Today, Bing announced the completion of the U.S. portion of what it says is its largest aerial imagery endeavor, and its most ambitious mapping effort to date – the Global Ortho Project.
“In two years, the Bing Maps Imagery team has collected every square inch of the continental US and Western Europe at 30cm resolution (1ft = 1 pixel),” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews. “This endeavor sets a new standard in aerial map imagery.”
“To give you an idea of the amount of imagery the team has taken, at 30cm per pixel, you could line up all the Global Ortho pixels end-to-end to reach around the earth 994 times, to the moon 104 times and to Venus with an extra seven trillion pixels to spare,” he adds.
Here are a couple of examples:
Pueblo Bonito ruins at Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Cape Canaveral, FL
“There is higher resolution imagery of some certain areas available, but there is no continent-wide mosaic at this high of a resolution,” Bing’s Charlie Peterson said in a blog post. “What GO brings you is an amazing view into familiar places (like your own home) and remote corners of the United States.”
To commemorate the completion of the project in the U.S., Bing sent its team on another mission to capture imagery of a giant Bing logo it had painted on the roof of a nearby parking garage. Once it’s ready, the image will be visible among the imagery.
