Google Earth

[jim king]

Anyone play with Google Earth ?  I was just zooming in on North America and the deforestation is amazing.  I just found my farm.

[SPIKER]

yes but when I zoom in on my place the 1991 crown vic is setting in the drive I sold it 7 or 8 years ago so maps and views are not up to date.

Not sure if the PAY to view site is updated often or not?

Mark

[Jeff]

I do, and I also see a lot of examples of reforestation. Remember many of those aerial maps are dated as much as a decade. I can view several areas near my property in the U.P. that appear to be pasture or clear cuts on google earth that are now young forests if you visit them "live".

[DouginUtah]

I play around with it quite a bit.

You might find this video interesting:
   http://www.flixxy.com/amazing-places-google-earth.htm  (9:06) (Annoying sound though, and it moves so fast that some places I didn't catch what was so amazing.  )

[SwampDonkey]

Here are coordinates of the Christmas Mountains in New Brunswick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Mountains

In 1995 the place blew down in heavy winds, the part you don't here about, and now that region is all renewed with natural regrowth as it has done so for a very long time.

[Magicman]

Yes, a lot.  I found our hunting area in Colorado with GE.

Strange, but I can't fine my sawmill.  I can look at a completed job's slabpile and stickered lumber.  The next job has logs.  I've looked over the entire route between the two.  Checked around the house, the usual parking spot, everywhere but where it is.

Maybe the woodchucks were using it to chuck some more of my wood that day.   

[jim king]

When you are bored try Iquitos, Peru.  It is at least within 3 years as the roof on the factory I sold shows the sky lights I put in.  You will see thousands of brown rusty roofs here.  The city is an island surrounded by rivers with one road leaving to nowhere 70 miles long.

[D Hagens]

 I can punch in my street address and I can drive down the road and look in my backyard using Google Earth. I can see everything that’s there and it makes me think this……this sure is a great tool for thieves, now they can Google places and pick out what they want to steal all from the comfort of their homes.

[Larry]

Yesterday morning we had a tornado a bit west of here.  In this mornings paper there was a picture of the tornado's track with a Google Earth credit.  I didn't know they could get stuff that fast even with a paid subscription.

And yes I use it...ya outa see what swims around in the neighbors pool.

[Chuck White]

I get on Google Earth quite a lot.

The maps I see are dated May 2009.

It's interesting when you can zoom in and see the "little" camps that people have hidden in the woods.

I understand that many tax assessors use google earth to examine properties for tax purposes.

There's really not that much privacy left anymore.

[Larry]

Actually there was or is Federal grant money for the counties to do aerial work.  Our county is flown twice a year.  I was kidding about using Google Earth to look in the neighbors pool but with the county aerial photos it is possible.

[pigman]

I was kidding about using Google Earth to look in the neighbors pool

 And just when I was going to ask you for the link.
Since I got a little faster speed than dialup, I use GE to look at properties I might buy if and when I sell this place.

[Mooseherder]

I love Google Earth.  Hopefully they'll update the Northern part of Maine soon.
If your cabin is on the edge of the woods it is hard to see on Google earth.
You can't see ours but that didn't stop the Tax Man.  The appraiser came down the road when we weren't there, left his card on the door and proceeded to elevate my taxes.  Hopefully this evaluation will be good for 10 years.

[jim king]

I found my farm and more or less figured out how to work Google Earth.  The yellow circles are or were my best deer stands, I haven´t seen them for 20 years , the red circle is my house and garage /shop and the green is my sons house.  I get a bad clarity when I close in much more, maybe it is my slow connection.

The river on the bottom --South side--- is the Apple River.

[Piston]

I cleared some land in April (or maybe May) for a fence I put up and last month I checked and it was already updated.  They don't have the camera view yet for my street but probably won't be long, I'd rather them not have that. 

I went down to the tax assessors office and got the tax map of the land all around me, then made copies onto transparent paper and scanned it to an image, then overlayed that image onto GE.  Now when I open the spot where my land is I see all the other land boundaries around me. 
I recently walked my grandfather's 50 acres to decide where I want to build my cabin, I brought my GPS along and saved my track along with certain waypoints, then import the .gpx file to GE and I can see everywhere I walked, complete with elevation detail and all.  It really is an amazing tool. 

[Brucer]

I understand that many tax assessors use google earth to examine properties for tax purposes.

There's really not that much privacy left anymore.

The cops around here use it to find grow-ops out in the bush.

And you're right, there isn't much privacy.

Magicman: I can pick out my milling site by the sawdust pile; I can easily spot the tarped piles of lumber and the log piles; I can tell the year by the location of a travel trailer that I later bought for an office, so I am absolutely positive that my sawmill is right there beside the pile of sawdust. But for the life of me I cannot see the DanG mill. That orange colour must be invisible to Google's cameras.

Jim: Google shows a lot less detail in rural areas. My mother-in-law's farm is right outside the city limits. Zoom in close right on the boundary and the city side is very detailed, but her farm is not.

[SwampDonkey]

We have this tool online.

http://geonb.snb.ca/geonb

Go to the cube and click "parcel search" and type in "10235083" and go to the globe icon and select aerial map. That should outline the wood lot with an aerial photo. I assume it must zoom in to the extent of the parcel. I find Google Earth is years behind on updates for my area. I bet the same old big cloud is still on the view over the house. Won't be in this viewer. You can also bookmark positions.
You have to be at a scale of 1:16000 or less to view the photo and property lines.

