On: Google Maps' Moat

[londons_explore]

You need aerial imagery from different angles.

Thats surprisingly hard to buy from imagery providers, because most of them only want to point their cameras directly downwards.

[angch → londons_explore]

They fly their own planes these days.

https://blog.google/topics/inside-google/google-earths-incre...

Too bad it's a video. Fast forward about 2 minutes.

Or: https://youtu.be/suo_aUTUpps?t=121

Fly plane. Zig zag. 5 cameras, then photogrammetry. StreetView, from planes.

[londons_explore → angch]

Not really effective for non-urban areas.

[pbhjpbhj → londons_explore]

Lenses don't work that way, surely. Any image taken directly downwards will include angled elements offset at a greater angle away from the centre line. Also, how hard is it to add an extra camera or two if you're already flying over, sure double/triple the data but that must be relatively easy to handle once you have the infrastructure for image handling and such.

[on_and_off → londons_explore]

Do we know how Google obtains this data ?

Could drones be used here ? It looks like it would be a good way to refresh this data often on the cheap.

(drone is the loosest sense, a balloon would do the trick)

[puzzle → on_and_off]

A couple of public blog posts made it obvious that Google flies planes.

[bacon_waffle → londons_explore]

Or with lighting from different angles - different time of day.

[7952 → londons_explore]

Aeroplanes and satellites take successive overlapping tiles of the same area as they move. This gives data from multiple angles.