When you click the 'Open larger map' button, the map opens on an external website.

Use the search box to find a location on Earth. You can zoom in and out, rotate by 90 degree and move around on the maps. When you click a location on this list, you'll get a bird's-eye interactive maps.Ī bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as if the viewer were a bird. On the popup of the extension Earth 3D Maps you will find list of popular attractions. Travel virtual around the Earth with online maps. In more urban areas where there is a lot of imagery (multiple days per year, multiple years), you have a lot more data for a reconstruction and can get more detailed models.Explore bird’s eye maps of cities and popular attractions. In areas with little imagery, my guess is that Google generates fairly sparse point clouds (maybe 10-20 points for a tree canopy) and then interpolates the rest - which is why you can have some seriously fugly looking tree canopies. It would all be done through aerial imagery - either USGS, NAIP, or private entities. It's quite remarkable if that's enough to be able to trace individual power lines or, apparently, the space under the canopy between trees (though I suppose that specific aspect could be fake).Īny chance the info sources indicated in the screen corner of Maps are more than just plain 2D photos (Landsat/Copernicus, Data SIO, NOAA, US Navy, GEBCO )?įor the 3d reconstructions, they wouldn't be using any satellite based platforms as the pixel resolutions are too coarse. Doesn't Photosynth need a lot of images to create good 3D? Are there that many satellite/aerial photos for small rural towns in Europe?

Google 3d map view