Maps Google (Google Maps). Google Maps (Google Maps) Best Satellite Map

They allow obtaining spatial information about the earth's surface in the visible and infrared ranges of electromagnetic wave lengths. They are able to recognize the passive reflected radiation of the earth's surface in the visible and near infrared ranges. In such systems, the radiation falls on the appropriate sensors that generate electrical signals depending on the intensity of the radiation.

In optical-electronic remote sensing systems, as a rule, sensors with constant progressive scanning are used. Can be distinguished linear, transverse and longitudinal scanning.

The total scanning angle across the path is called the angle of view, and the corresponding value on the surface of the Earth is called shooting bandwidth.

The part of the data stream received from the satellite is called the scene. Schemes for cutting the stream into scenes, as well as their size for different satellites, have differences.

Optoelectronic remote sensing systems conduct surveys in the optical range of electromagnetic waves.

Panchromatic images occupy almost the entire visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum (0.45-0.90 microns), therefore they are black and white.

Multispectral(multizone) imaging systems form several separate images for wide spectral bands ranging from visible to infrared electromagnetic radiation. The greatest practical interest at the moment is represented by multispectral data from new-generation spacecraft, including RapidEye (5 spectral zones) and WorldView-2 (8 zones).

Satellites of the new generation of high and ultra-high resolution, as a rule, are shooting in panchromatic and multispectral modes.

Hyperspectral shooting systems form images simultaneously for narrow spectral zones in all parts of the spectral range. For hyperspectral imaging, it is not the number of spectral zones (channels) that is important, but the width of the zone (the smaller, the better) and the sequence of measurements. So, a survey system with 20 channels will be hyperspectral if it covers the range of 0.50-070 μm, while the width of each spectral zone is not more than 0.01 μm, and a survey system with 20 separate channels covering the visible region of the spectrum , near, shortwave, mid and longwave infrared regions, will be considered multispectral.

Spatial resolution— a value that characterizes the size of the smallest objects distinguishable in the image. The factors affecting the spatial resolution are the parameters of the optoelectronic or radar system, as well as the height of the orbit, that is, the distance from the satellite to the object being photographed. The best spatial resolution is achieved when surveying at nadir, while deviating from nadir, the resolution deteriorates. Satellite images can have low (more than 10 m), medium (from 10 to 2.5 m), high (from 2.5 to 1 m), and ultra-high (less than 1 m) resolution.

Radiometric resolution is determined by the sensitivity of the sensor to changes in the intensity of electromagnetic radiation. It is determined by the number of gradations of color values ​​corresponding to the transition from the brightness of absolutely "black" to absolutely "white", and is expressed in the number of bits per pixel of the image. This means that in the case of a radiometric resolution of 6 bits / pixel, we have a total of 64 color gradations, 8 bits / pixel - 256 gradations, 11 bits / pixel - 2048 gradations.

Google Maps is a leader among modern mapping services that provide satellite interactive maps online. At least the leader in the field of satellite imagery and in the number of various additional services and tools (Google Earth, Google Mars, various weather and transport services, one of the most powerful APIs).

In the field of schematic maps, at some point, this leadership was “lost” in favor of Open Street Maps, a unique Wikipedia-style mapping service where each volunteer can enter data on the site.

However, despite this, the popularity of Google Maps remains perhaps one of the highest of all other mapping services. Part of the reason is that it is in Google Maps that we can find the most detailed satellite photos for the most extensive regions of any country. Even in Russia, such a large and successful company as Yandex cannot surpass the quality and coverage of satellite photographs, at least in their own country.

With Google Maps, anyone can view satellite photos of the Earth for free from almost anywhere in the world.

Image quality

The highest resolution images are usually available for the largest cities in the world in America, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Asia, Oceania. Currently, high-quality imagery is available for cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. For smaller cities and other localities, satellite images are only available in limited resolution.

Capabilities

Google Maps or "Google Maps" was a real discovery for Internet users and indeed for all PC users, giving an unheard of and unprecedented opportunity to look at their home, their village, cottage, lake or river where they rested in the summer - from a satellite. To see it from above, from such an angle, from which it would be impossible to see it under any other circumstances. The discovery, the very idea of ​​giving people easy access to satellite photographs, fits harmoniously into the overall Google concept of "easy access to all users to any information on the planet."

