Tag: satellite

New Google satellite imagery for Fresno! (April 2014)

Another year, another batch of fresh satellite pictures from Google, and these were uploaded surprisingly fast. The latest set of images viewable in Google Maps or Google Earth was taken on April 5, 2014. The older imagery was from March 15, 2013. Before late 2013, the images were from August 2012.

Remember that is this referring to the top-down pictures taken by satellites, not the 45 degree imagery taken by airplane, which is still many years old.

The bright sun and cloudless skies make Fresno an easy market for annual updates. Some major cities around the country only get updates every 3-4 years, and some global cities are still looking at images 5 or more years old. Click to read more!

New Google satellite imagery for Fresno (summer 2012)

Google has just pushed out updated satellite coverage of the Fresno area on Google Maps. This happened in the past 24 hours, because just yesterday I coincidentally booted up Google Earth to see if a secret update was available (one not shown on Maps). Nothing was there, and yet today when looking up something completely unrelated, I noticed a roundabout that wasn’t in the last update…meaning brand new recent pictures. The roundabout caught my eye because a couple of months ago someone emailed me to let me know it was being built. I’ll write about that in the near future.

The imagery updated today was taken on August 26, 2012. That’s pretty damn recent for Google. There’s a lengthy turnaround time from when the images are taken because of all the processing and such required to make sure all the pictures line up perfectly, and there are no clouds or shadows. Click to read more!