Danie van der Merwe

2024-01-19 15:52:58

This ‘digital twin’ of the planet could rival Google Earth — here’s how you can try it: Google needs Competition

French startup Kermap has developed a ‘digital twin’ of the Earth that claims to offer the most up-to-date views of our home planet.

The programme is called Nimbo Earth Online and it is the only platform providing new satellite views of the world every month, without clouds. Google Earth refreshes its imagery every several months to years, depending on location.

There’s one caveat though: Nimbo offers a resolution of only 10 metres per pixel. This is far less precise than what is offered by Google Earth.

But then Google Earth has really not been moving forward in leaps and bounds for the last few years. I wanted to find a specific location a few months ago, which contained a shooting range. The problem I had with Google Earth was that more than one of the recent images had cloud concealing that area. Going back in time, went too far back. Nimbo is using AI to remove the clouds. So maybe there is something with this AI-powered mapping.

Nimbo also includes a split & swipe function, which allows you to compare before and after images in one single view.

Although Nimbo states a resolution of 10 m per pixel, the interface has an HD button which says it is coming soon. So, it looks like that will improve.

But this does go to show that Google needs competition in order for them to improve. Google could have already been doing some of this AI-powered mapping if they'd felt the need to.

See This ‘digital twin’ of the planet could rival Google Earth — here’s how you can try it

The new AI-powered platform is the only one of its kind providing new satellite views of the world every month, without clouds.

#technology #mapping #AI