Google Earth 7 limits the capture of rectified ortho images

When the new version of Plex.Earth 3 is about to come out, we realize that while it supports the loading of web services services map, the great advantage that has so far been able to download the orthorectified Google Earth image ... will not be so easy.

This is due to the fact that Google, seeking to prevent users who accessed via the ActiveX capture to generate ortho images, has closed in its free version the option to inactivate the terrain, with which the image is distorted accommodating itself on the digital model . This will also affect those who bought a version of Stitchmaps in the same way and those who did it manually via print-screen and joined them in Photoshop.

I remember bringing up this topic before with Tomás, the creator of Cartesia, over coffee last year. It really sounded difficult that Google could sign an agreement with PlexScape to give it the potential that AutoDesk has denied since the AutoCAD 2013 version. And, when we buy a satellite image with Geoeye, one of the prohibitions is to have deployments on the Internet; the best you can do is put small sections in high resolution or a complete display in a reduced size. So it was ironic that it accepted what Plex.Earth does up to versions 6 of Google Earth.

With this, users will be able to continue doing it with Google Earth 6 or by buying the paid version that goes for 400 dollars, as José told us in GIS & AutoDesk Blog.

For a moment, I began to do tests in the case of flat topography areas, and I was able to verify that the distortion is less; that goes between 3 and 7 meters. But when testing an uneven area, I find the results are nothing short of disastrous.

Let's see the following example, that for the purpose of this article I have selected a point where the limit of the high resolution image is displayed, just over a hill of more than 200 meters high:

As the limit is in the center, we can not see the distortion caused by the relief, although it is obvious that in the ends there are as shown in the following images when we move left and right.

Now let's imagine trying screens and trying to stitch something like this together. Definitely with this Google takes a significant step both for its paid version to sell more, and to prevent violations of massive downloads.

Meanwhile, to solve the impasse, Plex.Earth added to the 3 version Some variants as:

• The ability to support WMS, with which we could stick to images and geographic layers served in OGC standards from the IDEs of each country.
• The possibility of downloading images from BingMaps, which although it does not have the same coverage, reaches more every day. It also supports OpenStreet Maps.

Changes for the new version:

• The Standard-Pro-Premium license model is eliminated, where each version had different and gradual capacities. Now any version has everything.
• The new models are the Business Edition and Enterprise Edition, with all the capacities and differentiated by the number of machines.
• In the case of the Business version, there is a price for a single license, and another for the purchase of 2 to 10 licenses. With the advantage that the license can be used on two machines, for example, in the office and at home, or on the desktop PC and on the laptop. Sure, it can't be used simultaneously.
• In the case of the Enterprise license, there is a price for 10 licenses, which can also be used on two machines each; or 20 in total. The attractiveness of this is for companies, since they are floating, so that they can be used from any machine connected to a network, using check in to capture an available license and check out to release it.
• In the end, prices will be cheaper if we consider the double machine.

We know that this version of Plex.Earth will be available by the middle of this month of February, which we find spectacular the attractiveness of Map Explorer, which now includes a new mosaic.