Digital Earth Blog

Microsoft has rolled out another enormous imagery release for Virtual Earth.  Details can be found here, but the quick version includes:

Orthos

• Spain
• Japan

It appears that another Google Earth imagery update is underway, covering a variety of locations around the world.  The latest list, as provided by the Google Earth Blog, includes:

• Large portions of India
• Various places in the US, including parts of North Carolina and Utah
• Northern Mexico
• Romania — maybe the entire country?
• Parts of Spain
• The entire Czech Republic

If you find other areas that you think might be new, you can check using Google Maps.  Maps still hasn’t been updated, so if the imagery for a particular area is different in Earth and Maps, then it’s one of the newly updated areas.

Let us know if you find anything beyond what is listed above.

We reported a few days ago about the imagery update for Google Earth, and now they’ve released details about exactly what has been updated:

Americas:

• USA: Chicago, Houston, Tampa, Nassau County (NY), Westchester County (NY), Rockland County (NY), Putnam County (NY), Rensselaer County, Albany County (NY), Schenectady County (NY), SaratogaCounty (NY), Tompkins County (NY), Schuyler County (NY), Seneca County (NY), Yates County (NY), Steuben County (NY), Allegany County (NY), Cattaraugus County (NY), West Virginia, part of Rhode Island, part of Massachusetts, and part of New Hampshire.
• Canada: Middlesex County (ON)

Europe, Middle East, & Africa:

• Spain: Cartagena, Costa Blanca
• France: Paris, Orleans, Cannes, Nice, Saint-Tropaz
• Italy: Torino, Bologna, Ancona, Lucca, Latina, Capraia Island, Stintino, Villasimius, Palermo, Agrigento
• Switzerland: Zurich, Oberhasli, Thun, Emmental-Oberaargau, Basel, St. Gallen
• Monaco: entire country
• Czech Republic: Prague, Ostrava
• Slovakia: entire country

Asia & Oceania:

• Japan: Kobe, Kyoto, Kawasaki, Saitama, Chiba
• Australia: Canberra, Wollongong, The Great Ocean Road

New high resolution satellite imagery: sprinkled around the globe, with heavier concentrations in Canada, Mexico, and China.

New 2.5m base imagery for: Greece, Turkey, and Australia.

It appears that Google Earth has just received a major imagery update.  There is no official word from Google yet, but Google Earth Blog is reporting a wide variety of updates.  They include:

• US: Houston, TX — West Virginia — East Massachusetts — Albany, NY
• Areas of Australia
• Turkey
• Paris, France
• Near Toronto, Canada
• Parts of Italy
• Parts of Switzerland

Google got hammered a few weeks ago when people realized that their data for Georgia was essentially blank, making it difficult for people to see the areas affected by their conflict with Russia.  As promised, Google has started adding some nice data to the region.

In addition to city labels, they have a whole bunch of photos for the region, which really help to give you a good feel for what the area is like.  They promise to continue adding more data as it’s available.

In just over five days, GeoEye is launching a new satellite and Google will be the exclusive online source for the imagery.  Details of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

The GeoEye-1 satellite will be able to capture imagery at a suberb detail level of 41 centimeters, though Google will have to convert to 50cm quality to comply with US laws.  The satellite will be able to capture imagery equivilent to the size of New Mexico each day, though I don’t know if that will lead to larger or more frequent updates from Google.

As a cool side bonus, the Google logo is on the side of the rocket!  Check out the pics below.

Also, a brief clarification about Google’s affiliation with GeoEye was posted on Wired earlier today:

Google is interested in collecting the highest quality commercial satellite imagery available and as a symbol of this commitment has agreed to put the company logo on the first stage of the GeoEye, Inc. launch vehicle. Google Maps and Google Earth already include imagery from GeoEye. Google does not have any direct or indirect financial interest in the satellite or in GeoEye, and did not pay any fee to place its logo on the launch vehicle.

Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog has passed along a message from John Bailey of the Alaska Volcano Observatory regarding the Kasatochi volcano, which is erupting as we speak.

According to John, the island is a bird sanctuary and two scientists were evacuated.  He has sent along a time-lapse KML of the ash, which you can download here.  According to the AVO site:

An eyewitness account from a marine vessel (in the vicinity of Kasatochi and heading in the direction of Adak) reported ash fall (particles up to pebble size), spectacular lightening and thunder, and total darkness tonight between the hours of 21:00 and 23:15 AKDT.

More imagery and information about this eruption can be found on the Kasatochi page of the AVO.

Google is apparently rolling out a major imagery update for Google Earth, but the imagery has not yet made it into Google Maps.  This is actually a good thing, because it gives you a way to compare the two and see what the changes really are.

Google Earth Blog has the details, but here is a quick list of some of the updated areas:

• Catalonia/Spain
• Portugal
• Czech Republic
• Slovakia
• Hungary
• Australia
• USA
• Mexico
• Italy
• Venezuela
• Germany
• Canada
• California

If you find any others, let us know in the comments below.

While not nearly as big as their last update, Virtual Earth has about 20TB of new imagery now in place.  It includes quite a bit of new imagery in France, as well as various places around the world.  Sadly, it doesn’t appear that they’d added any more “version 2″ cities this month.  I’m dying to see Atlanta in v2, so hopefully they release more soon.

Full details about this update can be found here.

It appears that a Google imagery update is happening, but it’s a bit different than the past few.  Recently, new imagery has been coming into Google Earth first, then it finds its way into Google Maps a few days later.  However, this time might be reversed.

The city of Linz, Austria has different imagery when compared in Google Earth and Google Maps.  Compare for yourselves:

Earth | Maps

Now the big question — what else has been updated?  Post your discoveries in the comments below!

Updated Areas

• Parts of Austria (including Linz)
• Southeast coast of Sri Lanka
• Parts of Serbia
• Several areas in Pakistan and India