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Yesterday we showed you a map of the maximum available zoom level found in Google Maps. If you don’t already have it, download this KML file to view it in Google Earth.

Today we are looking at general features of the data.

Key
First of all, we need to know what the colours mean. The colours represent the various available zoom levels in Google Maps, starting with low resolution at 7 to high resolution at 22. This can be roughly interpreted as follows:

	Low resolution ocean floor
	High resolution ocean floor
	Coastal areas
	Very low resolution satellite imagery (Landsat background imagery)
	Low resolution satellite imagery (CNES/Spot Image background imagery)
	High resolution satellite imagery (DigitalGlobe or CNES Astrium)
	Aerial Imagery (higher resolution than satellite imagery)
	Exceptionally high resolution Aerial Imagery

Google Maps via API
To better understand Google Maps Zoom levels or to explore the data for a given location, you can use this page, which shows a full screen Google Map using the Google Maps API. It behaves a little differently from the standard Google Maps website. The standard Google Maps website restricts how far you can zoom in based on the imagery available, however, it always shows imagery. The above map, obtained via the API, lets you zoom in beyond the maximum prefered amount, and when you do it displays map tiles labelled “Sorry, we have no imagery here”.

Poles
You will notice in our map that there are noticeable bands in the data towards the poles at 60° and 75° latitude, both north and south. We believe these are an artifact of the Google Maps projection, which spreads out the poles, thus magnifying any imagery towards the poles and in consequence requiring less zoom in order to see a given resolution of imagery.

In our data collection we only went 80° north and south. Google Maps itself only goes to 85° north and south as a consequence of its map projection.

Google Earth has noticeable bands in the actual imagery at 80° north across Greenland and about 82.6° south in Antarctica. These are actual changes in the imagery datasets. The absence of high resolution near the poles may be due to the orbits of the imaging satellites or ‘sun angle constraints’.

Oceans
The spider web of tracks across the oceans noticeable in our data reflect the paths of ships equipped with sonar for mapping the ocean floor. The tracks of higher resolution imagery are clearly visible in Google Earth and have in the past been mistaken for Atlantis or an alien base.

In our next post in this series we will be looking in a bit more detail at the various types of imagery found over land.

The post Google Maps API Maximum Zoom – Part 2: Overview appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Ever since we did the posts on historical imagery density we have been looking for a way to map parts of the earth that do not yet have historical imagery. Sadly, the Google Earth plugin does not report historical imagery accurately for such areas.

We recently discovered that the Google Maps API provides a service known as the Maximum Zoom Imagery Service, which allows you to find out what the maximum zoom available in Google Maps is for a given latitude and longitude. The maximum zoom available when in ‘Earth’ mode is dependent on what imagery is available in Google Maps. Since the imagery in Google Maps is almost the same as the default layer in Google Earth, this service can tell us a lot about the imagery in Google Earth.

Today we are just looking at how we gathered the data and prepared it for viewing in Google Earth. In later posts we will look at what is actually in the data and what we can learn about Google Maps and Google Earth imagery.

We queried the Maximum Zoom Imagery Service for every 0.1° from -80° to +80° latitude and every 0.1° of longitude. The result is 5.76 million points of data, which results in multiple KMLs totalling over 1Gb. To display it as a heat map we could have created a KML file with each rectangle as a polygon, but that would probably have crashed Google Earth. So instead we used the technique we used when finding imagery updates and converted the data to an image and displayed that using an image overlay.

If you display each data point as a single pixel, then Google Earth tends to blur the image, so we resized the image to have each data point 4 X 4 pixels. The Maximum Zoom available in Google Maps for the locations we collected varies from 7 to 22, 7 being the lowest resolution imagery and 22 being the highest resolution imagery.

