Wednesday, July 15, 2009

New Google Earth hires data for Thailand

Yesterday Google rolled out another update of their imaginary in Google Earth. I tried to look myself if I can spot newly covered areas myself, but only noticed that the Tai Rom Yen national park in Surat Thani now has hires data - but that's almost only jungle. When Google today officially announced the areas updated they for the first time provided a KML file which marks all the updated areas (kudos to Google Earth Blog who featured it), especially as in the official announcement no mention of Thailand at all.

It turns out that I was right with the national park, which in fact was the only update for all of southern Thailand. What I missed was a strip southeast of Sisaket including Khun Han district, the center of Amnat Charoen province and Tha Pla district in Uttaradit. Thus only a small update, but now another 5 district articles on Wikipedia got their location exactly pinpointed to the district office, and one more city pillar shrine added in my Lak Mueang map.

2 comments:

Ben Shingleton said...

When I first came to Thailand hardly any of the area where we live was visible on older versions of Google Earth, but is now all pretty much covered, and crystal clear!

Harry Bonning said...

Living in Koh Samui I regularly check for Google Earth updates which sadly have been few. The existing coverage is generally about 4-5 years old and with the development that has occurred since then, well out of date. There is a facility to advise Google Earth of outdated coverage and I have used that but to not effect so far. Also try PointAsia.com which has similar views but with different cloud cover.