By Akanimo Sampson
After teaming up with Carnegie Mellon University’s Create Lab to bring timelapse videos to Google Earth, Google is hoping there will be a better appreciation for the environment.
In what has been the biggest update to the platform since 2017, Google Earth used 24 million satellite images from 1984 onwards before compiling in in an interactive 4D experience.
Earth Engine and Outreach Director of Google Earth, Rebecca Moore, in a blog post explained, “making a planet-sized timelapse video required a significant amount of what we call ‘pixel crunching’ in Earth Engine, Google’s cloud platform for geospatial analysis. It took more than 2 million processing hours across thousands of machines in Google Cloud to compile 20 petabytes of satellite imagery into a single 4.4 terapixel-sized video mosaic – that’s the equivalent of 530,000 videos in 4K resolution.”
There have been rapid environmental changes in the past few decades. For many people, the effects of climate change feel abstract and far away, like melting ice caps and receding glaciers.
However, with Timelapse in Google Earth, they will have a clearer picture of the changing planet. It will help users to marvel at changing coastlines, following the growth of megacities, or tracking deforestation.
Users can also watch more than 800 Timelapse videos in 2D or 3D on Google Earth or YouTube. Google Earth will be updated annually with new Timelapse imagery,
Google made a commitment last September to become carbon neutral in its operations across businesses worldwide by 2030.