To see it for yourself in Google Earth download this KMl file

The post Google Maps API Maximum Zoom – Part 1: Data collection appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We recently came across two stories in the news about people creating art from Google Earth imagery. The first is this one about Mishka Henner. His work appears to consist of unaltered screen shots from Google Earth, either of aesthetically pleasing locations or collections of places of particular interest, such as “51 U.S. Military Outposts”. The article also mentions that to make high resolution images he takes hundreds of screen shots and laboriously stitches them together to make a final image. There are actually ways to automate this sort of thing, however, as we will discuss further on, doing so may violate Google Earth’s licence agreement.

The second story is this one about Meike Nixdorf, who creates stunning landscapes from Google Earth’s imagery. Unlike Mishka Henner’s work, which is mostly unaltered satellite / aerial imagery, Meike takes advantage of Google Earth’s 3D terrain and also retouches the screen-shots in Photoshop.

We have looked at similar art work in the past, including artist Federico Winer, who creates images from satellite imagery with adjusted colour and luminosity, Roosmarijn Pallandt, who creates carpets based on Google Earth imagery and a website dedicated to collecting artistic images from Google Earth imagery (sadly it appears to no longer be active). The USGS has an “Earth as Art” collection collected from landsat imagery and Google themselves have released the “Earth View” chrome plugin that shows selected satellite imagery in new Tabs in Chrome and has its own layer in Google Earth.

So, are these artists in violation of the Google Earth licence agreement? First of all, artists that use Landsat imagery obtained from the USGS have nothing to worry about, as there appears to be no restrictions on its use. To find out what uses of Google Earth and Maps are permissible read through the geoguidelines here. There are some clauses that some of the artists we mention above may be violating.

Firstly, whenever you use imagery from Google Earth or Google Maps you must always include full attribution for both Google and the supplier of any imagery or mapping data that appears in your image. Generally, whatever copyright notices appear at the bottom centre in Google Earth must be included either in your screen shot or added to the image caption. It is not clear whether the artists mentioned above are including proper attribution in their artwork, but certainly the images have been presented in the news articles without proper attribution.
Secondly, the geoguidelines forbid making changes to the imagery. The intention seems to be to ensure that you do not misrepresent what Google Earth or Google Maps look like to the detriment of the products’ reputation so it is not clear whether adding artistic touches would concern Google, but it does appear to violate the Terms of Service (TOS).
Thirdly, the sale of artwork based on Google Earth or Google Maps imagery appears to be explicitly forbidden in the case of physical items such as T-shirts or mugs. This suggests that a physical ‘painting’ would also be forbidden. The restriction doesn’t apply to books (with the exception of books with navigational content such as guide books) but it is likely that selling a book consisting mostly of Google Earth / Google Maps imagery is in violation of the copyrights unless permission is explicitly granted by both Google and the imagery providers.

Mariveles Reef, Spratley Islands. Whenever you use a screen shot from Google Earth as above, make sure that the Google Earth logo and the copyright notices at the bottom centre are clearly visible, or include them in the image caption.

The post Art from Google Earth imagery and the Google Maps/Earth TOS appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Thank you to GEB reader Clare for pointing us to this story about the Jefferson Grid. The Jefferson Grid refers to the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) or the Rectangular Survey System used in many parts of the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling.

Anyone who has looked around the US has noticed that large parts of it are divided up into squares, one mile to a side, often highly visible in satellite imagery and often sporting irrigation circles. The article linked above explains why that is and some of the history behind it.

The state of Iowa is just a sea of squares.

Irrigation circles in Idaho, one in each square.

As you can see above this is not the most efficient use of the land and in some cases farmers have inserted smaller circles in between the larger ones. The most efficient layout of identical sized circles is the honeycomb pattern seen below:

This honeycomb irrigation pattern found near Boardman, Oregon, is actually quite rare.

You might think at first that the Jefferson Grid is a universal uniform grid covering the whole of the US, but as you can see on Wikipedia there are actually a number of different regions, each with its on reference lines and the different regions do not necessarily line up with each other. Also, due to the fact that there were no GPS’s at the time the original surveying was done, there are quite a lot of errors in the grids and it is not uncommon to see an area like the image below where things are not quite straight:

Parallelograms

The use of a grid is also not unique to the USA. Here is an area in Mexico that also uses a neat squared grid, except they use the metric system, so each square is two kilometres to a side.

