I did not realize this until recently, but Google Earth is now using 3D elevation data from satellites, together with some additional perspective data from airplanes Google is flying low and slow over various parts of Planet Earth, to project 3D perspective images on top of 2D satellite images.
It used to be in Google Earth that everything was 2D only, and in big cities a building owner could build a 3D model of his building. That is not the 3D I am referring to in my paragraph above. Google has found a way to make entire urban neighborhoods look like they are fully three-dimensional, right down to the trees around each building. Take a look at this neighborhood I snapped a screenshot of, while I was "flying" over the neighborhood inside Google Earth. The area closest to the bottom is an area that only has the 2D data, and all of the homes appear flat. The area at the top of the photo uses Google Earth's new 3D data, and every home in the neighborhood gets projected in a full three-dimensional view.
Raise your hand if you find this just a little bit creepy.
@pone22: Okay, the really weird thing is that I landed on this story because it showed up in my feed. Today. Is SW trying to tell me I missed a story I should have seen? Weird.
@sarabee1995: 🤔 Currently considering the possibility that we may be trapped in a circular universe and we are reliving the same timeline over and over.... 🤔
They've done nothing that innovative in their image-making unless the result is obtained by modifying the "flat-pack" images. If you had flown over that area with a film camera the image would look 3D.
@ArishMell: It would look 3D from a single position. Google Earth lets you completely rotate around the object and from different angles and altitudes while preserving the 3D shape.
It's a still photo. It's not real time surveillance. It's a view of an area that anyone can see at anytime. It's not like they're looking in your windows.
I looked at my house in Google Earth, and it could see what I have in my garden under my trees...that's because their airplane is doing side angle photos of the home. It looked pretty invasive.
Even if you do not feel a violation of privacy, I guess we have to at least admire the technical achievement here, turning a world of flat images into a pretty-believable approximation of a three-dimensional world.
