As the technology improves, the imagery is becoming higher resolution and more frequently updated. Likely in the future you will be able to get a live space view of your house, and literally be able to walk outside on a clear day and see yourself from space.

Google Earth is a standalone program that you can download that has more features than any of the online maps. This is probably the program you want if you are looking for a “space view of my house” because it allows for you to zoom in on Earth from space.  Google Earth also has other features like the ability to see buildings in 3D, and view under the ocean.  If your mobile device supports applications, there is a Google Earth mobile application that is handy while traveling. Having Google Earth on your phone gives you instant access to directions and points of interest along your route. It is also useful for traffic situations where you want to gauge how long it will take you to navigate to the next rest stop, gas station, or intersection.

Google Earth pulls satellite imagery from many different companies that have access to satellites capable of photographing your house. Recently Google launched their own satellite so they would have more control of the images. Their satellite also provides very high resolution imagery compared to the older satellites.

There is also a lot of macro space photography that is generally close enough to make out cities and houses, but in very little detail. Crews aboard the international space station spent time photographing each major city and night to produce beautiful pictures of civilization and city layouts. This nature of photography is more of an art and less of a practical.

Google Maps is the online version of Google Earth that can be accessed through your web browser instead of a software program. The other main difference between Google Maps and Google Earth is that Google Maps doesn’t have as many maps of other countries.  Google Maps allows you to do directions and it also shows POIs like nearby restaurants or hotels which is a great feature while traveling.  Google Maps does have satellite images and I use it all the time to see aerial views of my house.  If you have a mobile phone, there are phone applications for both Google Maps and Google Earth that you can download on your phone. This works great if you want to see an aerial satellite image map of your location while traveling.

Yahoo! Maps is a direct competitor to Google Maps and has similar features.  I was able to see an aerial view of my house by using Yahoo! Maps.  Basically, Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps are the same, but you might want to check both to see which has the best quality and highest resolution satellite image of your house.  Bing, like Yahoo and Google, also has a satellite imagery feature which is relatively new to the market.  There are several others like OpenStreetMap, Nasa World Wind, and Flash Earth, but Google and Yahoo have by far the most popular tools to see aerial maps of your house.

When I saw an aerial view of my house, I was disappointed with the image quality. Fortunately, if you are serious about seeing a satellite image of your house, you can buy these images.  Mapmart will send you a high quality photo of your house from their database for a price. If they don’t have the picture readily available, they will order it for you. So if you are disappointed with the image quality, you do have other options.  Overall, I still think Google Earth and Google Maps are the best ways to see satellite images of your house as they are updated constantly and provide other information like directions and points of interest.

There are two ways to get a Google aerial view of my house. The first is through Google Maps and the other is through Google Earth.

Google Maps can be accessed from any web browser at http://www.maps.google.com. Upon loading it, access Satellite view by clicking the tab labeled Satellite. I will then need to specify my location, either by giving the complete address or the map coordinates (longitude and latitude). Google Maps is pretty handy, because once I get a Google aerial view of my house, I can bookmark it so that I’ll be able to access it easier the next time, and I can even compare locations with friends and family members. My Internet connection should ideally be high-speed and my computer should have decent specifications to show the high resolution images well. It’s possible to get street and hybrid views as well for certain locations with Google Maps.

Google Earth essentially works the same way as Google Maps, except that you have to download the application first before you can run it. It’s possible to enlarge the view by double-clicking the browser so you can see the Google aerial view of my house more clearly. It’s possible to save the addresses so I can always have something to refer back to. Clearer pictures can be acquired, but only if the user switches from Google Earth to Google Pro, which is essentially the paid version of the former.

As of now, it’s not possible to get a live aerial shot or satellite view of houses or other addresses because that would be too costly. However, Google offers the next best thing. Google Earth continually updates their system so that the shots they get change every now and then, often showing interesting and even hilarious results.

With these applications, it’s not only possible to get a Google aerial view of my house, but other places as well. Use these to find directions, look for the closest convenience store or gasoline station, or simply just for fun.

The images from satellites are also used in warfare for reconnaissance and surveillance. Keeping track of what your opponent is doing was an extremely important technological advancement.  Satellites can track troops, equipment, and bases which helps in war planning. A country that has access to satellite images of their opponent is at a huge advantage.  Satellites are also capable of tracking and guiding missiles.

The images from the satellites are only one thing they are capable of.  Satellites can keep track of people and locations. One of the biggest trends right now is using the global positioning system (GPS) which is installed in many cars. GPS helps you navigate roads by using satellites to track your position.  GPS is also installed in many planes and boats, not just for navigation purposes, but to track you in case your plane crashes or boat sinks. Satellites are also useful for surveying land and determining boundaries.