A grid system in Mexico.

Many parts of the world such as Zambia, above, do not use a grid system.

For the locations featured in this post download this KML file.

Many cities around the world also have grid patterns highly visible from above, but perhaps that is a topic for another post.

The post The Jefferson Grid appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We have looked at maps created by George of MyReadingMapped many times in the past. However, due to technical issues he shut the site down earlier this year.

He has kindly provided us with some of the KMLs from his vast collection and allowed us to make them available here on GEB. You can download all 155 individual KML files as a ZIP file here. In addition, we have combined them into a single KMZ file and attempted to organize them into folders to make it easier to find what you are interested in. Download the combined KMZ file here.

So what sort of maps can you expect to find?

• Maps of explorers and famous travels including ocean voyages, overland exploration and polar expeditions.
• Maps of ancient civilizations, ruins, lost cities, ghost towns, castles and more.
• Science and the environment:
  • Maps for use in teaching geology, ecology and geography.
  • Maps relating to the oceans.
  • Maps relating to climate change.
  • Maps of fossil sites.
  • Maps about pollution.
  • Maps of disease outbreaks.
• Maps of historic train wrecks, plane crashes and shipwrecks many of which can be seen in Google Earth imagery.
• Maps of wars and historic battles.
• Maps of current events, such as the Trayvon Martin murder case and Boston Marathon Manhunt.
• Maps relating to famous artists.

And many more.

So which are our favourites? To be honest we have not had time to go through them all yet, but they all look interesting and worth a look. Probably the most useful are the ones that can be used in the science classroom, such as the topography of Plate Tectonics or Terrestrial Biomes, amongst others.

Expect to be overwhelmed by the wealth of data.

The post MyReadingMapped KMLs appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

While investigating the recent explosions in Tianjin, China, we noticed that the street map of China is out of alignment in both Google Earth and Google Maps. It is tempting to think that the explosions were so large that they shook the street map out of place (the largest, according to Wikipedia, has been estimated as equivalent to 21 tonnes of TNT). However, after a bit of research we have discovered that the street map offset is not new and is actually a result of old Chinese regulations from the cold war era.

It turns out that all maps that are legally created in China must use the GCJ-02 coordinate system, which according to Wikipedia, uses an encryption algorithm that offsets the map by different amounts for different locations. Google has followed the regulations and partnered with Chinese map provider AutoNavi to obtain the data and always shows the map data using the required GCJ-02 datum.

As we have mentioned in previous posts on censorship, countries can control and censor mapping information such as aerial imagery, 3D imagery and street maps that is gathered within their borders, but have little control over satellite imagery unless the company that supplies it operates from within their borders. As a result, both Google Earth and Google Maps do not show the satellite data using the offset GCJ-02 datum but stick with the standard WGS-84 datum used for the rest of the world. This results in the discrepancy we see between the street map and the satellite imagery. However, the Chinese version of Google Maps intended to be viewed from within China does comply with Chinese laws and uses the GCJ-02 datum for the satellite imagery as well. As a result, the street maps and satellite imagery line up nicely, but GPS coordinates will be offset. This is dealt with by Chinese navigation systems, which must convert between the datums to give the correct location on the map.

The China / Hong Kong border in Google Earth. The streets are out of alignment on the Chinese side, but correct on the Hong Kong side. The satellite imagery matches the latitude and longitude as produced by a standard GPS.

In the Chinese version of Google Maps, the situation is reversed. The streets are aligned with satellite imagery in China, but misaligned in Hong Kong. Both satellite imagery and street maps on the Chinese side do not match latitude and longitude as produced by a standard GPS.

Apparently Bing Maps and Apple Maps also follow Chinese regulations and use the GCJ-02 datum, whereas Open Street Map does not (and is thus illegal in China).

We also mentioned China’s strict mapping regulations back in 2006.

