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+--- Thread: Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention (/showthread.php?tid=2739)
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Weltall - 6th April 2005
http://www.keyhole.com/
Keyhole is this awesome program from Google that uses global satellite imagery to allow you to see a realtime map of anyplace on earth. In major metropolitan areas, you can see every single detail of the city, down to cars parked in parking lots. I used it to see lazy's apartment, since Orlando is one of the cities that has complete imaging. Its not free, but I may just end up buying it, because it's so much fun to play with.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 6th April 2005
Pfft, I can already do that at work. :p
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - EdenMaster - 6th April 2005
You weren't kidding, Ryan. This is a fun little toy! Not exactly "realtime" though. Oh well, it's still cool! I've found my brothers house in Pittsburgh, revisited Las Vegas, attempted to see my house (saw trees instead :D). You can even see Ground Zero in New York City.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Smoke - 7th April 2005
I've played with this before and it is indeed very cool. I even saw it used on VH1's show "The Fabulous Life Of..." to show the homes of the celebrities.
BTW I never really cared about not having a lot of nice stuff before watching "The Fabulous Life Of...". Now I want a Bentley with 17 inch rims. MTV and it's spawn VH1 really are the bane of society.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Dark Jaguar - 7th April 2005
Yeah, it can only be "real time" if there is actually a camera aimed at that part of the planet right then. Since we can't DO that right now (just imagine all the crossed orbits, with some heading at a few times the speed of sound reletive to others, well, satalites smash each other up every now and then, so we have to keep the number down and make sure nothing flakes off of them. Even a paint chip at 5x Sound Speed causes catastrophic explosions on contact.
Yeah, checking my coordinates only nets me an empty lot next to the highway right now. Well, most of the houses here were actually only built a few years ago, so that's not a surprise.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Great Rumbler - 7th April 2005
There's another site like that, although it's not in color and the images are quite a few years old, but it is free.
http://www.terraserver.com
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
Quote:Yeah, it can only be "real time" if there is actually a camera aimed at that part of the planet right then. Since we can't DO that right now
What are you talking about?
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Dark Jaguar - 7th April 2005
Oh sorry OB1. This site gives you a photograph of whatever coordinates you punch into it, based on it's records. Weltall thought it was real time. It's not though, and I was just explaining why, because we don't have cameras aimed at every single spot on earth at the same time, and we can't do that either. The best we can do is create a large archive from when the cameras pointed at us ARE above certain locations. Oh yes, this also means not EVERY spot you can punch in there is recorded, only the spots with a satellite above them (or on a non-geosyncronous orbit that will eventually pass over it).
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
Yes I know what the site is about, but I was puzzled by your comment. There are plenty of satellites that stay over the same sector 24/7. I use data from such satellites at my work every day. GOES, they're called. I personally only use data from the ones that cover North and Central America, but there are many others. I mainly deal with low-resolution (1KM) images.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Dark Jaguar - 7th April 2005
Yeah, but they don't cover the entire planet in full zoom 24/7, just the areas their orbits lock them over, which are pretty wide and all, but still. Point is, most of the photos you can find on these sites are out of date. Some are updated every minute on the minute, but places like where I live are lucky to get an update once every 5 years.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. The data I get from the satellites are very large, most of them covering the entire side of the globe that they're facing. Which is why subsecting is needed. Here, take a look at my work's website: http://www.cira.colostate.edu/index.html
See that big picture of earth there? That's a zoomed out, decompressed channel one (VIS: B&W 1KM data) AREA file, most likely from GOES-10 (west). The 1KM stands for one pixel per kilometer.
I've had to look at many severe weather cases in Oklahoma. You guys get some really bad hail... :D
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Laser Link - 7th April 2005
What DJ means is that you can't have a satellite for every person who happens to be using the program at the time. So yes there are satellites that the gov can control to do real time surveillance, there are not millions of satellites sitting around waiting for Joe Foobar to go searching the neighborhood for his missing cat.
And forget Keyhole. I saw that a year ago, and the free demo is nifty. But now there is something even better: maps.google.com. I don't know if google bought Keyhole (I didn't know they were related, I don't think they were a year ago), or how the whole thing works, but amazingly enough I think this is a much better app that Keyhole. That was slow and clunky, and this is very fast. You can even search for a place or thing, and it pulls up the top few matches, displays them on the map, and pull up a website related to it. Pretty sweet, and something I've been wasting a lot of time over the past couple days with.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Laser Link - 7th April 2005
I can't remember if Keyhole had 3D or not, but the google maps do not. Still, if I don't remember if Keyhole had 3D or not, it must not have been that exciting. And the google one is currently only North America. I'm sure that will change soon.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
Quote:What DJ means is that you can't have a satellite for every person who happens to be using the program at the time. So yes there are satellites that the gov can control to do real time surveillance, there are not millions of satellites sitting around waiting for Joe Foobar to go searching the neighborhood for his missing cat.
Ah, I see what she means now. But that's not actually true. When it comes to letting the public use it, however, the reasons are not really technical. :)
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Laser Link - 7th April 2005
Sure, there is the security reason but that could easily be stopped by simply not displaying any information at certain coordinates. Just try to find a satellite map of Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD for those who don't know). And there are privacy issues. But there is also the technical issue of not flying millions of satellites.
Actually, I take that back. You actually can see Cheyenne Mountain on maps.google. You can even get a close up of the tunnel and the parking lot where they wait for the shuttle. Wow, that must have been declassified recently because it didn't use to be the case.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
You don't need a million satellites. Just a few satellites at different places around the globe, with very high resolution imagery. Then you subsect from there. :) A million satellites, one for each square mile, wouldn't be very practical. :D
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Laser Link - 7th April 2005
But what if User A wants to look at one street in Colorado Springs and User B wants to look at another?
Hmmm, maybe that's the problem. I was thinking there is some mechanical zooming function on the satelites so they could only be pointed at a specific location at one time, but it is probably not mechanical but a digital zoom. In which case I see exactly what you are saying Obi.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - OB1 - 7th April 2005
Precisely. The way the GOES satellites work is that you get really huge, compressed images of the entire globe that you have to decompress and subsect in order to get specific sectors over wherever you want.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - The Former DMiller - 7th April 2005
Google Maps does use Keyhole technology, which Google bought a while ago. It doesn't zoom in quite as far, but it's still pretty cool.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Great Rumbler - 7th April 2005
Does Google Maps is pretty cool, but it doesn't have real images.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - The Former DMiller - 7th April 2005
It does now. A week or so ago they created an option to view the maps in a new satellite view.
Keyhole: The latest toy that stole my attention - Weltall - 7th April 2005
I have to clarify. I knew before that the maps were not updated in real-time, some of the images are years old. I was referring more to the actual operation of the program, and not the map images, though I admit it was poor phrasing on my part.