Google Satellite Imagery Updates

[flipper]

http://maps.live.com is awesome

Zoom around and post cool stuff!

Here's one: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...2&encType=1

flipper

Someone find a bigger swimming pool:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...1&encType=1

Edited February 12, 2008 by flipper

[gwilson]

http://maps.live.com is awesome

Zoom around and post cool stuff!

Here's one: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...2&encType=1

flipper

Someone find a bigger swimming pool:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...1&encType=1

I used to drive by that first house all the time when it was under construction a few years back. It was being built for one of the Enron guys I believe (the one that railroaded his bosses when he and his wife turned states).

That pool is part of a club house/community center I believe.

[ricco67]

If I remember correctly, Lanier lives on that street just a few houses down.

now THAT is a lovely house.

[HoustonRealtor]

I believe that the first one is actually Tilman Fertitta's house.

[Scott08]

The first one is definitely the Fertitta house (I guess you can use the term loosely). The second one is also someone's house, there are no community centers in that part of River Oaks. There are still some pretty big chunks of land back in there. For instance the Menil house is on 3 1/2 acres, somewhere in River Oaks is still an estate with about 7 acres. I remember reading that in the days before the River Oaks Country Club Tennis Center was big enough, some of the matches were played at this residence.

[KimberlySayWhat]

Does that pool have a trench extending from it or is that a separate pool? I can't tell because of the trees.

[cla]

That 2nd property with the large pool is owned by Gene Van Dyke - and it is residential property. HCAD labels the large pool a "pond" and there is a smaller pool behind the house, you can see it better if you look at the property from the north.

Edited February 12, 2008 by cla

[flipper]

5.1 acres:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...5&encType=1

flipper

[flipper]

Dern near 6 acres:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...9&encType=1

flipper

[marmer]

Dern near 6 acres:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...9&encType=1

flipper

Where you guys been? I've been doing birds-eye caps from maps.live.com (formerly Windows Live Local) for about the last 18 months! In recent months they have added lots more birds-eye areas (Pearland, Lake Jackson, etc.) Still not Sugar Land. :-\

The house and grounds shown in this picture is the famous John Staub house for Hugh Roy Cullen. It was extensively remodeled and re-landscaped (including the sunken pool terrace) by the James Flores family in the early 2000s after they bought it from Lynn and Oscar Wyatt. It is spectacular -- I went to a Christmas party there once and there were thousands of tiny light bulbs dangling in the trees.

Edited February 12, 2008 by marmer

[mkultra25]

That 2nd property with the large pool is owned by Gene Van Dyke - and it is residential property. HCAD labels the large pool a "pond" and there is a smaller pool behind the house, you can see it better if you look at the property from the north.

My wife attended a wedding reception there last year. I was kicking myself later for not going with her, as she said the house was incredible.

[wernicke]

Does this site not support Apple Computers? Cause I can't get any images...

[gwilson]

Does this site not support Apple Computers? Cause I can't get any images...

Use FireFox (www.mozilla.org) and you should be fine. Being as it is a Microsoft Live site, Safari probably doesn't work with it.

[marmer]

I can confirm this. I keep Firefox on my Mac just for maps.live.com. Firefox works fine, Safari doesn't work at all for maps.live.com

If you can get to a PC there's a cute 3D rendering engine for Windows that works with live.com and shows pretty impressive downtown views.

[flipper]

Stumbled across this place in Meyerland with a tennis court! Notice the house slightly NW too

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&...6&encType=1

flipper

Edited March 28, 2008 by flipper

[Jax]

I went to look at the Google Street View of downtown Houston today and to my surprise, many of the streets were missing. Now it just seems to include some street corners but not much else. Google Street View used to cover all of Downtown very well. Any idea what's going on? Why did they remove so much of it?

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9346/streetview.jpg

[LTAWACS]

Maybe some of the people captured in their views were supposed to be elsewhere and they complained.

[Jax]

Usually when that happens they just block out faces, not remove entire blocks.

There are more people walking around in NYC and San Francisco and the image quality is better in those cities too, and yet they cover the entire cities. Weird that much of Houston was removed.

[AtticaFlinch]

Usually when that happens they just block out faces, not remove entire blocks.

There are more people walking around in NYC and San Francisco and the image quality is better in those cities too, and yet they cover the entire cities. Weird that much of Houston was removed.

It seems to be just downtown too. The rest of Houston is fine.

[LTAWACS]

Maybe they realize it is pointless to include downtown because it's changing so much?

[kylejack]

Yeah, I noticed this several weeks ago. I've searched for an answer and checked the Google blog and I can't find anything on it. I hope they're not changing streetview to intersections only.

[sevfiv]

Medical Center, too:

[Jax]

They seem to have fixed downtown, but the TMC street view no longer exists nor does the Rice campus street view.