The post Chinese street maps out of alignment in Google Earth and Google Maps appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Posted by Rasťo Šrámek, Software Engineer, Google Maps

The imagery in Google Earth is carefully selected to be as cloud-free and snow-cover-free as possible. This makes for a good, clear picture of features on the ground, but it does mean we are missing out on what the earth really looks like from above most of the time.

To get an idea of what the earth really looks like from space, one can browse the Landsat data, which was made freely available on AWS back in March.

Google sometimes includes imagery with significant cloud cover when there is something of particular interest in the imagery. A good example of this is some US towns that suffered tornado damage that we have looked at in Google Earth. If you look at the locations of those towns in ‘historical imagery’ you will immediately notice patches of cloudy imagery covering the locations and dated soon after the events. We even saw in yesterday’s post an example of some false colour imagery being used.

Although clouds do obscure the ground features, they can be quite beautiful. We recently came across two examples we thought were worth sharing:

Vortices formed in clouds downwind of the Crozet Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.
This above image comes from NASA. We discovered it via the Google Earth Community forums.

Sunset over the Nile, taken by Italian ISS astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

See the original image on NASA’s website. We found it via this article. In addition to clouds, it features sunlight at an unusually low angle, something we do not usually see in Google Earth.

The post Beautiful Satellite Imagery we won’t be Seeing in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

In 1880, the Pittsburgh Dispatch published an article titled "What Girls Are Good For.” In dismissive terms, the column’s author wrote that women shouldn't be allowed to work because their place was at home.

Days later, a pseudonymous rebuttal appeared in the paper. The response, by a 16-year-old girl whose real name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran, argued how important it was for women to be independent and self-reliant. Within a decade, the author of that response would become known worldwide as Nellie Bly: a hard-hitting young journalist who went undercover at a lunatic asylum and traveled around the world in a record-breaking 72 days.

Throughout her life and career, Nellie Bly spoke up for the underprivileged, the helpless and minorities, and defied society’s expectations for women. We love her adventurous spirit, and we share her belief that women can do anything and be anything they want (we like to think if she were around today she’d be a fellow fan of trailblazing women like Ada, Anita and Ann). So when it came time to honor Nellie with a Doodle, we wanted to make it special. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrote, composed and recorded an original song about Nellie, and Katy Wu, the artist who created this doodle, created an animation set to Karen O’s music celebrating this intrepid investigative reporter.
Nellie was born on May 5, 1864 in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa. After her response was published in the Dispatch in 1880, the editor, George Madden, tracked her down and hired her as a reporter. At the time, women reporters commonly used pen names; hers came from a song by fellow Pittsburgher Stephen Foster. She spent several years at the paper before moving to New York for a job at New York World, which was owned by Joseph Pulitzer. In 1887, she went undercover at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island to write an exposé about the conditions there. Her resulting book, “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” made her famous.

But Nellie is best known for her trip around the world. Inspired by Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne’s novel, “Around the World in 80 Days,” Nellie set sail from New York in November 1889 determined to beat Fogg’s time. Traveling by steamships and sailboats, she sent dispatches back to her newspaper as she circled the globe. Instead of sitting idly and just observing, she was always a part of the action and conversation, despite the fact that public spaces were typically reserved for men at the time.

When creating the Doodle, we took inspiration from Karen O’s lyrics and Nellie’s journey around the globe. Throughout the video, Katy used newspaper as a unifying theme—with paper tearing, folding and crumpling as the story goes along. And though the video is mostly black and white, she added some color to represent Nellie's energy and vibrancy.

Back in the 19th century, Nellie fearlessly showed a generation of people “what girls are good for.” We’re excited to tell her story in today’s Doodle—and we hope Nellie inspires women and girls everywhere to follow in her footsteps and show the world what they can do.

Posted by Liat Ben-Rafael, Program Manager, Google Doodles

For millions of people, Twitter is the go-to place for real-time updates on news events, live TV and entertainment and sports moments. And as good as it can be for real-time news events in the present, it turns out Twitter is also a great way to re-live historical moments live as they happened.

