google maps - ???

g'day friends,

just been looking at this google maps site:

https://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&z=3&om=1

big question these pictures are around 3 or 4 maybe even more yeras old.

1.. is there anyway to date the pictures/maps?

2.. is there a more up to date program available.

for me something like this should be able to provide information a whole lot younger than app' 4 years ago.

len

 

Goggle maps

Hi Len
My local council website has aerial maps but I'm sad to say they are 8 years old.
Susan

 

thanks susan,

i know that all councils and gov's are using satt' maps right up to current time frame and they can zoom in to very close, ok can live with that part of big brother.

but surely we as citizens should be able to get google map type pics say no older than 6 months, that would not compromise the go'vs eye in the sky scheme of things.

something 4 or 5 years old won't tell you a lot realy especially if you wanted to use it to get an aerial pic of a property.

the other thing i didn't ask was how do we know what season the pic was taken in, knowing whether it is a winter or summer shot would help.

len

 

What we (as the public) get are the dregs. Simply because it's a lot of money to organise an aerial or satellite pass over a location.

Last time I checked - quite a few years ago - it was in the order of 10 to 20 thousand for a single commercial hi-res (2m) colour sat pass of a 60x60km area. As a result, some areas are rarely observed. Other areas are closely monitored, but the information is then generally valuable to the company doing the observing and thus detrimental if it got out to their competitors.

The company who owns the sats keeps all the images, and the price to buy them drops off as the images get older. Finally the images become old enough (and cheap enough) for Google Earth to get it on their next bulk image buy.

 

Hi Len
back on line after 3 months of kicking around without power or phone - just got the satellite dish on the roof today.

In your area I would expect the images to be less than 2 years old, maybe even less than 1 year old, but you are right, there is no way to tell unless you contact the image provider (it should appear as a copyright over the image)
FYI - google doesn't act as a host for any of these images. They just upload them from their source- generally local governments, sometimes image libraries like web-map (who by the way charge huge amounts to access their images via subscription)
Google maps or Google Earth are free particularly because of this reason. For us geospatial analysts who need specific temporal and spatial information linked to the image it still requires forking out lots of dollars unless you have a friend who can supply you with this information for nix.

By the way.. I can't help you. Its not in my area. :wink:

But try contacting your local NRM group they are usually very spatial savy and if they like you they may be able to drop some data in your pocket. Even landcare should have contacts there.

PM me for more info but it may be of little use depending on your property size. The state has been flown recently by 10m pixel size satellite
but thats of little use for small propeties.

cheers

Stephen

 

thanks stephen,

by the looks of it what they give is as good as it will get, but it has some value.

still to us looks like the maps are somewhere around 3 to 4 years old, can say definately not under 2 years at best. we can zoom on our property we had the development there tells us that, plus here we can zoom in enough to see individual homes and roof colours & garden sheds, but the area is completely built out and has been for at least 2 years or more, and the maps show vacant land.

len

 

G'day all, google earth is a handy reference but do not place too much faith in it as their "current" pictures of New Orleans now show pre-Katrina pictures, much nicer to look at apparently :!: