Calling all Google Earth nerds! (like me)

Another reason I want to get rid of dial-up. I'd love to be able to use that.

I LOVE google earth too !
When we bought this house, I found it on there and was able to send the "link" to all my friends and family. You can zoom in, tilt, it's just great. I'll have to see if they updated St. Thomas.
Trade, you would love it !

You can also post your own pictures (or actually, a link to the pictures) to show close-ups of different locations.

It's about at least a year old. There are two new houses built and occupied on the road to our lot, that are not on the view. I know it seems to take at least a year to build a house.

I hear you! There are also better pix of STT! I can see my street and my house now from the aerial view, though it is not as clear and close as some stateside aerials.

thanks mojo, I didn't know about google earth, great site.

One Love ironman

hubby is obssessed with it. i however find it a little disconcerting. i can see my mom's car in front of her house. very eerie.

I Love Google Earth!
I use it to look at property i am interested in.
It makes me a little sad to see the Islands and not be there though.
Oh well, I am in San Diego so I cant complain to much
I will see you all very soon.
I will be the one smiling!

The Google Earth shots are the "dumbed down" version of the photo coverage that is taken. I know a pilot who has flown a year of flights for the government taking this footage for the central section of the USA. It was pretty intense and very top secret and the cameras involved were multi-million dollar pieces of equipment that had to be mounted into the aircraft. He said the original footage shows a whole lot more definition than what shows up on public service sites. The government fortunately realized they couldn't publicly post the level of definition that shows people sunbathing nude in their back yards, etc.

Onika - If you're disconcerted by seeing your mom's car in her back yard in a photo that was taken probably a few years ago, how much more uncomfortable would it be to see her out there naked? lol

I thought they where from a satellite. Something about they used it to look for a computer guy lost in a sailboat off CA. I don't know though it might be form a plane.

aschultz - if they are looking for someone real-time who is lost at sea, etc., then yes they could be using the cameras mounted in satellites in orbit. They have to re-task the satellite to look where they want it to if it's set to be looking somewhere else at that time on its regular mission. Or they may have high-reconnaissance search planes looking. They wouldn't use old footage that has been released to Google to find someone since most of the views provided to Google are a year or more after they were taken. They do not get to use real-time data on Google, which is why if you zero in on cities you know well you won't see today's brand new neighborhoods and houses under construction. It would be nice if they were able to tell you as you use the site what month and year the footage for that particular place was taken.

Trade,

If you want some aerial shots and can't get Google earth, you might try to pull up NOAA's pics. They are from 1999, but are really good shots. We used them before Google earth came out. Click on the dots to pull up pics from that region, than look for the ones that are named STT in their 'code' name. They have each shot labeled by the latitude and longitude (Greek for all I know) :-). Here is the link:
http://www8.nos.noaa.gov/biogeo_public/aerial/search.aspx
( http://www8.nos.noaa.gov/biogeo_public/aerial/search.aspx)

Hope you can pull these up on dial-up.

Teresa

The above link won't work. I am working on it... Update: copy the address from above between the parenthesis and paste it in your browser. That should work. I don't know why the link won't work. Anyway..

Thanks a bunch for the effort, Teresa. I just can't wait to get rid of dial-up. It's so frustrating.

Teresa and Trade,

I removed the #8 and it seems to work. I was unable to get any maps of St. Croix. Shame. It is very slow loading, even with high speed internet.

http://www8.nos.noaa.gov/biogeo_public/aerial/search.aspx

Hope this helps.

I have a Google Earth picture of my STX place on my desk at work in PA. Whenever I get frustrated, I take a moment, stare at the picture and repeat my mantra: "Sooooon, sooooon, sooooon". Gets me through the day. and makes our future move seem more real.

Google MAPS uses the same satellite photos. I checked and the map website is updated too!

http://maps.google.com

Tip: type in " St Croix Virgin Islands " or you'll end up in Wisconsin

The hybrid view (satellite and roads) is the best map of the island I've seen, though it doesn't show the route numbers, only the actual 'names' of the roads (which isn't always helpful because of the lack of road signage).

A smart operator would take all these maps, add the Route numbers and post them as a PDF up here.
Copyright violation? Probably. But a service to humanity and the island? Definitely!

Even the map I bought on VInow.com wasn't as accurate as the google map.

I have recently taken screen shots from GoogleEarth and painstakingly photoshoped all of St.Croix together for a wall sized poster...I printed one approximately 54" long and 24" wide with decent resolution. I would be happy to pass the file along to anyone who would like a copy, the file is a 10Mb tiff but I can compress it for easier emailing or send it via yousendit.com (which is a greater website for anyone looking to email large files). I'll have to update the image with the new high res sections so PM me in a few weeks if you would like the newest images.

Here is a link to the image file that I mentioned in the last post, it should be available for the next 7 days. Please don't sick Google copyright lawyers on me 🙂

http://download.yousendit.com/9FC5445371ED3F28

Hope everyone finds it useful.

Thanks AllMashUp. Nice work

I found a professionally produced STX satellite poster at
http://www.satprints.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=444

Would someone look at it please and tell us HOW OLD the satellite image appears to be?