Common questions about Google Earth

1. When were these pictures taken? How often are they updated?

Our images are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last few years. The images in Google Earth are updated on a rolling basis.

2. Are Google Earth images captured in real time?

No, they aren't. Our images are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last few years.

3. Are there cities covered in detail worldwide? Or just in the US?

The whole world is covered with medium resolution imagery and terrain data. This resolution allows you to see major geographic features and man-made development such as towns, but not detail of individual buildings. Additional high-resolution imagery which reveals detail for individual buildings is available for about 35% of the Earth's land surface. This covers about 50% of the population. 3D buildings are represented in the major urban areas. Detailed road maps are available for many countries and continues to grow.

4. Why do I see blurry pictures when I go to my house?

Google Earth combines data of different resolutions to offer a seamless viewing experience, so some locations look a bit blurry. We offer high resolution imagery (greater than 1-meter) for thousands of cities and more are on the way.

5. Will my computer be able to run Google Earth?

Google Earth takes advantage of the 3D graphics capabilities standard on newer PCs and MACs. If you are using Google Earth on an older machine, or a notebook computer that does not have 3D graphics capabilities, you may not be able to run the application.

Graphics card requirement for Google Earth

The 3D graphics capabilities of your machine have a lot to do with how well Google Earth performs.

Google Earth will work on most graphics cards from the following manufacturers:

• NVIDIA
  
• ATI*
  
• 3D Labs
  
• Intel**
  
• Matrox card users must use the OpenGL version.
  
• S3 cards must use the DirectX version.

* Some ATI cards are not supported.

** Intel 3D graphics machines can use the default OpenGL version, but work better in DirectX (choose Start > Programs > Google Earth > Start Google Earth in DirectX).


System requirements for Google Earth on various computers