Google earth

[Tbag]

when i zoom into places on google earth everything becomes a big blur, it happens when i search for a country and it zoom in itself but its still a big blur and then it goes very pixelated.
I find my house pretty well and things like the eifell tower in france but most of the countries are a blur and i dont know why?

[adam]

They haven't added closeup images for all locations yet. They do it for known landmarks and bigger cities first. Eventually they'll have shots for everything. Even for the ones that are there, many are outdated by several years.

The world's a big place so these things take time.

[Abbadon]

This is not confirmed, but I heard that this done on purpose. Who knows, maybe they fear you could use this for horrible things like spionage, stalking, terrorism, or worse.

[mats.hogberg]

Because Google Earth doesn't have hi-rez images over the whole earth?

/Mats

[Tbag]

the whole of the US, Australia, Asia & more dont work, surely is not like that for everyone

[redwudz]

The higher the resolution, the more it costs Google to purchase it. The area I'm in has fog or overcast most of the year, so there is hardly any photos except very low resolution ones available. Some of the better satellite photos I have seen for our area come from Russian spy satellites, BTW. I guess they didn't need them anymore.

On a similar note, NASA did a scan of the entire planet from the space shuttle a few years ago using synthetic aperture radar. I believe some of the data is available to the public. It sees right though the overcast and even shows the waves in the ocean. It will be used to make a accurate terrain map of the planet and for surveying purposes.

One thing to think about with those satellite photos is that is what they have released to the public because it's old. It's hard to imagine the improved quality of the newer scans that only the government has at present.

[adam]

None of the US works for you? Are you on a slow connection? There's a % status bar somewhere. Are you sure it is completely finished downloading? I get decent images of most places in the US but other than major landmarks, its only ever once in a while that an image comes in really clearly.