Google Maps allows you to see from the satellite at the same time those things and objects that cannot be observed at the same time when observed from the ground. Satellite maps differ from conventional maps in that on simple maps, the colors and natural shapes of natural objects are distorted by editorial processing for further publication. However, all the naturalness of nature and shooting objects, natural colors, shapes of lakes, rivers, fields and forests are preserved in satellite photographs.

Looking at the map, one can only guess what is there: a forest, a field or a swamp, while on a satellite photo it is immediately clear: objects are usually round or oval in shape of a unique marsh color and there are swamps. Light green patches or areas in the photo are fields, while dark green are forests. With sufficient experience of orientation in Google Maps, you can even distinguish between coniferous forest or mixed: coniferous has a more brown tint. Also on the map you can distinguish specific broken lines piercing the forests and fields of the vast Russian expanses - these are railways. Only by looking from a satellite can one understand that railways affect the natural landscape that surrounds them much more than roads. Also, in Google Maps, it is possible to overlay maps with the names of regions, roads, settlements on a national scale and the names of streets, house numbers, metro stations on a city scale on a satellite image of an area or city.

Map Mode and Satellite View Mode

In addition to satellite images, it is possible to switch to the "map" mode, in which it is possible to view any territory on the Earth's surface or to study in detail the layout and location of houses in any more or less large city. In the "map" mode, it is especially convenient to plan moving around the city if you have already seen enough satellite views of your city.

The search function by house number will easily point you to the desired house, giving you the opportunity to "look around" the area around this house and how you can drive up / approach it. To search for the required object, it is enough to type in Russian in the search bar a query like: "City, street, house number" and the site will show you the location of the object you are looking for with a special marker.

How to use Google Maps

To get started, open a location.

To move around the map, left-click on the map and drag it in any order. To return to the original position, press the centering button located between the four direction buttons.

To enlarge the map - click on the button "+" or roll the mouse roller when the cursor is over the map. You can also enlarge the map double click mice in the place you are interested in.

To switch between satellite, mixed (hybrid) view and map, use the corresponding buttons in the upper right corner of the map: Map / Satellite / Hybrid.

Google Maps is one of the most popular services today. It provides users with the opportunity to observe our planet (and not only) from a satellite online at high quality and in real time (the sights of the planet in). At some point, after all, the championship of the schematic map view was intercepted by the Open Street Maps application. Where everyone in the know can edit a Wikipedia-style map, but this does not change anything, and today Google Maps is the most popular online map service. The popularity of the cards of this company has been in the first place for many years due to the good quality of satellite images in any corner of the planet, even Yandex could not provide such quality in its homeland.

Google Maps Online

Quality of Google Maps satellite images in 2020

Google continues to improve its brainchild in the form of visualization of our planet, improving the quality and detail of surfaces. More recently, the company has improved its services using the new Landsat 8 satellite, which can photograph the surface of the planet Earth with a resolution of 15/30/100 meters per elementary point. The real-time satellite imagery database was only updated in 2013 before. At that time, the application used images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite, which is also known for introducing some bugs and crashes into the maps. To compare the quality of images taken by different satellites, pay attention to the screen below.

Images taken by different satellites

In the examples on the screen, you can see that the image of the new satellite shows not only improved detail of terrestrial objects, but also more natural colors. Google representatives announced that about 700 trillion pixels of graphic data have been spent on collecting a new generation of mosaics of the earth's surface. Almost 43 thousand of the most powerful computers in the Google cloud worked for a week on gluing pictures.

How to use Google Maps online

You can use Google Maps online in high quality anywhere in the world using your tablet, mobile phone or computer. Just follow the link https://google.com/maps/ or use the built-in map below and you can find the country, city and even the way to the museum by specifying the desired search parameters. And for mobile devices, you can download a special application that is more convenient to use.

To find your way to a laundromat or cafe that you often visit - just enter the addresses in the program line and you will no longer need to enter this data every time. At the same time, you can not only view the paved road to the institution, but also get acquainted with the information that relates to this institution, for example, opening hours, contact details, etc.

Let's use an example to use a map from Google from satellite 2020.