This week, you’ll be able to do just that, as author Erik Larson (@ExLarson) embarks on live-Tweeting his historical account of the Lusitania on its last voyage from New York to Liverpool, which took place exactly 100 years ago. His story in Tweets comes from his recent best-seller “Dead Wake,” which details theLusitania’s last trip.

Starting today and ending May 7, Larson will re-tell the tale of the British ocean liner’s final voyage, beginning with the launch of the German U-boat that eventually sank the ship. You can follow along with his historical re-creation by following @exlarson or the hashtag #DeadWake.

While looking around Cape Town, South Africa in Google Earth recently, we noticed a 3D model of a large South African flag on Devil’s Peak. It is the old type of 3D model from the Sketchup 3D warehouse. It looks like Google’s quality checks missed it when it got added. There is actually no flag at that location, or at least not of that size. We measured it using Google Earth Pro’s measuring tools at approximately 123m tall. Although flags have been temporarily erected by hikers at that location in the past, as can be seen in the last image in this blog post, there is no permanent flag there. Also of interest is that the model was uploaded to the 3D warehouse on September 28th, 2013, just a few days before Google stopped accepting models from the 3D warehouse.

The flag on Devil’s Peak, Cape Town.

This is not the first 3D model to have incorrectly got into Google’s 3D buildings layer. Back in 2009, for example, a model of the Burj Dubai (later renamed the Burj Khalifa) was incorrectly placed in Melbourne, Australia. There are a few other models that do not reflect reality, but can be considered Easter Eggs rather than mistakes. These include the Blues Brothers Bridge Jump and the Tardis. The Tardis even includes Street View inside it, although it doesn’t seem to be possible to view it using Google Earth. Both these locations now have Google’s new 3D mesh, but if you switch to historical imagery, they can still be seen.

The Blues Brothers Bridge Jump

To find these locations in Google Earth download this KML file.

The post The flag on Devil’s Peak appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Something wicked this way comes… Whether you’re a trio of witches back from the dead or just a trick-or-treater, chances are you’re hitting the streets (or riding a broom!) on Halloween night. For those looking for an extra fright, take a tour of spooky places from around the world on Google Maps.

Start in 19th century Paris. While cheery guests listen to the beautiful arias at the Opéra Garnier, a dreary lake lies beneath the streets. Floating above the silent water, a phantom lurks. Are your eyes playing tricks on you... or is that a cloaked figure looming in the shadows?


Standing at the steps of Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, BC, you might believe you’ve found the perfect home away from home. Think again… listen closely for the sounds of a piano playing softly throughout the house. The spirit of a ghastly pianist is said to linger in the corridors and windows.


If you’re feeling ill, the abandoned Xinglin hospital in Taiwan is not the place to go. For years, passersby have sighted now-deceased patients, both young and old, in the treacherous fourth- and fifth-floor windows. To this day, people claim to hear wailing in the night from inside the hospital’s haunted walls.


Not all spooky stories are made up. For three decades, the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was home to some 1,500 of the world’s most infamous prisoners. Surrounded by bone-chilling waters, “the Rock” was notorious as the toughest prison in America.


If these spooky spots whet your appetite for fear, get up close with some of the most frightful locations in Google Maps Gallery and find ghouls and goblins in haunted houses around the world. If you’re looking for a laugh instead of a scream, take a hayride through your local corn maze, find the perfect jack-o-lantern at your neighboring pumpkin patch, and scout the best trick-or-treat routes near you.

Now get your cauldrons bubbling and monsters mashing because after all, this is Halloween!

Posted by Susan Cadrecha, Google Maps Zombie Bride

Back in 2012 Google sold SketchUp, the excellent 3D modeling tool that was used to make most of the older 3D models found in Google Earth. In October 2013, Google stopped importing models from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, and now solely rely on automatic generation methods for 3D imagery.

Earlier this year the 3D Warehouse was completely revamped by new owner Trimble. Also, at some point, the URL for the warehouse has changed from the Google domain (sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/) to a the sketchup.com domain (3dwarehouse.sketchup.com).

