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.
