How out of date is your City on Google Maps?

[Harley613]

Ottawa-Gatineau's aerial imagery is hilariously out of date, it seems like half the towers in the city are missing. The imagery seems to be around 6 years old, so most of the building boom doesn't show up yet.

Our neighbour Montreal looks to me to be around 3 years old, but I'll let a local weigh in on that.

My hometown of Calgary looks really up to date by comparison, I'm not certain, but I think a year or less old.

How does your city look?

[MonctonRad]

I would say Moncton is about 5 years out of date.

[rml]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I would say Moncton is about 5 years out of date.

Strathory Ontario is still 5 years out of date for eveything that i see

[lio45]

I realized recently that the imagery from Apple and Microsoft is much newer than Google’s.

[someone123]

There's different data and what you get from Google depends on how you view it. If you use the Google Earth client you can get newer satellite imagery. But the 3D imagery shown for a lot of cities is pretty old at this point.

The 3D imagery for downtown Halifax looks like it is from 2016. Vancouver looks to be more like 1-2 years old.

Halifax also tends to have older streetview imagery and strangely when they update it they tend to update only small stretches at a time. You might find that one path through the city is from 2022 and then if you move one block over you get 2018.

The map itself is a few years out of date and oddly inaccurate; they will add building footprints that don't match the buildings for example.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by lio45

I realized recently that the imagery from Apple and Microsoft is much newer than Google’s.

How is Apple Maps? Does it have 3d imagery for Canadian cities? I don't have any Apple devices so I really don't know.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by someone123

There's different data and what you get from Google depends on how you view it. If you use the Google Earth client you can get newer satellite imagery. But the 3D imagery shown for a lot of cities is pretty old at this point.

The 3D imagery for downtown Halifax looks like it is from 2016. Vancouver looks to be more like 1-2 years old.

Halifax also tends to have older streetview imagery and strangely when they update it they tend to update only small stretches at a time. You might find that one path through the city is from 2022 and then if you move one block over you get 2018.

The map itself is a few years out of date and oddly inaccurate; they will add building footprints that don't match the buildings for example.

I didn't realize how big a building boom Halifax has had since 2016! I just checked the wiki and there has been quite a bit of action. I'd love to see it when maps updates some day.

[vanatox]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Ottawa-Gatineau's aerial imagery is hilariously out of date, it seems like half the towers in the city are missing. The imagery seems to be around 6 years old, so most of the building boom doesn't show up yet.

Our neighbour Montreal looks to me to be around 3 years old, but I'll let a local weigh in on that.

Downtown Montreal aerial imagery is a few years old but you don't have to go very far from downtown and the rest of the CMA imagery is several years old (same as for Ottawa-Gatineau).

[Innsertnamehere]

Toronto's 3D is from 2021, so fairly recent.

Hamilton's 3D is from 2018, so it's missing quite a bit. if you turn off 3D buildings on Google Earth however, it uses October 2022 imagery which is basically as new as it gets. The October 2022 imagery covers the entire GTHA too, so you can get a pretty up-to-date view of the entire region.

In terms of Streetview, Google updated my residential street last summer for the first time since 2014, so that was exciting. they have pretty extensive 2022 coverage in Hamilton and many parts of the GTA, but for some reason didn't really do any new streetview imagery in Toronto.

Streetview is typically more reliably updated, with most main streets being done at least every 2 years and often every year.

2018 3D:



2022:

[Innsertnamehere]

for fun - changes between 2018 and 2022, blue is under construction or completed since 2018, red is proposals:

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by someone123

The 3D imagery for downtown Halifax looks like it is from 2016.

2016 for sure. The tell is the new YMCA site downtown: in 2015's Streetview, the site was occupied by the old CBC Radio building; in 2017, the new construction was well underway. But in 2016 it was an open pit, which is what the satellite image shows. There are a number of other sites around the city that indicate the same timing.

I didn't realize the imagery was updated so infrequently, at least for smaller cities. When it finally turns over there's going to be a lot fewer parking lots and vacant patches of gravel.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Harley613

How is Apple Maps? Does it have 3d imagery for Canadian cities? I don't have any Apple devices so I really don't know.

Apple Maps has 3D available in some cities. Montreal does for instance. Looks like the 3D imagery is 3 years old. No 3D in Ottawa.

[harls]

My street's data is from Aug. 2015. I have an old car I sold 2 years ago and a tiny basketball hoop still in the driveway.

[rousseau]

The Street View cars do a hit and miss job when they come by. Which isn't often. Major streets are either a couple years or seven or eight years out of date.

My street has only been done four times.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I didn't realize how big a building boom Halifax has had since 2016! I just checked the wiki and there has been quite a bit of action. I'd love to see it when maps updates some day.

I took a few screenshots of the 2022 Google Earth imagery vs. the 2016 Google Maps imagery:

Gottingen


Spring Garden Road


Downtown

[lio45]

A boulevard in the forest.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.38323.../data=!3m1!1e3

What's amusing is that if you put the little Street View orange man on the roundabout, you see a fully completed and operational elementary school -- and that street view of the school is nearly two years old already!