From Above

September 8, 2015 9:53 PM

Earth View presents natural works of abstract art from satellite images of our planet, sized for desktop wallpaper, or as a random image for each new browser tab.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (16 comments total)

I could look at those all night. Stunning.
posted by key_of_z at 10:54 PM on September 8, 2015

Impressive contrast between the natural landscapes and artificial ones. (Especially when they're combined.)

I would like to be able to search for rough locations, though. There probably aren't any shots of Antarctica, since its satellite imagery isn't very high-resolution, but I'd like to be sure.
posted by Rangi at 10:59 PM on September 8, 2015

Some of these are marvellous. I wouldn't classify a limestone quarry as natural or art though, more as ugly.
posted by unliteral at 11:24 PM on September 8, 2015

Okay, their source code is on GitHub! So with a list of location IDs and a little Python, I was able to find some Antarctica shots (1 2 3 and more) as well as this beautiful area of the Tassili N'Ajjer national park in Algeria.

(Here's the script; only tested with Python 2.7.10 on Windows.)

import urllib2, json
ids = [all those IDs] # view at https://earthview.withgoogle.com/ID
url_pattern = 'http://www.gstatic.com/prettyearth/%s.json'
for id in ids:
    response = urllib2.urlopen(url_pattern % id)
    data = json.load(response)
    country = data['geocode'].get('country', '')
    state = data['geocode'].get('administrative_area_level_1', '')
    print id, (country + u', ' + state if state else country).encode('ascii', 'replace')

posted by Rangi at 11:27 PM on September 8, 2015 [7 favorites]

Earth View mistakes Paria Canyon for Marble Canyon. This is the second browser extension I've seen that misidentifies canyons on the Colorado Plateau. Another Chrome extension (called Moment) identifies Lake Powell as Grand Canyon.

If anyone else sees a mislabeled canyon in a browser extension, please get in touch. One more example and I can write a New York Times trend piece.
posted by compartment at 11:51 PM on September 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

This is why I love flying into Wrangell at low tide..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:31 AM on September 9, 2015

Has anybody found out what link the chrome extension leads to - that is how to get a "fresh" image without the explore button on top in another browser..
posted by mathiu at 1:32 AM on September 9, 2015

One of those American circular farming areas was my desktop for a long time.
Pretty much like this, but with better colors.
posted by Snjo at 2:06 AM on September 9, 2015

If anyone else sees a mislabeled canyon in a browser extension, please get in touch. One more example and I can write a New York Times trend piece.

If they were mislabeling sections of New York City, that would be front page news. Mislabeling canyons in the west is sadly business as usual.

These are beautiful images. It was interesting how many were of salt evaporation ponds, probably because of the incredible color contrasts and the rows of rectangular ponds against the natural landscape.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:24 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

So with a list of location IDs and a little Python, I was able to find some Antarctica shots (1 2 3 and more) as well as this beautiful area of the Tassili N'Ajjer national park in Algeria.

Thank you! I put the list up on PasteBin for those without Python to hand. There are 954 altogether, including 200 from the US.
posted by kersplunk at 5:57 AM on September 9, 2015

The one nearest to me right now is probably these drowned drumlins in Clew Bay in Ireland.
posted by kersplunk at 5:57 AM on September 9, 2015

Welp, that's the ambient music industry's record cover art needs sorted for the next few years.
posted by Devonian at 6:19 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

unliteral: "I wouldn't classify a limestone quarry as natural or art though, more as ugly."

The first five from Germany are all from open-pit coal mines. Yuck.
posted by brokkr at 7:26 AM on September 9, 2015

Wow, thanks for posting this.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:51 AM on September 9, 2015

If people want to go to a particular site from Rangi's list, note that you can just change the URL from, e.g.

https://earthview.withgoogle.com/la-breole-france-2342

to

https://earthview.withgoogle.com/1901

and you'll get automatically redirected to

https://earthview.withgoogle.com/boston-united-states-1901

i.e. you can just use the number.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:13 AM on September 9, 2015

You don't even need to delete all of it. https://earthview.withgoogle.com/la-breole-france-1901 will redirect to https://earthview.withgoogle.com/boston-united-states-1901.
posted by brokkr at 4:20 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]