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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Digital Globe Images of the Canary Islands
As we've mentioned here a couple of times recently, in July Google updated the satellite imagery of the Canary Islands in both Google Earth and Google Maps. The former satellite images from DigitalGlobe, were replaced by images belonging to the Canary Island public company Grafcan.
Well, I've discovered where you can currently see those previous DigitalGlobe versions, here at Flash Earth and I can confirm that these were what used to show in Google Earth. But the DigitalGlobe images are not as new as they appear to be either. The copyright statements, both for Google and DigitalGlobe, say 2006, but that bears absolutely no relation to the date of the images themselves.
Because, I can tell you that these are still pre-November 2003 when the roof of this house was painted. Also, if you look at this photo, which I took in April 2006 of the area around Los Pedregales. At the right hand side of the image, it should be easy to pick out the pinky-red roofed market building that has two white roofed pieces coming out at the front and the cars parked in front of it.
See behind the market area, there are several large 2-3 story yellow buildings with bright russet red roofs and a round grey bit that looks like a castle. They would, I think you will agree, be distinctive and easy to spot from the air.
Now compare it to this location on the DigitalGlobe images via Flash Earth.
The market hall, an inverted horsehoe shape with it's red and white roof, sitting in a concrete circle is easy to pick out. But what is behind it (to it's left on the map)? Just an area of dirt, maybe some walls, mostly before building had commenced. There are certainly no red roofs or castle-like bits, are there?
Those buildings certainly did not go up overnight, in fact, I can see them from the house and I have been watching the construction for three or four years.
No, I don't know what it all means and why we can't get newer images yet, which Grafcan say that they have, but it does suggest that the swap to the Grafcan images is not really much of a time-warp. The Grafcan images are a better resolution, but the main difference appears to be the "editing out" of sensitive areas, such as the military base next to the airport at Gando on the island of Gran Canaria. Compare the Grafcan image below with the base "whited out":
With this location on the DigitalGlobe version. Oh look, no censoring!
Vielen Dank to this German forum, plaza-la-palma, for linking to me, which is how I found their link to Flash Earth for the DigitalGlobe images.
Just to clarify, Flash Earth uses the same imagery from Google Maps, it's just that Google Maps have recently updated their imagery. See http://www.flashearth.com/flash_earth.swf?GGL_V=9 for example.