[SmellyHoustonian]

http://i.imgur.com/NQABfnz.gif?1

 

We spread like a virus to the north and to the west.

[august948]

Like a rose unfolding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wj3Uxbyuh4

Edited May 10, 2013 by august948

[mfastx]

Actually, Houston's sprawl is impressive, but not quite as extreme as some other cities in the last few decades, most notably Las Vegas.

[IronTiger]

I would say it's more like bacteria, as viruses don't replicate by themselves, and bacteria can easily multiply on a medium (sorry, just took a class in bacteriology)

[Slick Vik]

Lol

[livincinco]

That reminds me. I should go take some pictures of the Grand Parkway construction and post them.

[Purdueenginerd]

thats impressive. If you look closely you can see the some segments of beltway 8 complete themselves, and an eruption of sprawl afterwards.

 

Pretty impressive. 

[nolaboy]

I was looking at Google Maps at the area around the Palladium Theater and along Grand Parkway and noticed that when I am zoomed in sufficiently on "map" mode, the thumbnail for "earth" mode (which is satellite imagery) on the bottom left corner of my screen shows a more updated satellite imagery than whats shown when I actually click the "earth" button.

 

Both Google Earth and Google Maps with Satellite Imagery show imagery dated October 2012 for most of this area. Looking at the imagery in the thumbnail, it looks to be from October 2013 (or so I assume based on various developments not being quite December 2013 developed).

 

Here are some items that I see in the thumbnail, which are not currently shown in Google Earth or Google Maps Satellite view:

-- The new Long Meadow Farms development behind the Palladium and south of Beechnut.

-- Grand Mission Estates shows houses in the sections south of Mason/Bellaire (2012 imagery shows just roads and dirt in place of where houses now stand).

-- Grand Parkway overpasses are shown nearly complete at Belfort, Mason, Harlem, 1464/90, New Territory

-- Grand Parkway overpass at Riverpark now has concrete surface leading up to and away from the overpass that was built last year. 2012 imagery has the asphault(?) base without the concrete overlay.

-- New Belfort extension from Waterview Estates to Harlem

-- Extended S Mason Rd between (just south of) Grand Parkway, through Long Meadow Farms, up to FM 359 is now shown as either completed or with ground cleared (previously it was just a 2 lane road or just grass).

-- Neighborhood streets in new sections in various parts of the maps.

 

There is a jagged north-south seam (dark vs light) in the thumbnail shot for what seems to be a difference in imagery between Oct 2013/2012 at around Peek Rd, and I followed it north as far as the Houston Premium Outlets in Cypress and south to southwest freeway. It continues well past in both directions but I didn't care to continue further. I could not tell how far east the new imagery lasted, but I briefly looked at some areas I know of recent development on West Sam Houston Tollway, and I didn't see anything updated.

-- due to this "seam", only a portion of Grand Pkwy Segment E is shown, which is just north of Clay Rd, and through the parts that coincide with Stockdick School road up to approximately FM 529. As the road veers slightly west, it is no longer on the new side of the seam, and so the 99/290 interchange is not visible (according to Google Earth, this imagery is dated April 2012 so there is very very little development shown here).

 

--Additionally it looks like some of the on/off ramps at Clay Rd and FM 529 are starting to be drawn in on the maps view. So maybe the editors have activated the new imagery so it can be traced to show the Segment E that just opened??

 

I have attached the following, with various 2013 thumbnails superimposed over the 2012 screenshots. The thumbnails are very small and so you have to look very closely for the differences. Also, the zoom levels vary between all of the screenshots and thumbnails, so nothing is to scale, nor is it intended to be. I just threw this together to quickly share what I have seen.

 

1. A Google Earth screenshot of the 77407 zip code area with the October 2012 dates circled. Google Maps Satellite imagery is the same as this.

 

 

2. Google Maps Satellite screenshot of the Grand Pkwy / US 90 alternate area.

 

 

3. Grand Parkway Segment E between Clay Rd and FM 529. I'd like to point out that the thumbnail near Clay Rd only shows the north part of the overpass as completed, because this overpass is right on the seam between 2012/2013 imagery and it blends together very nicely, making it seem as if this overpass is incomplete. Look at this one carefully, its kind of cool.

 

 

4. A zoomed out thumbnail to show the jagged boundary between 2012/2013 imagery.

 

 

I assume that this is just a first pass of loading the new imagery, and Google is working on blending this imagery with the old imagery to make it look as seamless as the rest of the maps. Or maybe they are still loading imagery to the west, as there has been alot of development with the rest of Grand Pkwy, as well as the west side of Katy up to Fulshear.

 

I also assume that the "updated" imagery will be loaded soon when Google finishes blending the images together, and will also be used to trace over to show new roads.

