alt Hacker NewsTangential, but I was wondering if it's maybe related: why doesn't google maps and google earth want to show satellite images of the ocean? It just overlays those areas with blue color.
Tangential, but I was wondering if it's maybe related: why doesn't google maps and google earth want to show satellite images of the ocean? It just overlays those areas with blue color.
Part of it is just because the ocean is difficult to photograph. The parts of coastline that do have ocean surface imagery have crazy artifacting from the sun reflection, and the color is inconsistent from constantly changing sediment and algae levels.
By not providing imagery of the ocean surface, it also gets to display ocean floor topography data it wouldn't otherwise get to show without having to add another mode.
I assume another reason is that it reduces the total size of the imagery, which would have been a plus on the 2001 computers that Google Earth was originally developed on.
I believe you can get this imagery from other sources (aside from things that are government-censored), but you face the same problem Google did in how to stitch it together without it being a patchwork of different moments in time.