Google Earth has probably seen its usage fall pretty severely in the
last couple of years - everyone I know who still uses or talks about it
is of the older generation - but it still has some pretty cool features.
One of those is Timelapse, the ability to see certain places change as
time moves forwards. Today, Google is updating Timelapse with petabytes
of new data, four layers of imagery, and sharper pictures across the
board. This update utilizes imagery, new techniques, and resources used
to update both Google Maps and Google Earth
earlier this year.
Above: a GIF of Dalian Liaoning, a city in China, being built.
Locations in Timelapse include a river in Tibet that visibly changes
in the 32 years from the time the first picture was taken to the present
day, and cities like San Francisco and Brisbane. In San Francisco's
case, you can see the city grow about 2 miles deeper, which is pretty
amazing, and also see Oakland Bay Bridge get constructed. A lake in
Bolivia gets very visibly smaller, and glaciers melt as the planet
warms. The amazing rate of industrial development in China is also
documented, through a city being built in the timelapse. It's incredible
to see such change condensed into a few short seconds. The videos can
also be paused and scrubbed through specific years, which makes it
easier to pin-point when exactly something happened.
Above: a GIF of a river changing course in Nyingchi Tibet China.
Main image: O'Hare airport, Chicago, being built.
To make this visual treat, Google's engineers had to shift through
three quadrillion pixels - the company tells us in its blog post that's
three with twelve zeros after it (so... 3,000,000,000,000), which
equates to five million satellite images. The new Timelapse is available
now on the
Google Earth Engine website.
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