earth turns blue! All the movements are a series of jerks and jumps. NOTHING is working right. Anyone have any solutions? This all started with the new 4.3 version.
One important thing:
Kosovo borders are now displayed as first level (independent country) borders. Yellow in general zoom, orange/red (disputed area) in closed zoom.
Google Lat Long blog published the usual quiz today.
Most (8/9) answers are here:
http://delpieroge.blogspot.com/2008/07/120708-imagery-update-confirmed.html
Reply to Ronald Money: “What is happening to ‘my’ Google Earth?”
Uncheck feature under Layers>Gallery>NASA>Earth City Lights. This option seems to flood out most other details in self-preference, though it is an interesting display at a more global view.
Parts of Zanzibar were updated 🙂
Is it possible to update the Budapest Airport (Hungary) area? I live in the neighboring city of the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport (Vecsés, which is 2-3 kms from the Airport) and the satelite image is at least 5 years old. There were plenty developments, huge constructions even major roads have been changed, but the image remains very old. Unfortunately the announced upgrade in Hungarian images is not comprehensive.
Where can we find the date of the latest sat image?
Baja Hungary 🙂
“add Ireland to that list”
BIG TIME
Still no updates for us, theres scattered parts of sat imagery in farm lands, dublin one of the richest capitals in europe stops just outside lucan, the M50 roundabout at the palmerstown exit is nearly 3 years old cause the old roundabout is still there, its not like were a huge country, theres full states in america done and we have nothing,
with technology these days, it must be really hard to take a few pics of the whole country, oh and don’t blame our weather!
mite check back in a few months to see if were updated, for now il stick to VE since i can even see my house in birds eye, yet nothing in google earth
you guys complain about old or low rez footage?
heidelberg, germany, (my hometown) footage is 8 years old! try to beat that!!!
Ezra: please do a flyover over heidelberg, germany! i would be very thankful;-)
“I’ll stick to VE [for Dublin and Ireland]”
Not sure that VE offers any significant improvement in coverage and updates in Ireland, as in Scotland.
It would be really interesting to have some informed advice on what is holding up improvement in these two countries. It may be the prevalence of cloud, as the patches of hig res are often photographed in poor conditions – Dublin in VE has very long shadows – grabbing just about any clear weather.
Is Oklahoma out of the question as far as having descent imagery is concerned?
When the HELL is someone going to update Metro Vancouver?!!! The images are at least 4 years old. Come on people! There were more recent layers back in Dec 07.
VANCOUVER IS AN OLYMPIC CITY AND MANY CHANGES ARE OCCURING THERE THERE.
DOES SOMEONE HAVE SOMETHING AGAINST CANADIANS?
I was very happy with google earth until an update several months ago. Now Google earth is so pathetically slow I will delete it unless you have suggestions how i can speed it up.
please,update satelite images for bucharest and if you can please at a higther resolution:D
I look up info for NC and Fl, but the data is well past 6 years old. The unimproved streets shown on the map I looked at today are now paved with house build? Also, can I get a live version of Google Earth? Watch traffic movie etc? Like some of the viewcams that update every 30 seconds or so? Is this available?
Hebei and Beijing provinces in China including the Great Wall of China
Looking for updates in Aiken,S.C.and how do I update it
Sure would be nice to get some updates around pensacola florida
I’m actually seeing some gross degradation of quality specifically around my area of massachusetts, USA. When I compare the old (google maps) to the new (google earth) it’s shocking how poor the new images look. No detail, contrast all blown out. What the heck happened? I was just starting to get into geocaching and using the decent quality pics my area afforded. This is useless now.
This is the MOST fascinated program i have ever
worked with. I am amazed about your technology.
Mary Esther Florida and fromwhat i can tell every thing else in the U.S is dated 2005
I m a big fan of goggle earth and visit it frequantly but i have found that so many areas are not upgraded since a long time like i visited Murre, Punjab pakistan it is very old and so many new develpments in that area is not in goggle earth will u kindly upgrade that area?
I have the updated version of Google Earth but,
go to certain places in other states were I used to live and,am getting old Images from as far back as June 2004. Could this be updated for us?
I appreciate it.
Thanks,
Kimberly Curnutt
When & How does one get up-dates to Google Earth?
please give the picture of country INDIA of year 2009
Myself based at Aurangabad (M.S.) India, when the map will be updated as on date i can see the imag dated Mar 26, 2007 it is too old.
South Africa and Hampshire, London UK
Hi there,
Much of the east coast of Australia, especially new south wales, is very old and low definition. Some highway improvements made ten years ago not yet shown. Dissapointed.
Cheers, Lin.
Been great for us, the high res of Adelaide