On July 30, the Sri Lankan air force bombed what they allege is a Tamil Tiger training camp, and released the video. Bloggers (and the local media) have been quick to locate the spot on Google Earth, where you can see high resolution imagery taken from 2003, before structures on the location were built.
Here is the Google Map of the place:
Here is a still from the military-supplied video. Click to see the YouTube video:
I went looking at Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s imagery to see if they might have more recent hi-res imagery, but both maxed out at 15 meters per pixel. It’s in places like these, not in cities, where I get impressed when there is sub-meter resolution, even if it’s from 2003. This is one more reason why globally Google Earth and Map’s uptake is so much higher than the competition.
Hi thank you for the link and the mention :D
Yes Google is very good at putting out high resolution images off off the road places. Even in an off the road place like Sri Lanka.
I’ve been posting Google Earth images of Sri Lanka’s war zones (and a few non war zones) for a while now. Mostly in the futile hope of adding some context using satellite photos.
For most people in Sri Lanka, the conflict areas in Sri Lanka’s war are a soup of Tamil place names in the propagandistic language of government and LTTE terrorist news releases. This is the closest I can get to sharing what those places look like. if it means anything :)
Most of the time I’m quite impressed by the image quality of fairly obscure place. Of course the high res coverage isn’t complete but I think this might something to do with the satellite coverage of the country.
Installations on both sides of Sri Lanka war – like this Sri Lanka airforce forward airfield as well as this terrorist air strip – are in the high resolution “zones”. Which makes me think that political interference is a not an issue.
All these reasons along with the time issue made me give up Microsoft’s & Yahoo’s offerings. Installing NASA world wind is too much of a hassle when I tried way back when.
I think Google Earth’s convenience and the image quality factors are unbeatable for 3rd world bloggers. Specially when it involves obscure places like Sri Lanka.