Google has implemented redirects on the former URLs, but they are not all working correctly. The result is that links that we created in the past to KML/KMZs of models in the 3D Warehouse no longer work correctly. Instead of being redirected to the download of the KML/KMZ, they get redirected to the SketchUp model (.skp) download instead.

Also, it seems most of the links within Google Earth relating to 3D models are broken. If you click on a 3D model, a popup shows more information about the model. It used to display a small picture of the model on the right, but now there is just a question mark. In addition, almost all the links in the popup are supposed to direct you to the 3D warehouse, but most of them do not work correctly.

If you have links to KML/KMZ files on your website then it is not difficult to correct them. Each model has a unique ID that has not changed. A typical old URL will look like this:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/download?mid=2fc1bb50f5aaf8ab91735325f76051&rtyp=k2&fn=Stadhuis+1&ctyp=other&prevstart=0

To fix it:

• Copy the unique ID shown in bold above.
• Search for it in the Sketchup 3D Warehouse.
• Click on the ‘Download’ button, and you should see two options, the Sketchup model and the KML/KMZ file.
• Right click on the KML/KMZ link and select ‘copy link address’ (or your browser’s equivalent).
• Replace your old link with this URL.

The new link should look something like this:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/warehouse/getpubliccontent?contentId=57bca5fd-1c8d-4e4f-a8a7-ca4985b230c3&fn=Stadhuis-1.kmz

Although the ‘report a problem’ link on the 3D building popup does not work correctly, we did use Google Earths ‘report a problem’ feature to let Google know about this issue.

The post SketchUp 3D Warehouse URL issues appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We recently got a query by a reader asking whether or not it is possible for a conman to put a fake address into Google Earth. The short answer is yes.

Google gets its information from a large number of sources. The Earth is a very big place, so the amount of data involved is simply staggering. Errors, of course, do exist. These come in many forms, such as an island that didn’t exist, or the time that Google lost a city in Florida. When Google once removed the name “Persian Gulf”, Iran threatened to sue because the name is a very sensitive issue in the region.

Borders are often a contentious issue. It may be simply a case of borders being in the wrong place due to errors in the data supplied to Google, or border disputes, where two countries disagree about where their shared border is. Google method for the latter is to share data based on international mapping standards data – which they illustrate by showing disputed borders in red, or showing different borders depending on which country you are using the product from. Also, when new countries are formed, it may take Google (and all other mapping companies) a little while to update their maps.

One of Google’s sources of information is the general public via three main routes: the ‘report a problem’ feature in Google maps, the more sophisticated Google Mapmaker that Google released in 2008, and Google My Business (formerly Google Places). The last one is primarily for business address listings, whereas the first two deal with more general mapping information.
The processes for changing mapping data have a number of verification systems in place. However, since it is often impossible to verify the validity of all updates. Google mapmaker works on a system of reputation whereby your edits require less verification as you gain reputation. Google My Business encourages you to verify your address or phone number. None of the systems are totally fool proof, but the same system can be used to correct inaccurate data that works its way into the system.

An example of information that really shouldn’t have been allowed into Google Maps.

This appears to be a genuine road.

So why would people want to put false information into Google Maps? Here is a story of a restaurant which closed down because, the owner claims, its listing on Google Maps showed that they were closed on what were formerly its most popular days. His lawyer thinks that a competing restaurant sabotaged the listing. Earlier this year Bryan Seely went public, saying that he used to do ‘map jacking’ for profit but decided to go public in the hopes of getting a job at Google. As a publicity stunt, he managed to intercept calls to the FBI and Secret service by placing false contact information for them on Google Maps.

It is important to keep in mind that, for example, in the vacation rentals business where scams are quite common, the information in Google Maps may be correct, but when you arrive at your destination and knock on the door, you could discover that the person you wired your down-payment to does not own the property. No one wants that kind of thing to happen.

Imaginary road really exists!

Google Maps and Google Earth mapping data should always be treated like Wikipedia: an extremely useful resource, but not guaranteed to be correct.

