Google Earth's imagery is displayed on a digital
globe, which displays the planet's surface using a single composited image from a far distance. After zooming in far enough, the imagery transitions into different imagery of the same area with finer detail, which varies in date and time from one area to the next. The imagery is retrieved from
satellites or
aircraft. Before the launch of
NASA and the
USGS's Landsat 8 satellite, Google relied partially on imagery from
Landsat 7, which suffered from a hardware malfunction that left diagonal gaps in images. In 2013, Google used
datamining to remedy the issue, providing what was described as a successor to the
Blue Marble image of Earth, with a single large image of the entire planet. This was achieved by combining multiple sets of imagery taken from Landsat 7 to eliminate clouds and diagonal gaps, creating a single "mosaic" image. Google has since used myriad sources to provide imagery in a higher quality and with greater frequency. Imagery is hosted on Google's servers, which are contacted by the application when opened, requiring an Internet connection. Imagery resolution ranges from except for the
ocean floor, which ranges from . This creates the impression of
three-dimensional terrain, even where the imagery is only
two-dimensional. Google asserts that every image created from Google Earth using satellite data provided by Google Earth is a
copyrighted map. Any derivative from Google Earth is made from data that Google claims copyright under
United States Copyright Law. Google grants license to this data allowing, among other things, non-commercial personal use of the images (e.g., on a personal website or blog) as long as copyrights and attributions are preserved. By contrast, images created with NASA's globe software
WorldWind use
The Blue Marble,
Landsat, or USGS imagery, each of which is in the
public domain. In version 5.0, Google introduced Historical Imagery, allowing users to view earlier imagery. Clicking the
clock icon in the toolbar opens a time slider, which marks the time of available imagery from the past. This feature allows for observation of an area's changes over time. Utilizing the timelapse feature allows for the ability to view a zoom-able video as far back as 38 years.
3D imagery version of Google Earth, seen here at
Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin|301x301px Google Earth shows
3D building models in some cities, including photorealistic 3D imagery made using
photogrammetry. The first 3D buildings in Google Earth were created using
3D modeling applications such as
SketchUp and, beginning in 2009,
Building Maker, and were uploaded to Google Earth via the
3D Warehouse. In June 2012, Google announced that it would be replacing user-generated 3D buildings with an auto-generated
3D mesh. This would be phased in, starting with select larger cities, with the notable exception of cities such as
London and
Toronto which required more time to process detailed imagery of their vast number of buildings. The reason given is to have greater uniformity in 3D buildings and to compete with
Nokia Here and
Apple Maps, which were already using this technology. The coverage began that year in 21 cities in four countries. By early 2016, 3D imagery had been expanded to hundreds of cities in over 40 countries, including every
U.S. state and encompassing every continent except Antarctica. In 2009, in a collaboration between
Google and the in
Madrid, the museum selected 14 of its paintings to be photographed and displayed at the resolution of 14,000
megapixels inside the 3D version of the Prado in Google Earth and
Google Maps.
Street View On April 15, 2008, with version 4.3, Google fully integrated
Street View into Google Earth. Street View displays 360° panoramic street-level photos of select cities and their surroundings. The photos were taken by cameras mounted on automobiles, can be viewed at different scales and from many angles, and are navigable by arrow icons imposed on them. Using Street View on Google Earth, users can visit and explore 30 UNESCO
World Heritage Sites with historical context and pins for each. The sites include the
Great Pyramid, the
Taj Mahal,
Sagrada Família, the
Dolomites, the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the
Great Sphinx. In 2019,
Walt Disney World and
Pixar partnered with Google to create Pixar Street View. An activation that enabled viewers to search for hidden Pixar Easter eggs inside Toy Story Land at
Disney's Hollywood Studios through street view.
Water and ocean Introduced in Google Earth 5.0 in 2009, the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D
bathymetry. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and
oceanographers. On April 14, 2009, Google added bathymetric data for the
Great Lakes. In June 2011, Google increased the resolution of some deep ocean floor areas from 1-kilometer grids to 100 meters. The high-resolution features were developed by oceanographers at Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises. The sharper focus is available for about 5 percent of the oceans. This can be seen in the Hudson off New York City, the Wini Seamount near Hawaii, and the
Mendocino Ridge off the U.S. Pacific coast. ==Outer space==