Comments on: Satellite imagery of urban Australia?

Question: Satellite imagery of urban Australia?

sjvilla79 — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 05:50:23 -0800

Anyone know a good resource for free and/or paid access to satellite imagery of urban Australia?

I'd like to be able to look up where I live (Melbourne, Australia) with similar functionality to Google Maps and the newly introduced satellite imagery enhanced features of that site. I'd also be happy to pay if required.

The results of my searching revealed that TerraServer.com have something planned. Oh and Google's acquired product Keyhole doesn't do Australia yet either. Surely I'm missing something obvious here. Please enlighten me as I attempt to redeem myself in MeFi land.

By: ebeeb

ebeeb — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 06:23:37 -0800

NASA has a really neat little program called World Wind that you can download for free. Here's what the website says:

World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara.

It's kind of cool.

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 07:09:50 -0800

City2See is okay; it currently does Melbourne and Canberra. I wouldn't go as far as paying for one of the images though - I did and was disappointed with the quality.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:07:46 -0800

If you can live with just bare maps try giving the city a call. Around here most municipalities have air photos taken on a regular basis to catch illegal development. You can usually buy either dead tree printouts (cheap) or digital files (more expensive but still usually not bad). As a bonus you'll get better resolution than most satallite stuff.

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:33:43 -0800

I think you're looking for the wrong thing. Aerial survey photography is better for this kind of thing, and the last two cities I've lived in (in New Zealand and the USA) both had this stuff online, much like terranova, only they go to a far greater level of detailed (we could see our car in the drive with the boot open), and they usually have an option to overlay the streetmaps onto it at the click of a button. Sometimes access isn't free, sometimes it is. Depends on the local council/company doing it.

By: sjvilla79

sjvilla79 — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 06:32:51 -0800

Thanks for the answers guys.

By: Good Brain

Good Brain — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 09:57:53 -0800

World wind is cool. However, I was just reading their forums. apparently good high-res aerial and satellite imagery of AU is much harder to come by than similar data for the US. In the US, the government pretty much gives it away. In AU, the government tries to recover costs and so charges a fair amount for it.

By: sjvilla79

sjvilla79 — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:56:42 -0800

Yeah, we're a stingy bunch over here. I am yet to download World Wind, though.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:33:56 -0800

This company may be able to help. They have a reseller in Melbourne too. Looks like it might be pricey though.