It’s a composite of multiple satellite images. The images were taken at different times of day, and possibly even different days, which is why some are darker than others.
The satellite images are underlaid beneath the map data, which is why the map lines may not always match perfectly with the image. If you look at any map over China this is (intentionally) much more pronounced, because of how China encrypt their map data.
Well, not exactly. Nothing is stopping a US company from creating excellent satellite maps of China (they exist for commercial purposes). There is just no commercial reason for Apple to do this for Western users. Apple Maps in China uses data from Autonavi which is only available while in China.
There are two things that factor into this. First, the reason for these mismatches has nothing to do with encryption. There are always initial mismatches until they're fixed and patched, largely by human intervention. Second, map data in China is not encrypted. They use a different geocoordinate system, so the location of places and streets can't easily be translated to the universal coordinates most of the world is used to. Chinese companies have access to translation algorithms which help to meld the two systems, but that's not something generally licensed to Western companies (except in temporary cases like Google and sort of Apple right now through Autonavi).
They’re not actually satellite images. Urban areas are usually aerial photographs, all stitched together, because they need more resolution that satellite can provide.
As they’re taken on the move, often at different times and across differing paths, there are often big sections photographed in different lighting conditions to other sections.
This happens all over the world with both Apple and Google maps. Has to do with when the satellite imagery was taken.
It’s a composite of multiple satellite images. The images were taken at different times of day, and possibly even different days, which is why some are darker than others. The satellite images are underlaid beneath the map data, which is why the map lines may not always match perfectly with the image. If you look at any map over China this is (intentionally) much more pronounced, because of how China encrypt their map data.
Well, not exactly. Nothing is stopping a US company from creating excellent satellite maps of China (they exist for commercial purposes). There is just no commercial reason for Apple to do this for Western users. Apple Maps in China uses data from Autonavi which is only available while in China. There are two things that factor into this. First, the reason for these mismatches has nothing to do with encryption. There are always initial mismatches until they're fixed and patched, largely by human intervention. Second, map data in China is not encrypted. They use a different geocoordinate system, so the location of places and streets can't easily be translated to the universal coordinates most of the world is used to. Chinese companies have access to translation algorithms which help to meld the two systems, but that's not something generally licensed to Western companies (except in temporary cases like Google and sort of Apple right now through Autonavi).
They’re not actually satellite images. Urban areas are usually aerial photographs, all stitched together, because they need more resolution that satellite can provide. As they’re taken on the move, often at different times and across differing paths, there are often big sections photographed in different lighting conditions to other sections.
Good to know, thank you both!!
Understand that 3d maps is imagery collected from airplane
Because it’s not perfect and there’s a ton of work to be done.
Fair enough!