1. Go to the website or open the app on your mobile device.
2. You just need to point with the cursor or touch on the touch screen, and you can view the details of this site.
3. In order to find out the distance between cities, right-click on one of them and select "Measure distance" from the drop-down menu. Now the second point can be specified with the left mouse button. If necessary, the point can be dragged with the mouse to another location, the distance information will be updated.
4. To select the mode "Relief", "Bicycle paths", "Traffic jams" - select the menu sign (three bars) and press the desired option. If you are using Apple devices, click on the diamond icon with the layer and also on the desired option.
5. To take advantage of high quality 3D images, click on the square in the lower left corner. It will say "Satellite", if you need to return to map mode, press it again.
6. To select the Street View mode, drag the yellow man to the desired area of ​​the map, or simply enter the exact location in the query bar, preferably with a home address.
7. High-resolution Google Maps allows you to view streets in historical mode, i.e. how they have changed over time. To do this, throw the little man on the right place on the map. Select the clock icon and move the time slider to select the desired date.

Surprising Facts About Google Maps

Features and benefits of online maps in real time

From the first days of Google Maps have become a discovery for all users. They made it possible to look at the cards in a new way, to pay attention to this instrument in a new way. Everyone who accessed the Internet back in 2005 sought to immediately use online maps and see their city or country from a satellite.

It seems unthinkable, but today it is possible to view other planets of the solar system in the Google Maps application!

Planets in Google Maps

To do this, go to the web version of the program and move the image of the Earth to the maximum with the mouse wheel. Other planets will appear on the left in the block, which you can select to view. There are all the planets of the solar system and a few more of their satellites. For example, Callisto is a moon of Jupiter. True, the pictures do not allow us to view other planets as closely and in detail as it happens with the Earth.

Google maps from satellite in 2019 will allow you to view the surface of the earth and settlements in excellent quality, which cannot be done using a regular map. When compiling paper and other versions of maps, natural colors, clear contours of the banks of rivers, lakes, coloring of land areas and other color schemes are omitted, which is why we have poor orientation. Looking at the desert area on a regular map, one can only guess what kind of vegetation or terrain is there. Turning to Google Maps in real time, you can even see the color and shape of the fence at any address on another continent.

5 weird places you can see on Google Maps

Many users would like to enjoy a satellite map of Russia online, see some memorable places that are associated with a lot of bright and colorful memories. This can be helped by various network services that provide such an opportunity in real time. In this article, I will tell you where on the network you can look at maps of Russia from a satellite, and which network services are the best in 2019.

What should be kept in mind when using satellite maps of Russia 2019?

On the network you can find a large number of services that provide the ability to view the territory of Russia using satellite photos. The whole variety of such services should not be misleading - most of them use the API from Google Maps, some use the capabilities of Yandex.Maps, and a few use Bing maps from Microsoft.

Working with such services is quite simple.

At the same time, a number of services (the same Google Maps and Yandex.Maps) allow you to use the "street view" mode, in which you can virtually walk along the selected streets, enjoying the view around you.

Consider services that allow us to see a map of Russia from a satellite online.

Google Maps - view the cities of Russia from the satellite

The most popular mapping service in the world for 2019 is Google Maps. It includes a mode of displaying the territory of the Earth from a satellite, a street map (including a 360-degree panoramic view). Also, the state of street traffic in real time, the laying of optimal routes (for a pedestrian, a cyclist, a car driver), and other convenient features. To view the most popular and beautiful places on our planet, Google has created a service in which a panoramic view is available.

In order to open a map of Russia from a satellite in Google Maps, switch to the satellite map display mode at the bottom left. Then, in the search bar, enter the name of the toponym you need in Russia, and press enter (or find it with the mouse).

To turn on the street view mode, there is a button with a drawn yellow man on the bottom right.

Yandex.Maps - the best satellite map of Russia

Yandex.Maps is one of the most popular mapping services in Russia. Its popularity among the Russian audience is not surprising - the service boasts the highest frequency of data updates for Russia compared to competitors (which is especially important for displaying traffic jams). At the same time, in addition to satellite maps and the “Street Panoramas and Photos” mode (similar to Google’s street view mode), its functionality includes a tool called “People’s Map”, which is a crowdsourcing data collection system in which each user can edit the map (with moderation condition).

1. To view Russia from a satellite, go to the yandex.ru service.
2. In the search bar on the left, you can enter the data of the geographic location you need, or find the institution you need nearby by clicking on the appropriate button.
3. To switch to street view mode, click on the "Street panorama and photos" button at the bottom right.

