Blue and red roofs in Beijing?

June 30, 2009 7:45 AM

Look at GoogleMaps over Beijing. About a quarter of the buildings have rooftops that are red or blue. And the color is really strong in comparison to everything else. Has the image been colored, or are they just painted? Either way... Why?
posted by molecicco to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

I fly into Beijing pretty much every week. They aren't painted. It's the roofing systems used on many buildings. I can't tell you "why" though. Same thing, btw over Shanghai and other China cities.
posted by michswiss at 8:05 AM on June 30

Ok thanks. Funny, I have flown into Beijing twice and never noticed. And somehow, on the Googlemaps image, it looks like someone colored them with MS Paint's spraypaint-tool.
posted by molecicco at 8:43 AM on June 30

Sometimes the orthophoto sets have color saturation issues. The old (2005?) Pittsburgh sets used to also have very strong reds and blues (even more noticeable than what I see of the google maps Beijing photos). I'm not sure what is the reason behind it, but it's not anything Google is doing, at least.
posted by that girl at 6:38 PM on June 30