Surprisingly, it has only been recently that many satellite images were available for non-government use like mapping. Without the availability of satellite images to companies like Google and Yahoo, you might never know what an aerial view of your house looks like.  Tools like Google Earth, Google Maps, and Yahoo! maps allow you to access publically release satellite images. Most of these tools are free and provide decent quality satellite images, and the more expensive tools will provide higher quality and higher resolution images.  These programs and websites allow you to visit any city or country from a satellite image and can be a lot of fun.  In all likelihood, you will never visit North Korea, so you might want to visit it from space to see what they’re up to.

Viewing live images of your house, while possible, is only limited to those with clearance to do such. It is rumored that powerful governments around the world have access to powerful satellites which can provide live streaming video from outer space. These satellite feeds are very high resolution, so high in fact that you can make out people’s faces from out space in real time!

The satellite imagery that is accessible to the average citizen is not in fact, live. Aside from webcams, and other freely broadcast video transmission there is no way to view live video of any particular place on earth. The images that are accessible however are becoming gradually more updated. A few years ago the satellite images where rarely updated, and as cities and neighborhoods grew, the pictures became outdated. For instance when a street map was superimposed onto a satellite image of the corresponding location, it would become quickly out of whack when the roads were modified. As the technology and infrastructure improved, the images update more frequently. This is about as close to an actual live satellite view of your house as you can get.

I mentioned webcams earlier. There are many sites on the internet that offer free video feeds via webcam from all around the world. For instance you can get a live feed of a beach in italy, or even feeds from cruise ships out at sea. There is even a site that perpetually follows the sunrise and sunset around the world, shifting from webcam to webcam as the planet turns. Setting up a webcam for your house and streaming it to the internet for your personal viewing is not that difficult either. Granted the view will not be from the sky, but you can access a live view of your house from anywhere around the world that has an internet connection.

The latest trend in navigation and exploring with images is the use of panoramic street images taken from cars as they drive down the street. Google Streetview has been driving down every street that sees at least moderate traffic and taking panoramic pictures. They then upload the pictures with the corresponding GPS location the picture was taken and it provides images from the street at any address you could search for.

The data can be used to see the destination before going there. For instance if you are looking for a store in the downtown area, you can browse storefronts before actually traveling there. This can help save you from accidently going to the wrong place, because you will already be able to recognize your surroundings, which can save you time and the frustration of getting lost in an unfamiliar area.

Another up and coming method to view street images of your house is Microsoft’s “Streetslide”. This tool allows you to view the street front of an entire span of road. It also allows you to slide the view so you can travel down the street and view the storefronts, or house fronts without having to navigate with a map. This is great for viewing storefronts without knowing beforehand what you are looking for. For instance say you want to go shopping on a certain popular stretch of road. You can view the whole street front, slide along and view all the stores, pick out the ones you want to go to and travel there with a plan, knowing what you are looking for.

For the sake of privacy, the street view images use an algorythym that automatically blurs peoples faces. There have been a few instances of people complaining about their privacy being violated by the cameras. Some of the camera shots can clearly see into houses, which offends many people. However none of the camera shots taken are viewing anything any person couldn’t see by just travelling down the street.

The images of your house are taken by expensive satellites that are orbiting the planet right now. The satellites are equipped with incredibly high resolution cameras and lenses that allow them to zoom all the way to your house from space. Older satellites had resolutions of nearly 1km. This means that for every kilometer (.62 miles) would be represented by 1 pixel of data. To put this into perspective and HD monitor has over 2 million pixels!

The latest satellite cameras can take images with a resolutions of less than a meter per pixel, and some of the governed owned satellites have a resolutions of inches per pixel. That means you can get a satellite image of your home and be able to make out every roof tile you have! As the technology gets better the resolutions will increase further, to the point where you can make out people’s faces from space, of course they have to be looking up!

Some satellite imagery is overlaid with other useful information. Streets are commonly overlaid on the images for navigation purposes. It is nice to not only see the route you plan to take, but to see the buildings and scenery. Another common feature is to superimpose weather data onto of the satellite image. The weather data functions just like a normal radar, except instead of a map you can actually see the buildings and terrain that the clouds and rain are over. Many other features such as points of interest, news events, and your current GPS location can be superimposed onto the images.

There has also been quite a bit of controversy over the satellite images. Some countries have tried to ban the use of images of their land in the fear that it could be used to plan malicious attacks against them. Satellite images were said to be used in the terrorist attack in Mumbai. If you try to view American military institutions the images are blurred out, intentionally making it challenging for foreign countries to use these images to their advantage during an attack.