SummitPost.org

I just noticed today that large parts of the alps are now in high detail on Google Earth. Especially surfing through Wallis is spectacular now.

Compare these two pictures from Roc de la Vache (near Zinal), with Zinalrothorn, Besso, Dent Blanche and Grd. Cornier:





Pretty neat, I'd say! The digital version is slightly higher than the real photo (~400 m)..

I could also clearly see for instance the normal route on Bishorn when surfing around.

Wow! That´s great! Google Earth gets better and better. Really great possibilities now to "surf" through the Alps.

yeah! it really looks good.
now you can surf through the alps before you hike.

Cool!
That should eat a couple hours away from work.

I remember I tried to impress my friend with the vast scale and steepness of the alps (he lives in the Cascades), but on going to Google Earth the alps looked like the Ozarks or something. :p

This is a great improvement!

mvs wrote:I remember I tried to impress my friend with the vast scale and steepness of the alps (he lives in the Cascades), but on going to Google Earth the alps looked like the Ozarks or something. :p

This is a great improvement!

I don't know what the Ozarks are, but it sounds pretty bad

Matterhorn looks great too, so steepness is no problem anymore for sure!



Matterhorn and Dent d'Herens

One last image, bishorn normal route visible, with Weisshorn right behind it. In the far background Monte Rosa.

i'm also surfing around now, but i can't get this high resolution/detail.
what does the resolution depend on?

flow wrote:i'm also surfing around now, but i can't get this high resolution/detail.
what does the resolution depend on?

Don't know, I didn't change anything that I recall of, but you might want to try and fool around with the tools > options settings?

maybe i should put "more effort" in it
i will try to get it better...
thanx

I almost like some of the google pics better, you can make out finer details more easily on them! Really amazing stuff, thanks for the heads up,

Dan

Yep, Google Earth has greatly improved here. An alternative for Switzerland is http://map.search.ch/index.en.html

As a side note www.summitpost.org/area/range/237961/Va ... viers.html covers the Zinal Valley area, as in three of the above 'pictures'.

The biggest improvement seem to be in the DEMs (digital elevation models) on which the images are draped.

The USGS has high-resolution DEMs for most of the USA -- they just don't get used much for Google Earth.

But the italian side of Valais has still less quality.