Post by daarbennikweer on Jun 5, 2021 22:14:52 GMT
Google's 2005 camouflage of military objects 'removed' in webversion
In 2005 Google camouflaged military objects for security reasons. We made a lot of fun about this in the (old) Google Earth Community because the aerial photos were already available everywhere. No surprise the camouflage wasn't applied to later imagery.
When I biked across the long abandoned runway of US Air Force 'Camp New Amsterdam' (sixteen years later) I got the hunch to check the terrain in historical imagery in (the fantastic free program) Google earth Pro (for desktop). I was especially interested in how the new Military Museum was situated and had off course all forgotten about the very brief camouflage chapter (at least in our country).
If you search (in Google Earth Pro) for 'vliegbasis Soesterberg' and slide the historic imagery slider (top menu) to 2005 you can see the camouflage. Same for 'vliegbasis Leeuwarden' and 'vliegbasis Gilze-Rijen'. I am aware this list isn't complete. In 2014 Google Earth Blog mentioned a nice webpublication about this phenomenon which amongst others features a picture of 'vliegbasis Volkel' imagery camouflaged.
www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/04/obscured-areas-google-earth.html
The next day I wondered if Google had perhaps forgotten about the camouflage themselves in 'Timelapse in Google Earth' feature of Google Earth for web. To my delight for the first time we-the-people can see the secretive 2005 situation on our screens. No harm done however, since understanably the imagery resolution is kept very low.
As we can still see with the 'historic imagery' tool Google hesitated quite a bit what to do. For instance in the 2006 imagery the camouflage in the Soesterberg area was firts only removed for the nearby infantry base. Only in the next imagery set the runways were uncloaked. Still some map camouflage could still be seen at the fringes for a while. Maybe because of the high cost of such an undertaking.
Funny detail in 'vliegbasis Gilze-Rijen': the camouflage of the airfield took the shape of . . . an aeroplane! It's a shame that since the old Google Earth Community has been deleted I can't verify if anybody had already noticed.
In 2005 Google camouflaged military objects for security reasons. We made a lot of fun about this in the (old) Google Earth Community because the aerial photos were already available everywhere. No surprise the camouflage wasn't applied to later imagery.
When I biked across the long abandoned runway of US Air Force 'Camp New Amsterdam' (sixteen years later) I got the hunch to check the terrain in historical imagery in (the fantastic free program) Google earth Pro (for desktop). I was especially interested in how the new Military Museum was situated and had off course all forgotten about the very brief camouflage chapter (at least in our country).
If you search (in Google Earth Pro) for 'vliegbasis Soesterberg' and slide the historic imagery slider (top menu) to 2005 you can see the camouflage. Same for 'vliegbasis Leeuwarden' and 'vliegbasis Gilze-Rijen'. I am aware this list isn't complete. In 2014 Google Earth Blog mentioned a nice webpublication about this phenomenon which amongst others features a picture of 'vliegbasis Volkel' imagery camouflaged.
www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/04/obscured-areas-google-earth.html
The next day I wondered if Google had perhaps forgotten about the camouflage themselves in 'Timelapse in Google Earth' feature of Google Earth for web. To my delight for the first time we-the-people can see the secretive 2005 situation on our screens. No harm done however, since understanably the imagery resolution is kept very low.
As we can still see with the 'historic imagery' tool Google hesitated quite a bit what to do. For instance in the 2006 imagery the camouflage in the Soesterberg area was firts only removed for the nearby infantry base. Only in the next imagery set the runways were uncloaked. Still some map camouflage could still be seen at the fringes for a while. Maybe because of the high cost of such an undertaking.
Funny detail in 'vliegbasis Gilze-Rijen': the camouflage of the airfield took the shape of . . . an aeroplane! It's a shame that since the old Google Earth Community has been deleted I can't verify if anybody had already noticed.
2021: ‘cartojoke’ search: no results!? I cherish the story of a guy who purposely built a giant yellow placemark in his backgarden! Or children painting giant private parts on the roofs of their schools. I think Google couldn’t have wished for better ambassadors!
In 2017 Reddit user u/veryjuicy took the idea to camouflage a map to the next level:
www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/2ewj6q/camouflages_of_the_world_prone_to_change/
Untill now I didn’t know that there are even more styles of camouflage than Google applied back then;-)
www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/2ewj6q/camouflages_of_the_world_prone_to_change/
Untill now I didn’t know that there are even more styles of camouflage than Google applied back then;-)
Happy mapping everybody,
Daarbennikweer