The post Could a conman get false information into Google Maps or Google Earth? appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

In July, we asked you to help us protect an open Internet. Today, we’re joining forces with our digital brethren including Etsy, Reddit, and Kickstarter, to once again ask that you help us fight the FCC’s proposed rule — one that would bring an end to the net neutrality we know and love.

This time, we’re asking you to call your Senators and tell them you’re against the FCC’s proposal.

To refresh your memory:
The FCC proposal would allow broadband providers to charge online companies like Vimeo to deliver traffic (like video uploads and plays) to their customers in a timely manner. We think this will create a two-tiered Internet — fast tubes for those who can afford to pay a hefty toll and slow tubes for everyone else — and will ultimately harm innovation and creative expression. As a result, we’re calling on the FCC to demand "net neutrality" — rules that prevent broadband providers from discriminating against content that runs through their pipes.

Independent creators and their audiences would also suffer from this two-tiered Internet world. If you, like us, want to keep a free and open Internet, please click the button above and let your voice be heard.

We get a few emails every week from people asking how they can get their image removed from Google Street View, so we thought we’d discuss it here. Thankfully, it’s a fairly simple process.

As you likely know, Google automatically blurs any faces or license plate numbers that appear in the imagery, as seen here:

However, sometimes a face will be missed or you’ll have some other reason to request that an image be removed. The steps are as follows:

1. Locate the image in Street View.
2. Click “Report a problem” in the bottom-right of the image window.
3. Complete the form and click “Submit”.

That’s it! They’ll review your report and take appropriate action. You can use a similar technique in Google Maps to help update the map if you see any incorrect information (misspelled street names, etc).

For more, check out the privacy section on the Google Street View website.

The post How to remove imagery from Street View appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

2013 was another amazing year for Google Earth.  While there weren’t any new groundbreaking releases of the main product, we saw some excellent uses of Google Earth and some amazing discoveries.  Here is some of the best of 2013:

January

In January Google released Street View imagery in Israel, saw some great updates to the Google Earth Flight Simulator, and showed you a creative way to view the map of “Westeros” from Game of Thrones in Google Earth.

February

In February we showed you some ways to created animated GPS tracks in Google Earth, tracked the path of the Chelyabinsk meteor, and got some great imagery of the Sakurajima Volcano in Japan.

March

In March Google released Street View imagery for Mount Everest, we looked at ways to track satellites in Google Earth, and showed you some ways that authorities are using Google Earth to fight crime in Bangalore.

April

In April we showed you a map that tracked the spread of the H7N9 avian flu, showed you how to make Google Earth look shockingly realistic, Google released Google Earth 7.1, and settled the great “murder or a wet dog?” debate.

May

In May we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Mount Everest, discussed the future of the Street View Trekker, Google launched a version of Google Earth in the browser that didn’t require a plugin, and we showed you a neat site that did the “powers of ten” centered on your own house.

June

In June we showed you some tips for optimizing Google Earth, looked at the massive Bingham Canyon Mine landslide, and viewed some imagery from the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma.

July

In July we showed you some tips on how to use Google Earth to create high-quality movies, celebrated the 44th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, looked at a detailed map of the Trayvon Martin murder case, and looked at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

August

In August we showed you some tips for using the Google Earth Ruler and took a first look at the innovative Leap Motion Controller.

September

In September we showed you a neat way to embed Google+ posts in Google Earth, looked at a recreation of the July train accident in Spain, and looked at some great tri-bridges around the world.

October

In October we showed you an ancient Greek “strip mall”, looked at the best roller coasters in Google Earth, and highlighted some of the best 3D models of all time.

November

In November we took another look at the popular Google Earth War game, showed you the very impressive Lit Trips site, showed you new Street View imagery in Venice and DigitalGlobe released some initial imagery from the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

December

In December we saw some neat things like an underwater waterfall and lava flow shapes, along with an impressive recreation of Charles Lingburgh’s famous flight.

All in all it’s been a great year!  What was your favorite story of the year?

The post The Year 2013 in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.