Google Earth - Thailand

[guyham]

Any Google Earth aficionados out there? I very occasionally dabble in it, spending an hour or two wandering over the Himalayas or New York City etc. Anyway, 6 months ago I first used it to get a view of my local area in Isaan about 25km from Udon Thani. Absolute rubbish! Everything was so fuzzy I could not even identify the roads. I recently returned to the same area and it hasn’t changed. However, I did notice that a few areas of Thailand had improved definition. Examples:- Sakhon Nakhong has much better definition where individual houses can easily be identified. Also Phuket (where I lived for a year) has Phuket Town as pretty good resolution whereas the west coast area (Patong Beach etc.) images are hideously poor. It looks like the “new” improvements might be due to aerial photography rather than satellite imagery, as there appears to be a degree of curvature in the better images. I have only looked at Thailand via Google Earth a couple of times in the past 6 months so I don’t know if the images are slowly getting updated. Does anyone know more about this? By the way, not to knock Google Earth, because I do think it is a fantastic resource, particularly as it is free.

[mr_hippo]

Your area is in Low-Res and will get updated, Google Earth is updating more of the world to Hi-Res so just be patient. My house in Bangkok is in Hi-Res - that's the good news, the bad news is that it is about 5 years old! My eldest daughter's house in England has just been added in their latest update and that was built about 6 years ago - previously, it was just a field.

[RKASA]

I had not used it in years and put the new version on my linux and did some wondering about. Phitsanulok is only thing in our area hi res and its at least two years out of date as of yesterday. I went to seattle area and hi res areas are just as out of date over MS in redmond as any where else. I would not want it to be real time but within a month would be good. New version is alot nicer then the old. Its kind of fun.

[LivinLOS]

I read about new satellites being launched with much greater scanning / imaging capability.. I think google actually had a % interest in them..

It updates as they get access to more data.. The idea of having the entire earth scanned within 1 month, for a free application.. Well maybe we ask too much ??

I think its a great tool / toy.. In fact would put it in the top 5 apps I have ever toyed with good reasons for net usage.. Then again I like maps and atlas's etc.

[Simmo]

Contrary to popular belief - all of the hi res Google Earth imagery is aerial photography not from satellites.

[guyham]

I hate to say you are wrong about Google Earth not using satellite images for hi-res – but you are. Trawling through the internet I have discovered that GE gets most of their images from Landsat, DigitalGlobe’s Quickbird and MDA Federal Inc’s EarthSat. This information comes as much from these companies as from GE itself and a variety of technology journalists.

I have a theory concerning the issue of improved resolution images used by GE being several years old. I don’t believe GE went back in time to acquire a better resolution image but instead used highly intensive computer image processing to remove the “noise” (fuzziness) from their existing images. When looked at, these images now show sufficient detail to allow viewers to better determine the age of the image. This is just a theory – I have no proof of it.

[Crushdepth]

I can tell you for certain that the Google Earth images of Bangkok have been updated in the last year or two - but not since the new airport opened.

[sjaak327]

^ they are a bit older, closer to three years, the paragon is nothing but foundation, the Central World tower wasn't finished either. They indeed changed the photos less then a year ago, as previously the Thong Lor BTS station was very fuzzy, now it's clear. But the Images were taken more then two years ago.

[baabaabobo]

Phuket shots are about 4 years old.

[Plus]

First time I looked at GE, Major Ratchayothin area was fairly recent, but then they have reverted to at least four year old photos.

[tingtong]

for my great sadness the high resolution ands about 10 km before our house in bang bua thong...i van see our former places in bkk fine however

[jackspratt]

You will generally get much better resolution for Thailand by using a program called PointAsia.

Try googling it.

[Simmo]

I'm talking about the higher levels of zoomed in detail - that is all aerial photography. Here's a brief article that explains the sources of the GE imagery.

http://www.google.com/librariancenter/articles/0604_01.html

The resolving power of any perfect theoretical telescope/camera we could put into orbit is constrained by the Dawes limit - which if I remember correctly is something like 10cm at a 60km orbit. Taking into account atmospheric turbulence and real word optics it would be a lot less. No you can't read a license plate from space - no matter what Hollywood tells you!.

[Gary A]

It varies a LOT! I live in Loei province and it is so bad that you can't even see the roads. A friend of mine lives near Phan, Chiang Rai and it is very sharp. I can also easily see cars and my condo building in Jomtien.

It's no different in the US. I can't see my old house in Ohio but I can clearly see my friend's house and car in Florida.

[gregb]

The resolving power of any perfect theoretical telescope/camera we could put into orbit is constrained by the Dawes limit - which if I remember correctly is something like 10cm at a 60km orbit. Taking into account atmospheric turbulence and real word optics it would be a lot less. No you can't read a license plate from space - no matter what Hollywood tells you!.

Of course you can....you just need a cluster of satellites trained on the same object in order to do it. Hollywood may simplify things for the common man, but it isn't an outright lie...

The Dawes limit is inversely proportional to the size of the aperature...a big enough aperature and you could distinguish grains of sand from the moon! (Ok, not in my lifetime, but theoretically possible if Dawes is the only problem)

A satellite cluster coupled with adaptive optics can dramatically increase the effective aperature.

[Badbanker]

A number of features in Bangkok have gone from excellent resolution to bad resolution. The new airport used to be a very clear recent picture but was downgraded to a much older photo. The new bridge complex over the Chao Praya river at Rama 3 was also extremely clear but now it has been replaced with one that is badly obscured by cloud!

Remember GE is a commercial project! The paid version has extremely good graphics and it is clear everywhere! So GE takes down very clear pictures of well known non US landmarks and puts up older or not so clear ones.

BB

[monty]

A number of features in Bangkok have gone from excellent resolution to bad resolution. The new airport used to be a very clear recent picture but was downgraded to a much older photo. The new bridge complex over the Chao Praya river at Rama 3 was also extremely clear but now it has been replaced with one that is badly obscured by cloud!

Remember GE is a commercial project! The paid version has extremely good graphics and it is clear everywhere! So GE takes down very clear pictures of well known non US landmarks and puts up older or not so clear ones.

BB

Not true!

Although the pro and the enterprise version have more functions and faster servers for delivering the images, the pictures are the same on all versions!

https://registration.keyhole.com/choice_kh_initial.html

[Guest Reimar]

A number of features in Bangkok have gone from excellent resolution to bad resolution. The new airport used to be a very clear recent picture but was downgraded to a much older photo. The new bridge complex over the Chao Praya river at Rama 3 was also extremely clear but now it has been replaced with one that is badly obscured by cloud!

Remember GE is a commercial project! The paid version has extremely good graphics and it is clear everywhere! So GE takes down very clear pictures of well known non US landmarks and puts up older or not so clear ones.

BB

Not true!

Although the pro and the enterprise version have more functions and faster servers for delivering the images, the pictures are the same on all versions!

https://registration.keyhole.com/choice_kh_initial.html

And the pic's about the new Airport and the bridges pp are the whole time the same: crab!

I using the Pro paid version for a long time and update many times: no changes and the pics 3-4 years old!