Over the course of 2016, Google Earth received about 90,000 square kilometres of new 3D imagery (about the area of Portugal). This represents a significant slowdown in new area covered:
New area of 3D imagery by year in square kilometres.
New area of 3D imagery by month in square kilometres.
However, a lot of previously existing areas received updates, either with freshly captured imagery or reprocessed imagery, but such updates are impossible to track in terms of area.
Three new countries received imagery this year, Tunisia, Malaysia, and most recently Slovenia.
As always, a big thank you to all the GEB readers who contribute to our KML map of 3D areas
by alerting us to new areas and/or drawing outlines. If you submit outlines please be sure to follow the guidelines.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
I’ve noticed a couple of recent updates in the Great Lakes region recently that aren’t in your KML map: Fort Huron, Michigan-Sarnia, Ontario and South Bend, Indiana.
Still progress in Australia is agonizingly slow. They haven’t even touched Sydney (probably the country’s most internationally renown city and the largest – basically Australia’s New York) and of the 8 states and territories, two still have nothing at all. It’s been over two years since they disabled the adding of user-made buildings and still my city, Launceston, (and entire state for that matter) has no 3D imagery so it’s just sitting in limbo with a feature disabled for a reason that still hasn’t taken effect… VERY annoying.
I think it is alarming for who, like us, love GE. In fact, it seems that Google does not follow the project with the same goodwill than just a year ago. They have closed the forum and the blog is became a G-maps blog. Earthquakes are not updated anymore and also the weather updating has problems. Panoramio, and the possibility to upload geotagged pictures is closed. Are they thinking to definitively shut down GE?
Hi Timothy,
since I found out about it by sheer luck, by trying to zoom-out from (ordinary) Street View, and tilted 3D imagery appeared, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I’d like to ask if you happen to know exactly when did – was it December 2016 – Slovenia receive the amazing imagery? I always wanted to fly over the buildings and over the river in my hometown, the capital city of Slovenia. Here’ my fly-over-the-buildings-of-Ljubljana video here and quoted your blog. Oh, I like the photo of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre%C5%A1eren_Square you shared above.
I forgot the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZg4Yb0kgw8
New 3D imagery has been added in Ontario recently. There are areas in Ontario missing from your KML map. Missing areas include King Township ON, Aurora ON, Newmarket ON, Milton ON, Oakville ON and Burlington ON in the Toronto area. New 3D imagery in the Sarnia ON and Pot Huron MI area is also missing. New 3D imagery in LaSalle ON and Amherstburg ON near Detroit MI is missing from the KML map too.
3D Imagery has expanded into the Orléans area of Ottawa ON and across the border around Gatineau QC. The expansions in the Ottawa/Gatineau area and Kingston ON are missing from the map too.
I noticed that your KML is missing the cities of Kiel and Flensburg, in Germany, which are seperate. It is also missing huge amounts of the New Jersey’s Jersey Shore, as well as previously noted areas in Newmarket and King, Ontario.