It’s a well-worn cliché – if that itself isn’t a hackneyed phrase – that possibilities are only limited by the imagination.
This thought came to mind while standing in a boggy piece of land armed with a spade, a five-foot gardening cane and a print out from Google Earth. What I was attempting to do was get to the bottom of a long-running drainage problem at the foot of the croft.
The Google Earth satellite image I was carrying appeared to show the line of a long lost drain that could be responsible in part for the waterlogging. I’d actually made the screen grab to help explain to a digger driver what was going on with this soggy part of the croft. The first print out wasn’t too good, so I ran the image through a picture editor to improve the contrast. While messing about with the contrast, colour correction and levels etc., the track of what looked like a hitherto forgotten drain came into view. Converting the image to black and white and then to negative served only to confirm this belief.
So it was when the digger driver failed to show up that I donned my wellies to do a spot of my own investigating. Almost immediately when probing with the garden cane I hit something solid about six inches under the surface. Thrusting into the ground a foot either side, and the cane slid much further underground.
I was onto something. Several more test probes confirmed that there was a something narrow and distinctly straight running across the croft towards a wee burn beside the boundary fence.
However, my (pictures from) space odyssey was short-lived. Digging down I encountered a layer of gravel and immediately below that a cold, grey…layer of clay.
Mystery solved. Not a drain, just an inconveniently placed deposit of clay. All I had to show for my efforts was a series of holes that I had then to fill back in. Even the dog had got bored and cleared off home without me. But drain searching by Google Earth did get me wondering about what other uses people have put Google Earth and satellite imagery to. Here are links to some of the more imaginative applications:
Business
(Help complete croft and farm subsidy forms amongst other things)
How to measure distances with Google Earth
Create a digital CV map
Target customers
Quote customers
Education
Use it in the classroom
Help non-profit organisations raise global awareness
Learn the star constellations
Environmental
Visualise construction projects
Map pollution data from over 30,000 industrial facilities in North America
Get seabed data
Exploration and travel
Get a free flight simulator
Follow in the footsteps of the Apollo moon missions
Explore Mars
Miscellaneous
Theoretically destroy a space satellite
Spot weapons of mass destruction
Post video on YouTube
* Google Earth is a free download. The paid for version Google Earth Plus is now compatible with the NMEA GPS interface, which most GPS units, including non-Garmin and non-Magellan units, support.
