historical imagery

The history of aerial photography

August 25, 2014

With the successful launch of the imaging satellite WorldView-3 by DigitalGlobe recently, featuring the latest technology in satellite imaging, it is a good time to take a look at where it all started.

The very first aerial photograph was taken from balloon by the French photographer and balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, in 1858 over Paris, France. However, the photographs he produced no longer exist and therefore the earliest surviving aerial photograph is titled ‘Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It’ and was taken by James Wallace Black in 1860, also from a balloon.

Kite aerial photography was pioneered by British meteorologist E.D. Archibald in 1882.
The most interesting method of aerial photography is pigeon photography, a technique invented in 1907.

By World War I aerial imagery taken from aircraft was being used for reconnaissance and the technology matured rapidly as a result.

The first images from space were taken in 1946 from a suborbital U.S.-launched V-2 rocket.
In 1972 the United States started the Landsat program, the largest program for acquisition of imagery of Earth from space.

Historical imagery was introduced to Google Earth with version 5 in 2009.

The oldest imagery that can currently be found in Google Earth is from 1930, near Toronto, Canada. To view it in Google Earth you need to turn on “Historical Imagery” pan to the region around Toronto, Canada, then move the slider all the way to the left and the imagery will show up as black and white areas, or simply download this KML file. There is also quite a lot of historical imagery from the Second World War in parts of Europe, with significant portions of the UK having imagery from 1945 or earlier.

It is important to note that although satellite imaging has many advantages, for the highest resolution aerial imagery, airplanes are still used today and most of the high resolution imagery in Google Earth was captured from aircraft.

Abandoned theme parks in Google Earth

May 29, 2014

Last year we showed you a collection of the best roller coasters in Google Earth, highlighting some amazing parks around the world. A recent article in the Huffington Post takes it the other direction and highlights seven abandoned parks that can be found in Google Earth.

A great example is Six Flags, New Orleans, shown here:

From the article:

This theme park was closed just before Hurricane Katrina struck the region in 2005. It was heavily damaged in the storm and has been essentially abandoned ever since. Numerous attempts to rebuild it have fallen flat and the only salvageable ride (a Batman attraction) was moved to San Antonio. It has since become a film set and remains there today, crumbling into the dirt.

Using Google Earth’s historical imagery tool, you can go back in time to view some of the parks in their early days. For more, check out the full story on the Huffington Post.

How to become a Google Imagery Partner

April 23, 2014

We get emails from time to time from users that would like to submit their own imagery to Google Earth. As Frank mentioned a few weeks ago, Google has a program called the “Imagery Partner Program” to help communities who want to submit their own aerial (or satellite) imagery of their community to Google for inclusion in the maps.

You can use this program to send in your own imagery (whether pre-existing, or have new imagery taken) and submit it through this program. In addition, you can submit older imagery and it will be added to the historical imagery layer, so submitting multiple instances over time is encouraged.

To get started, read the details on Google’s Imagery Partner Program page. If you submit noteworthy imagery that ends up in Google Earth, contact us and let us know about it, and perhaps we can feature it in a future post.

Mashable’s “Google Earth Tips for Power Users”

June 24, 2013

Mashable recently posted an article titled “10 Google Earth Tips for Power Users” that gained quite a bit of attention. If you read our site very often you’re likely already familiar with the tips, but it’s a good refresher nonetheless.

1 – Travel Through Time
The historical imagery tool is indeed one of my favorite features in Google Earth.

2 – Measure Long Distances
The ruler can certainly be quite useful. Among other things, I use when trying to find new routes to run so I can get a rough estimate of the distance before I head out.

3 – Use Layers
The many layers in Google Earth are what make it so useful, and I encourage you to dig into them if you never have before.

4 – Take or Create Guided Tours
One of the best ways to tell us a story with Google Earth is by using tours, such as this awesome one from Colin Hazelhurst.

5 – Use Flight Simulator
The built-in flight simulator is certainly great, but don’t forget to check out Xavier Tassin’s awesome GEFS application.

6 – Create and View Maps
One of the core uses of Google Earth is the ability to load and save KML files, which make it so easy to share information and locations with other people.

7 – Build in 3D
While tools like SketchUp can help you to build detailed 3D models, there are some nifty tools built in to Google Earth to help you quickly create simple structures.

8 – Explore the Sea
Added as part of Google Earth 5, the 3D Ocean is an amazing feature to explore.

9 – Explore Space
Google added the Night Sky feature to Google Earth way back in 2007, and it provides a great interface to explore the stars. They also just added a new “starry sky” background to Google Earth as part of version 7.1, greatly adding to the realism of the product.

10 – Use Google Earth Offline
The ability to use Google Earth offline can be very handy from time to time, and this post explains how to get started with it.

All in all, it’s really a pretty solid list. Check out their full article here, then leave a comment below and let us know what your favorite power user tip is.

Imagery from the Moore, Oklahoma tornado now in Google Earth

June 6, 2013

As they did not long after Hurricane Sandy struck the northeast United States last fall, Google has just pushed out new imagery from the devastating tornado that recently hit Moore, Oklahoma.

The imagery was captured on May 21, 2013, just one day after the tornado hit. It’s not the default imagery for the area, but if you simply fly to Moore and turn on the Historical Imagery layer you’ll see it. For a bit of help with that, this KML file will fly you there and turn on the historical imagery for you.

Thanks to GEB reader ‘Munden’ for letting us know about it.