Have you used Google Earth to locate sites?

[ringding]

Has anyone used Google Earth to locate sites? You can type in an address and zoom in on the picture and see your actual house. I can see how this could be used to locate sites for metal detecting. For example, there may be a park in a nearby small town that you don't know about.

 

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[hollowpointred]

google earth is an awesome tool! i use it to see what the terrain looks like today as opposed to where old buildings used to stand on old maps. it saves a lot of driving around to scout out possible hunt sites. it can tell you if that old homestead is a cornfield now or a housing development. also it can be used as you said to locate parks, schools, railroads, etc. i highly recommend it.

 

[The Beep Goes On]

There are three sites I use (including Google Earth). The other two are...

http://local.live.com/ (don't forget to click on "aerial" above the pan/zoom controls)

http://www.terraserver.com/

HH!
TBGO

 

[wmas1960]

I can see how Google Earth can be of some help. However, Note that the maps are not always current. For example, I went to a military school that I located on Google Earth. I seem to recall that the buildings were still there when I checked. Then, I checked again a week ago and found that the building was gone and the property is all buldozed and is bare dirt. I was actually there last May and there were million dollar houses all over the property and a pool house and new roads everywhere. So, I would have to say that the photos used for Google Earth, in that area, are, at least, 3 or 4 years old. I have found similar photos of my house, for example, where my old car is in the driveway. I sold it 2 years ago.

I also use Google Earth to scout locations for my video shoots. In the last 2 weeks I have used it twice. One for a football stadium in one of the West Suburbs of Chicago where there was supposed to be an elaborate new athletic field with a sophisticated synthetic turf. The picture showed natural grass that was worn out.

The other site was a series of athletic fields on top of a land fill. Was just up there as early as 2 years ago and there were a series of soccer, baseball and lacrosse fields. The Google Earth map showed undeveloped land with the roadway leading only half way up the hill.

So, while one should be aware that the maps are only a guide and may not show current sites, they can be valuable if you are looking for how a piece of property might have looked a few years ago.

What I would do is drive around town and if I saw a site that looks promising, you would know what it looks like today. If there has been some development or activity on the land currently, definately go to Google Earth and take a look at how the land may have been laid out a few years ago. You might find that a new park used to be some other facility 4 years ago. Looking at the aerials you might see hints to fences that have been moved or trees that have been cut down. While it probably won't, accurately, show you how the layout of the land is today, you might be able to spot some target spots to look on what is now a buldozed site.

 

[wmas1960]

Correction. Just looked at one of the other posts about Terraserver. Just looked at the photo from there. On Terraserver.com. the military academy shown above appears to show the property in some stage of it's re-development. As a non-subscriber, I can only zoom in to about 8 meters so I can't tell how far along they are. The building is definately gone and roads are in. I looked at a related site, www.terraserverusa.com and there is a black and white photo that shows the buildings still there. Terraserverusa also offers you the ability to get topographic maps as well. On Terraserverusa, the athetic fields that I mentioned above, the ones on the land fill, are not there, The navy base that was closed and has been redeveloped for at least 5 years now still shows the runways there. The landfill has dirt roads and no sign of any developement.

I guess what I am trying to point out here is that all these sites can be good when used in conjunction with eachother. While they won't go that far back, if you have areas around you of recent development, you can find some interesting outlooks on how the properties used to be before the bulldozers came in.

EDIT: Just noticed something looking at the local live site quoted above. I looked at the same academy site and saw that a current street map is overlaid on an old photo.Appearently the same photo used on Terraserverusa. When I was there, last May, I was curious where the building stood as it was hard to relate among all the new homes and changed roads. Looking at the local.live site, I can see where the building was in relation to the current streets. Also, other out buildings are seen in relation and I could, assuming permission being granted, go back and search around certain areas that I know of that might be high targets for finding lost items. I don't have a huge positive outlook on that though as so much of the areas where I know that students hung out and spent time... or where visitors parked or stood to watch sports or parades and such have all been built over. However, there might be some small areas to try and hit, before it is too late.

I think I am going to go to the developers site now and see if any parcels are still available for sale. Not that I could buy a million dollar piece of property but maybe I could get easier access to search the unsold parcels.

 

[Glenns5900]

Hi all,

Here is another good one. It doesn't have high resolution images in some areas. I have also noticed that if I zoom in on my home address using all three sites that they use the same pictures. The reason that I know is that my wife's red car is in the driveway of the house in all the pictures and my neighbors Edsel is parked across the street too! In doing a bit of research they must get their images from a company located here in Longmont called Digital Globe.
http://www.digitalglobe.com/

www.google.com/maps
In the upper right you can click on Satellite / Map / Hybrid
In the bottom left you can just drag the box around to show an area.
Or. you can click the middle of the map and drag it around to see surrounding areas.
or, you can use the zoom controls on the left side of the map.

Here is another interesting one in the same theme.. Just need to gas up your space ship, bring plenty of water and don't forget to bring batteries as there won't be a store nearby.

www.google.com/mars

Glenn

 

[funkman]

another one that is comparable to google is:

http://www.zillow.com

This is a site that tells you the values of homes that I found when I was refinancing. The neat thing about it is that it has the same features as maps.google.com but has newer maps (google did not show a house that was built next to me a couple of years agao and this one does) and some of the areas that are fuzzy in google will come in clear here. When zooming in on an area they will be blurry but then sharpen up in a second or two.

Not sure on google earth if they are the same maps because I cannot get it to run on my pc at work (old piece of c--p). Just figured I'd throw another search tool out there.

Funkman

 

[pcolaboy]

As a matter of fact I just replied to another post about using Google Earth and YES, I have already found several uncharted shipwrecks - nothing too glamorous or lucrative though :-)

Another good resource to check if you are in the U.S., is your local county's property appraiser website. Most local governments are converting their old land plats and survey maps into a GIS (Geograhical Information System). Usually the photos are nearly always high-resolution taken from an aircraft and the clarity of ours is outstanding. It's worth checking out.

Pcolaboy