The initial screen of the service from "Yandex" makes it possible to quickly find the desired institution nearby

Infokart.ru - a detailed map with a view of the streets and houses

The domestic service infokart.ru is good, first of all, because it combines on one page of the site both the functionality of the Bing satellite maps from Microsoft and the maps of the non-commercial web-map project OpenStreetMap.org, allowing you to view maps of Russia from a satellite online.

By going to the infokart.ru service page, you can enjoy both satellite maps of Russia and a detailed map of many Russian cities.

Wikimapia with details to cities and houses

The international project "Wikimapia" is an online geographic encyclopedia that combines the API from "Google.Maps" with the principle of free data editing adopted in Wikipedia. The founders of the project were domestic developers Alexander Koryakin and Evgeny Savelyev in 2006. Now the project unites more than 2.5 million users who have entered information about tens of millions of objects into the system database.

The goal of the project is to collect and organize data on geographical objects, information about which can be obtained by anyone.

1. To work with the site, go to the site wikimapia.org.
2. Select the Russian interface from above (instead of EN - RU), then in the search bar on the right, enter the name of the object you need to view it.
3. To enter your own data (the "Add object" button), or edit existing ones (the "Edit" button), you will need to register in the system.
4. The "Categories" button will allow you to search for the desired category (shops, stadiums, hotels, parks, and so on).

Maps-online.ru - cataloged map service

A feature of the maps-online.ru card service is properly cataloged information. When you go to the resource, you can select the region of Russia you need, then the district, and the locality.

In the process of viewing, you can also choose which satellite maps you need - from Google or from Yandex.

Conclusion

With the help of the services I have listed, you can easily view maps of Russia from a satellite online. It will be enough for you to launch the service you like, type the name of the desired settlement in the search box, and then view the resulting image by zooming in or out with the mouse wheel. To display Russia, I can recommend maps from Yandex 2019 - they have a high level of detail and a good frequency of updated data.

For free observation of the Earth's surface and viewing satellite images online, you can use several applications. In Russia, two of them are the most popular: Google Maps and Yandex Maps. Both services boast good quality satellite imagery in high resolution for most countries.

Yandex maps is an online application from Russian developers, so the cities of Russia are more accurately worked out in it. It has built-in functionality for viewing traffic congestion data (large settlements), demographic and geodata. Google maps have no less high-quality satellite images of the territory of the Russian Federation, but data on land and traffic are available only for the United States.

Watch a map of Planet Earth from a satellite online

Below you can see the Google map embedded on the site. For more stable operation of the plugin, we recommend using the Google Chrome browser. If you see an error message, then update the specified plugin, then reload the page.

Watch Google Earth from satellite, in real time online:

Another advantage of Google Maps is the presence of a client application for working with satellite images. This means that access to the service can be obtained not only through a browser, but also through a previously downloaded program. It has much more opportunities for viewing and studying satellite images, working with a three-dimensional virtual globe.

Google 3D satellite map (downloadable app, not online version) allows you to:

• use a quick search for the desired objects by name or coordinates;
• take screenshots and record high quality videos;
• work offline (preliminary synchronization via the Internet is required);
• use a flight simulator for more convenient movement between objects;
• save "favorite places" for quick movement between them;
• view not only the Earth's surface, but also images of other celestial bodies (Mars, the Moon, etc.).

You can work with Google satellite maps through a client application or a browser. A plug-in is available on the official page of the program that allows you to use an interactive map on any web resource. It is enough to embed its address in the program code of the site. For display, you can select both the entire surface and a specific area (you will have to enter the coordinates). Management - using a computer mouse and keyboard (ctrl + mouse wheel to zoom, cursor to move) or using the icons indicated on the map ("plus" - zoom in, "minus" - zoom out, move with the cursor).

The Google Earth real-time service allows you to work with several types of maps, each of which reflects certain data on satellite images. It is convenient to switch between them “without losing progress” (the program remembers where you “were”). Available view modes:

• satellite landscape map (geographical objects, features of the Earth's surface);
• physical map (detailed satellite images of the surface, cities, streets, their names);
• schematic geographic map for a more accurate study of surface images.

A satellite image is automatically uploaded at the point of approach, so a stable Internet connection is required to work. To use Google Earth offline, you need to download an application for Windows or another operating system. Its operation also requires the Internet, but only for the first launch, after which the program synchronizes all the necessary data (satellite images of the surface, 3D models of buildings, names of geographical and other objects), after which it will be possible to work with the received data without direct access to the Internet.