 

I don't know how long any of this will be continue to be shown, but I have created the attachements to show what it looks like right now. All of this can either go away back to the

 

*** Also note that I am using the "new" Google Maps website that was released in recent months. The "old" version didn't show a thumbnail of the Earth/Satellite view, as far as I am aware. So if you do not see what I am looking at, you probably are using the old version, which is the default***

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2013 by nolaboy

[brijonmang]

Cool info and thanks for taking the time to do this. I noticed recently that they had updated some imagery on the west side of Cinco Ranch. (I have a few projects going on over there and from what I can tell the imagery was from around June)

[nolaboy]

Imagery is now live on the Google maps mobile app. It is not updated on the website yet. ExxonMobil's campus looks great in the updates. You can see the surrounding areas clearing ground. You can also see ground clearance for Grand Pkwy Segment F2.

 

Edited December 24, 2013 by nolaboy

[brijonmang]

I just checked it out myself...very recent for downtown.  As in, the Macy's building is just dirt.

[IronTiger]

So, the Houston area imagery is on the verge of updating for other things? Very cool!

Some things I'm checking out now:

- The Barker Cypress loops are done.

- The fast foods near Beltway 8 are completely gone, just mud pits. Glad I saw them when I did.

- Southwest Inn isn't gone, I heard it was demolished, but only the facade was. Most of the hotel is still intact.

- Montrose Fiesta is gone.

- Some cleared 290 ROW closest to Loop 610.

- More light rail built.

Hope to see it on other devices soon!

Edited December 26, 2013 by IronTiger

[IronTiger]

Also: it looks like they've rebuilt/extensively renovated the Midtown McDonald's (next to the Pierce Elevated). When did this happen?! It still had the mansard roof when I went through last August.

[nolaboy]

It's odd that neither Google Maps website or Google Earth have the updated imagery that the Android app version has been showing for almost two weeks now.

[brijonmang]

It's odd that neither Google Maps website or Google Earth have the updated imagery that the Android app version has been showing for almost two weeks now.

 

I have the updated imagery when I look at google maps from my desktop this afternoon.

[nolaboy]

Thats interesting. I see the updated imagery now as well on my PC. It must have updated shortly after my post.

[cloud713]

I was noticing the new light rail track construction a couple days ago when I was looking around on the maps.. Very cool. I wish it was updated when you zoom all the way in though, that still shows up older.

[SkylineView]

Google maps has new satellite imagery (looks like Oct 2013 to me).  Stretches from across Houston out to about Mason road (part of the new 99 sneaks a little cameo in up north... otherwise it's not included).  A few of the more interesting things to check out...

 

1. Exxon Mobil campus & Spring Village construction - Nice mosaic on the parking garages

2. 610 between 290 and I-10 - wiiiiiiiiiiiide

3. Galleria / Uptown new build

4. Energy corridor new build

5. Airport terminal B

 

Great time waster at work.

 

[Triton]

It can't be October 2013, can it? There seems to be a few things missing. When did Grand Parkway start near I-45? I thought that construction would be there by now.

[IronTiger]

There was a thread on this already (merge?) but today it was added to things like Google Earth, regular Google Maps, and applications that use Google imagery. For some reason, the new imagery makes me a little depressed. No Macy's...they clear-cut the area at 290 and 1960...more mansard roof McDonald's gone...290 demolition has begun...and the imagery cuts off at around 99 and 290, so you can't see the new interchange there.

[Triton]

Odd, I'm really not seeing what you guys see. Wish I did.

 

Edit: Based on Google, there has been no recent update? http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&id=47347118232

 

If there is an update, I want to see the nearly finished Grand Parkway from I10 to 290.

 

Edit 2: Okay, don't know what I did, but I can at least view it in Google Maps now.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Triton

[boounce]

Google has a tendency to serve different results to different folks.  I had to use the proposed FIMA flood maps for the most recent imagery.

 

 

http://maps.riskmap6.com/TX/Montgomery/

 

[Urbannizer]

Same topics combined, and moved to GHD now that the updated satellite imagery includes more than the Katy area.

[IronTiger]

Actually, it DOESN'T cover Katy, it cuts off just west of Mason Road.

[brijonmang]

Looks like they have updated it again for the Houston area.  Looks to be within the last couple months.

[plumber2]

I have actually seen aircraft in some Google imagery, but as you zoom down on top them they disappear. There was an aircraft over the intersection of OST and Griggs for sometime, it is now gone. A larger passenger jet showed up over Mykawa and Dixie Dr. but it is no longer there either, and didn't stay posted for long.

[OkieEric]

I'm guessing others have noticed this, but just in case you haven't google street view now has a time lapse feature.  It was announced earlier in the week but didn't become active for Houston until the last couple of days.  Downtown and other major areas of course have the most available historical data (back to 2007).  2007 of course was pre-Ike so it can make for some interesting comparisons in places like Galveston...or of course in areas that have undergone significant development in the last 7 years