Google Earth changed the way humans explore the world. However, technology doesn’t always work as advertised. Google Earth will sometimes warp landscapes into interesting works of modern art.
This type of glitching happens because of how Google Earth creates its images. The process is called texture mapping. It entails overlaying a flat satellite image with a 3D terrain map. It’s a lot like putting a label on a soda bottle.
This works pretty well most of the time, but every so often, Google’s algorithms mess up trying to stretch a 2D image over a 3D landscape. The result is a pretty crazy distortion of the landscape.
Brooklyn artist Clement Valla spends his time scouring Google for these kind of screw-ups and documents them on his website. Check out a few we thought were notable.
1. Hello dangerous highway.
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2. Looks like a bumpy road.
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3. This one is really bad. Looks like the Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing.
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4. Imagine a world where we actually built bridges like this.
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5. The super highway to somewhere….
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6. This would make an amazing piece of abstract modern art.
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7. Something’s not quite right with the wavy highway.
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8. Oh silly Google Earth.
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9. That’s a steep drop.
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10. “Oh don’t mind me. I don’t understand the concept of depth.”
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