Here's a view of a camp on the Upsulquitch R. down stream of Popelogan Brook. Can only fish on this stretch of river by special crown reserve license on lottery draw. I don't know why these camp leases have started here because they are not allowed to fish there. Some camps have been there for a long time, but this river has been reserved for a very long time.




  You can see that the camp has moved or replaced and in a new location.



The aerial photo is more recent, and there is no narrow road crossing the river as they have on Google by that bend. There is a falls by that camp and a big brook to the right of that line. They'd never let you build a road there. That river is also in a  deep valley. Also, a lot of those Google roads like the one that goes straight north there above the lower camp is all over grown.

[NB sawdust]

SwampDonkey, just want to say thanks for posting that link. All this time i have been fooling around with google earth , and was not aware of that site . Works good!Well , time to go plowing again.....15 -20 cm of wet stuff coming down over here ...... Take care.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, they launched that particular link last year, but the news did such a poor job of it that I never knew what they were talking about or the web link. I could always download data for 8 years or so now from SNB.

Anyway, I download all the images I need on my computer, and can get streams, roads, contour points (I generate my own contour map), counties,property parcels, wetlands the whole shoot'n match. I have a GIS on my computer as well as on my PDA with a GPS.

[Jeff]

Wow! I wish we had that available for my property.

[SwampDonkey]

You do have pretty much the same data Jeff. I don't know if it is online assembled in a GIS format like GEO NB though. Probably you have to be able to assemble it yourself in a GIS to see it all on screen (using something like ArcExplorer - free). I downloaded a bunch of data for up at your woodlot last year. I don't know if your property boundaries are digitized, I bet they are someplace. 

[Magicman]

I use these two frequently:

http://www.bing.com/maps/

http://explorer.arcgis.com/

[Jeff]

I just checked those and the aerial views of my place are even older than Google. I can tell the age by sliding over to me sister's and seeing the trails and fields there.  With Bing I can see where my nephew went out in the east field and did countless laps with the quad and left a big circle in the hay,  That was around 2004

[Raider Bill]

Map Quest has the most up to date aerials of my place in Tenn. but they are 2 years old.

[SwampDonkey]

Some of the guys at the marketing board showed me aerials one time they could zoom in to what looked like a couple hundred feet. You could tell with great certainty what the actual tree species was. You were looking right at the tree crowns in your face. It was high res.

[Geoff Kegerreis]

I love Google earth.

I particularly love the fact you can get reasonable imagery about anywhere globally using that tool - some imagery is not that high of resolution.

You could even use it to find land in back woods Peru, not sure if that would help.

Any GIS project starts out with an image - it is not necessary for it to be georeferenced even - because there are ways and means to get that done on aftermarket software.

Sometimes there is better imagery available than what google earth supplies, but I have used their imagery in professional reports I have published and I just saw a solicitation for a 200,000 ha tract that used google earth imagery. 

Navigation has come a VERY long way during the beginning of my career when I was using a hipchain, compass and clinometer (on the steep parts) to determine area and our only imagery was flown by an airplane every few years or so - and we had to use a stereoscope on the matching photos. 

I wonder if they even teach those methods in forestry school any more.   

[Geoff Kegerreis]

Map Quest has the most up to date aerials of my place in Tenn. but they are 2 years old.

Check TNDOT.  The last time I did a job there, they had aerial imagery that was good precision and shot that year.

Available to you near the Nashville Airport - or you can just call and/or e-mail them.  I had to purchase the imagery on a CD.  It worked for me.

They may capture photos every year - not sure on this.

[Tom]

I just go by the Gulf station get a new free map from the office while the guy that pumps gasoline fills the car up with Good Gulf and washes the windows and vacuums out floorboards.

It's been a while, and my map is pretty tattered, so I guess I need to get back to town and get another one.  Some of this new map paper falls apart when you fold it a few times.  They just don't make it like they used to.

I looked at the new tool that Swamp Donkey uses and they must fly mighty low.  They don't even show Orlando or Miami.  What good is that?

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff, they have new 2010 imagery for Michigan, might not be on the servers yet. I got 2005 photos off the government website this past July. I don't know now where they are stored, I see all the other layers here in one folder but the MrSID's (aerials) seem to be gone for some reason.

I checked the Michigan state GIS site and the latest Satellite imagery is 1991-1997, the aerials are 2005.

http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/?action=thm

[SwampDonkey]

I looked at the new tool that Swamp Donkey uses and they must fly mighty low.  They don't even show Orlando or Miami.  What good is that?

They fly at 12500 meters Tom and the images are in MrSID format with resolution of 1 meter. You can zoom in to around 5000 meters and things remain clear.

Wish I could help you out with Orlando.

[Tom]

That's probably the problem then.  Mr. Sid hasn't been to Florida yet.  ....and meters don't work down here. 

[SwampDonkey]

Tom, have a poke around in here:

http://www.mapwise.com/maps/florida/aerial-photo-satellite.php

[Tom]

That can't be any good, Swamp Donkey.  They only use one contour line. 

[SwampDonkey]

Maybe it's flat.

[Jeff]

I can see yer truck Tom.

[Tom]

So is my Gulf Map, Swamp.

Yeah, it's still parked in the front yard with the fuel drum on it.  I swear I'm gonna make a smoker out of that drum one day.  

[Tom_Averwater]

I use GE a lot. They updated it in our area June 29 2010 . They have a picture of  me bailing hay and my brother in another field raking . Pretty cool.30 miles north GE is 2 years behind . There should be a new road where it isn't .

[SwampDonkey]

I created a 3D Terrain map from the data available of that GEONB site.

Bird's eye view of the Upsulquitch River.