Satellite map pictures

Does anyone know how frequently the SL satellite pictures are taken to update the inworld map?

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that anything over 400 meters would not appear on the map picture. Is that true?

Is it because the satellite passes below that level? For example, if I have a platform at 700 meters, and I put another one at 300 meters (with a plot sized picture, for example), will the 300 meter image appear, or will it be blocked by the 700 meter platform, even if the 700 meter platform will not appear in the picture?

Does this make sense? I'd appreciate any info people have to share.

Thanks,
Princess Ivory

I don't know the exact heights, but I do know that items at 300m do show on the map and at 500 they don't, so your 400 sounds about right.

I think that is a pretty good estimate Denise. My shop is at about 350 and it shows on the map, but the prefabs I have displayed above it at 450 do not.

I have seen the images update almost daily at times and as much as 2 months between at other times. Right now they seem to be updating pretty quickly in our sim, every day or two.

If you have aplatform at 300 and one at 700, the one at 300 will show and the one at 700 will not, and one at 700 will not block the view of the other platform.

400 sounds about right for the threshold to me too. I put my first work platform at about 400 meters and it appeared on the map. I moved my platform up to 550 and it disappeared from the map.

i notice they update about once-twice a week. i check my changes on my land, and that's why i'm paying attention.

I wonder when we'll be able to get SL on Google Maps?...

It appears Google is running SL's mapping system.

http://slurl.com

A thing about putting "plot sized picture"s up - the map pics do NOT actually look at Textures, they only look at the average color of the texture. If you put a texture sign on a huge prim, the map will only show the general background color of the prim, not the texture itself. I've tried it. If you want something readable on the map, you'll have to make it out of prims.

I /imagine/ that sculpted prims will only show up as spheres, but I haven't tried it.

From what i've noticed, the satellite will only see blank or coloured prim. Been a while since i did it, but it wouldnt show an image I textured on the prim.

I'm not too sure about that. I've seen text on prims displaying on the map, like '........ mall' for instance.

I'm pretty Buckaroo's right - it's looking at the avarage color of the texture. It probably also factors in the prim color but too many things rely just on texture to make using only prim color a good option for the map pictures...

Zero Linden said that generating the map picture is one of (if not the) most CPU-intensive things that a sim does, which is probably a big reason they're not updated more often. The sim server hardware doesn't have much for graphics cards (just some cheap VGA support, I'd guess) so it has to draw the picture all in software..


Yep. They're using a whole bunch of prims to do that. Go check one out sometime..

I'd rather not, it usually says mall or something similar

Can't get in-world right now (at work having lunch) and can't figure out how to get a sim name out of slurl but check out the northern tip of the old southern continent - there's a few sims there that have "Please Fix SL" on their map picture. They look like nice, non-mally sims.

Hm.. Is slurl still busted? Only the close-up pictures seem to be updating. See, for example, http://slurl.com/secondlife/nieun//// - everything but the closest zoom seems to be at least a few months old.

Woot, that sounds much better. Will definitely check that out!

I have one above my vehicle shop in Horseshoe:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/horseshoe

I put each letter together from big black prims...

- Jon

I've got a whole heap of things all at different altitudes so you can probably figure something out from this...

At sea level (0) where I used to have an Island I now have a boat..it appears

At 140m (just below cloud level) I have a small 10 x 10 work platform..it appears

At 256m (just above cloud level) I have a satellite/station/home type thing..it appears

At 417m I have a medium work platform..not sure if it appears..don't think so

At 575m I have a large work platform..it doesn't appear

At 701m I have a sim wide race track..it definately doesn't appear

So from this we can deduce that anything up to 250m definately will appear, between 250 and 400 might appear, above 550 is unlikely to appear.

I don't think there's any fixed frequency of updating the map, however I built the satellite/station/home thingy about a week ago and it's been on the map for a couple of days now..but realistically that means nothing untill the next update.

Anyway, hope this might be of some help..Perre

I have a sky platform at 250, and some structures on it. They show up on the map. I have a skybox floating at 350, it shows. The other skyboxes above it don't. I would say 400 is the line.

Yep I'd say with Cristalle's data and mine you can position the 'pic snappin sattelite' at around 400m, how often it flies by..is anyones guess.but keep lookin upwards..I'm sure you'll see it some day now.