Satellite (Aerial) Photos of Castles

[Stephen]

Lately I've been using the satellite option in Google Maps to track down aerial photos of castles.

It's a little bit of work, but it's well worth the effort. A lot of websites, like castles-of-britain.com and castlewales.com have instructions for tourists to find the castle. Using Google Maps, you can get to the right vicinity and then switch to satellite view and scroll around until you find it.

In some areas of the world you cannot zoom in all the way, but in other areas you can get a pretty good image.

This is a good way to research castle layouts if you can't find groundplans.



I have a few more at my website:

http://www.swroble.com/Satellite/SatellitePhotos.html

Stephen

[Donut]

Thats a pretty good idea, the image is surprisingly better for a satellite than what I would have suspected.

[Brickzone]

I believe some mapping photos, rather than being from satellite, are aerial photos taken by traditional means - i.e. a plane with a camera.

[Stephen]

Good point Brickzone - I edited the title.

[g2]

I have used the same website (Google Maps), to find the German Castles along the Rhine river. It was fun to try and find them.

I never thought of “archiving” the image like you have. – Well done.

[Stephen]

I have used the same website (Google Maps), to find the German Castles along the Rhine river. It was fun to try and find them.

I never thought of “archiving” the image like you have. – Well done.

Thanks, g2. I haven't done much searching in Germany, I'll have to try that

I've been collecting these while doing research for the castle reconstructions I've been doing. (http://www.swroble.com/Castles/Projects ... astles.htm)

The photos were scattered all over my harddrive and I decided to get organized. Then I decided that maybe I should share, so I made the archive, which will also make it easier for me to find them again.

Stephen

[Jacob C.]

Here's a few google earth images I found of some castles & fortresses:

1. Aleppo Citadel
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7733/google1ru3.jpg

2. Krak Des Chevaliers (crusader fortress for the Knights Hospitaller)
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/2200/google1wg3.jpg
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6152/google2tn4.jpg

3. Kerak (crusader fortress for the Knights Templar)
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3293/google1cp1.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1671/google3nw6.jpg

4. Angers Castle in France
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/6874 ... nceia4.jpg

5. Potala Palace, Lhasa-Tibet
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/9562 ... acebl4.jpg

[ottoatm]

This is really clever. It really is a great idea to get the layout of a castle. Nice suggestion... this image is one that I really enjoyed~
Water-surronded castle

[Tedward]

I've been collecting these while doing research for the castle reconstructions I've been doing. (http://www.swroble.com/Castles/Projects ... astles.htm)

Those are great pictures.

BTW I was doing research on a prototype to build my own abbey and found a nice small abbey pictured in some books at the library. And there you go having done Valle Crucis already with great source photos and plans!

I guess I will have to modify the layout somewhat to make my own abbey.

Nice work.

[Stephen]

Here's a few google earth images I found of some castles & fortresses

Very nice! These are great photos. I looked for Krak Des Chevaliers and couldn't find it!

... this image is one that I really enjoyed

That's Bodiam Castle. It's pretty famous and you can find photos of it in most castle books. The square towers would make it easy to build in LEGO bricks.

And there you go having done Valle Crucis already with great source photos and plans!

I think you should build it anyway. Maybe you can do a better job on the front of the church than I did. Most abbeys followed standard layouts so they looked pretty much the same anyway.

Thanks for your comments everyone.
Stephen