One drawback from Google Earth has always been that if you pull the view back far enough, the terrain begins to look like a scene from Minecraft. Well, no longer! With the version 6.2 update, Google Earth looks even more like the real thing.
Google Earth’s imagery is built from an amalgamation of satellite and aerial shots taken under various conditions and stitched together. This results in the “patchy” long-range view. With version 6.2, Google has introduced a new smoothing algorithm that will normalise the various individual pictures and eliminate the seams. In additon, Google Earth now features a drop-down menu that allows you to share your armchair adventures with people in your Google+ circles. [Google Blog via Electronista]
light487
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 3:24 PMSo this is only Google Earth and not Google Maps (Satellite) view as well? Not trying to be negative but I hardly ever use Earth but often use Maps in Satellite mode.
james
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 3:46 PMthe patchiness was handy in areas where the highest level of detail (read: close up prettyness) was a combination of aerial and satellite sourced imagery (country western australia), because you knew not to bother zooming in if it was satellite
Michael
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:03 PMSeems to also be working in older versions, so it looks like the server is doing all this, so can’t see how hard it is to do it in google maps, but I guess they are testing it as more people use maps for more common things like navigation and would be ticked off if it bricked their use.
Marrowmaw
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:02 PMJust an update to there server side image tiles by the looks of it.
anonymous
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:22 PMthey missed a spot on Savannah GA