Celestia Forums

Howdy everyone,

Want to see your house, or just about anything else in the U.S.A., via aerial photography?

If you live in a U.S. city, the chances are good that you will find it at MapQuest via their new "aerial photo" tab/feature. There are definately some interesting sights to be seen as the examples below demonstrate. The various companies they get their imaging from also provide 1m and lower resolution photos for sale.

By saving a series of these photo sections to your computer, you can combine them later, into a large, single image that might be fun to use in Celestia via its new Virtual Texture functions. Obviously, anything you find and use would be for your personal use only (can't distribute to other people).

Have fun exploring our country!

-Don G.

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Kennedy Space Center, Shuttle/Booster assembly building:


KSC, south Shuttle launch pad:


Edwards is the secondary Shuttle landing site, right? If so, here is the strip:


Here are a couple of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada...
Landing strips: http://www.donandcarla.com/Celestia/cel_scripting/NellisAFB_IndianSprings_NV_2.jpg

A target on the bombing range:


Good old Washington D.C. ...
Capitol Building: http://www.donandcarla.com/Celestia/cel_scripting/DC_CapitalBldg.jpg

Washington Monument:


Entrance to NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain:


San Diego Harbor showing a couple of aircraft carriers and destroyers: http://www.donandcarla.com/Celestia/cel_scripting/SanDiegoHarbor_NavyShips.jpg

Three Mile Island: http://www.donandcarla.com/Celestia/cel_scripting/ThreeMileIsland.jpg

Groom Lake, Nevada (AKA "Area 51") look at the size of those runways!:

btw: is the truth about Area 51 known??? ca nsomeone told me what is believed happend there?

ElPelado wrote:btw: is the truth about Area 51 known??? ca nsomeone told me what is believed happend there?

Secret alien base definitely...
Some people claim that it is secret testing ground for new military flight technology, but we know the truth. (Only aliens build black triangle-shaped aircraft like the one some have seen there.)

ElPelado wrote:btw: is the truth about Area 51 known??? ca nsomeone told me what is believed happend there?

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has a decent web page here (http://www.fas.org/irp/overhead/groom.htm) about Groom Lake (Area 51).

Other than this web page, there are tens of thousands of "Area 51" web pages and sites on the web.

Now someone just needs to hook a DLer+Crop+stitcher in with the auto-VT linux script and we can have a full res picture of the US's populated areas in no time.

I was going to point this out, but it's too bad for the copyright notice.

Am I mis-reading the picture, or does the KSC photo show shadows being cast in multiple directions at the same time?

Tim Crews

you mis-read it: look at the tower with a "ball" at the top, see the sadow at almost 45?(top-right). it has only shadows in that direction.

MapQuest doesnt seem to have this feature unless Im looking in the wrong place...Besides the photos you have posted are from a different database...which isnt free...

Anonymous wrote:MapQuest doesnt seem to have this feature unless Im looking in the wrong place...Besides the photos you have posted are from a different database...which isnt free...

nm...You have to trick it if you choose a location it doesnt have in the database it doesnt show...but if you choose a major location near the area you want to see it works when you zoom into the area you really want

Anonymous wrote:MapQuest doesnt seem to have this feature unless Im looking in the wrong place...Besides the photos you have posted are from a different database...which isnt free...

If the address you enter does not provide a "Aerial Photo" tab in the upper lefthand corner, above the map window, try entering another address or using an address in a larger city. If you don't know an address in a major city, just enter the city and state name and then zoom in the street map until you find a street name. Determine if it is a N/S or E/W street and enter something like "300 NSEW (pick one) Street Name" for the address.

Once you get the Aerial Photo tab, you can use the zoom controls to go anywhere in the U.S. It does not go very far south into Mexico and I've not tried Canada yet.

All the photos above are directly from the free and publicly accessible MapQuest.com. They are not from any other database. So far, I have noticed that MapQuest uses photos from two (maybe more) different companies -- GlobeXplorer and another one I forgot the name of.

Have fun exploring the U.S.A.!

ElPelado wrote:you mis-read it: look at the tower with a "ball" at the top, see the sadow at almost 45?(top-right). it has only shadows in that direction.

I agree that the ball-tower has one shadow, and in fact all of the other buildings seem to be casting a single shadow to the "northeast" (assuming the top of the photo is north.) But for the central object, to me, I clearly see what looks like three triangular shadows, one pointing north-west, another east, and another east-southeast.

Admiteddly, this would be very strange behavior for any shadow unless the photo were taken from the extreme northern or southern latitudes.

I suppose the other clue that I might be wrong is that the three triangular shadows do not seem to originate from exactly the same point.

There must be some sort of ramps or something leading up to the launch pad that are creating these wedge-shaped shadows.

timcrews wrote:Am I mis-reading the picture, or does the KSC photo show shadows being cast in multiple directions at the same time?

Tim Crews

Looking at aerial photo maps is pretty strange at times. But, if you look at the other objects / buildings in the photo you will see only one shadow.

Better yet, take a look around the KSC yourself ... Here's a URL that will bring up Map Quest in Orlando Florida:
(http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?addtohistory=&country=US&address=500+e+pine+street&city=orlando&state=fl&zipcode=&historyid=&submit.x=0&submit.y=0).

When the Map Quest browser window opens ...

* Click the Aerial Photo tab above the map window
* Click the Zoom button directly to the right of the text "East" which is on the right border of the map window.
* Click inside the map directly to the left of the text "East", three times, waiting for the map to change each time.
* You should now be directly over the KSC.

Use the zoom and position controls to get your own views.

Have fun!

Anonymous wrote:Now someone just needs to hook a DLer+Crop+stitcher in with the auto-VT linux script and we can have a full res picture of the US's populated areas in no time.

I was going to point this out, but it's too bad for the copyright notice.

Since it costs a LOT of money to obtain aerial photos, I wouldn't dream of trying to map the population centers in this way. Aside from the massive storage space it would require, it would also require a VERY SMART set of programs to do it automatically. I ordered a one-meter resolution image from SpaceImaging.com that was slightly less than two square km and it is just over 6 MB (TIFF).

One of the companies that provides true color, one meter resolution photos via satellite (SpaceImaging.com), charges $20 (US) per square km for a digital image. Imagine what it would cost to get the map for just a single large city, like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.? OUCH!

I would guess that in a few years time, some of the older aerial photo sections of the USA will probably be made available to the public or special interest companies for free, with the newer images being a pay basis. Time will tell.

another good site is http://terraserver.microsoft.com

Anonymous wrote:another good site is http://terraserver.microsoft.com

Well, I'm not so sure about "good", as all the images of Washington, D.C. are from 1988, and most the others are from the 90's. Not to mention they are *all* black and white -- no color that I found.

So, if you like old black & white photos, then yes, this is a good site.

timcrews wrote:There must be some sort of ramps or something leading up to the launch pad that are creating these wedge-shaped shadows.

You mean like I've annotated in the following ...



They actually go under the launchpad so I would assume they are blast and exhaust exits for all the rockets.

You can see them better in the view of the north launchpad because the gantry is down instead of up.

Have fun!

-Don G.

Please gimme some virtual textures with those pictures

Please wrote:Please gimme some virtual textures with those pictures

In order to do that (distribute publicly), you would have to obtain written permission from the Copyright holder.

However, you can take your own screen shots, sew them together, and use them for your own personal use. Just don't distribute them without the Copyright holders permission, or you could get into a lot of legal trouble.

-Don G.