I Know San Francisco is Wonky, but this seems Implausable

I know San Francisco is well known for being a bit wonky, but isn't there something seriously wrong with this view of San Francisco's financial district, from Google Maps?

Google Maps view of San Francisco's financial district

It looks like something M.C. Escher would create.


All 5 comments so far, oldest first...

Sweet! Gotta love patchwork imagery. Different satellites at different times makes for some cool optical-illusion-like imagery. 🙂

— comment by Derek on April 3rd, 2006 at 12:59am JST (18 years ago) comment permalink
— comment by nils on April 4th, 2006 at 1:56am JST (18 years ago) comment permalink

The “ghost cars” seem to be simple fuzziness due to movement. It’s a bit more difficult to explain the dual-image of this plane,
which just took off from Taiwan International.

By the way, Derek, the highest zoom images of San Francisco are not taken by satellites, as evidenced by the progressive perspective change across areas that are obviously from the same shot (the perspective change between areas that are not from the same shot means nothing, of course). The high-level zoom shots are probably taken from low-flying airplanes.

I’m extremely impressed, though, with how the shots are stiched together. If it weren’t for the wildly different perspective and shadows, I’d never be able to tell that different images were used. I don’t see any seams.

— comment by Jeffrey Friedl on April 4th, 2006 at 9:06am JST (18 years ago) comment permalink
— comment by brien on April 6th, 2006 at 12:58am JST (18 years ago) comment permalink

I guess you can find it most anywhere there are tall buildings. Here are crossed swords from New York:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=New+York,+NY&ll=40.747964,-73.987073&spn=0.002077,0.005386&t=k

I must reiterate how impressed I am with the photo stiching. It seems to be 3D aware. Perhaps it’s http://www.aerialimagingtechnologies.com/ , which has coincidentally been in the news recently.

— comment by Jeffrey Friedl on April 6th, 2006 at 1:14am JST (18 years ago) comment permalink
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