It would take almost a billion 1280×960 computer monitors to display the entire map at once!Īlthough you can’t get a specific schedule of when and where Street View will capture images from the ground, you can see the scheduled areas coming up on a specific Google Maps Street View webpage. According to Google, the data they compile from the Landsat program amounts to almost a petabyte or 700 trillion pixels. Scientists, researchers, environmental groups, and Google employees are just some people who access the information to learn more about the earth and how it changes over time. The Landsat program is government-funded, but the data it gathers is available to the entire world. All this information is put into a copy of the Google Earth Engine, which crunches all the data and creates the map. Google accesses these images and uses a sophisticated algorithm to detect cloud cover and replace overcast areas with previous footage to get an uninterrupted view of the world. These tools offer very detailed views covering almost the entire surface of the planet. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Landsat 8 satellites.

Google Earth uses satellite-based photography from NASA and the U.S. After all, those areas do not serve as traveling necessities. This makes some sense, especially considering how often billions of people worldwide change their homes or backyards. Smaller things, including examples like your new pool, aren’t deemed important enough for Google to update their content. From this point, it is up to Google Street View to handle the details, which are discussed more below. Although Maps doesn’t display actual images and shows line imagery for roads, it serves its purpose well. The advanced imagery created by Google Earth, as further discussed below, provides clean results when zooming down to specific roads. The more you zoom in, the more streets you see. Google Maps also zooms in more than Earth, down to small sections of a city. Google Maps includes the Google Earth imagery and adds streets and highways since that is its primary purpose. Google Maps provides personalized directions to help guide you to your destination. Companies, travel sites, and more attach maps to their websites to show their location and how to get there. Google Maps is part of the bigger “Google Earth” program and is the most commonly used part of Google Earth. Before delving into how often Google Maps updates, you need to understand how it works-at least a little.

Google maps satellite view of my house