map has long been an indispensable tool in human society, involving all aspects of national economy and people's livelihood, such as military national defense, national land development, and economic development.
Especially in modern society, it is difficult to leave the help of electronic maps when traveling, driving navigation, online shopping, daily consumption, etc.
Among them, compared with flat maps, satellite maps are intuitive, realistic, detailed, and bright colors, which are very popular among users.
Many people will feel that the technology level of Google satellite maps in the United States is very developed, with high definition maps and high resolution, especially the three-dimensional model of the earth Google Earth (Google Earth) is powerful and magical.
In comparison, the electronic map level of many platforms in my country pales in comparison. Among them, there are Baidu Map , which started as a search engine with Google, and Gaode , which is leading the navigation industry in my country.
Is this true? What is the background and reason behind this?
What is a satellite map?
The earliest map of human beings, that is, ordinary maps, was artificially surveyed and mapped. Satellite maps are the real geographical appearance of satellite shooting (partially derived from aerial survey shooting).
In many people's perception, satellite maps are far away from the ground, while artificial surveying and mapping are more accurate. Actually, it's a big mistake.
Due to the influence of surveying and mapping tools, technology, human subjective factors, etc., the objectivity and accuracy of ordinary maps are not as high as those of satellite maps.
Moreover, it takes a long time for ordinary maps to be surveyed and published. Now, the geographical conditions, especially cities, are developing very fast, so ordinary maps appear to have lagging information. The satellite map is real-time and can reflect the latest geographical appearance.
satellite map, to be precise, is satellite remote sensing image, also known as satellite image.
It detects the reflection of electromagnetic waves by satellites on the earth's surface objects and the electromagnetic waves emitted by them, thereby extracting the information of these objects and completing the long-distance identification of objects. The images obtained by converting and identifying these radio waves information are then called satellite images. Compared with the United States, the technology of
has developed lately. This is also the fundamental reason why Baidu and Gaode’s satellite maps are currently not as good as Google.
Moreover, the map industry, especially the satellite map field, is a high barrier industry. In addition to technical barriers, there are also national access and regulatory regulations, because they involve hidden information such as national defense and land surveys.
Therefore, there are many companies at home and abroad who want to enter this industry, but few can enter, and even fewer do well.
Currently, Baidu and Gaode’s satellite maps are indeed not as good as Google, and are caused by many reasons. However, Google Satellite Map is the current industry ceiling in the world, and Gaode is the current industry ceiling in China, and there are also many users of Baidu Map.
can be seen from the following four aspects, and the strength and product gap of these three companies.
Remote Sensing Image Technology Background
The exact name of the satellite map is satellite remote sensing image.
Remote Sensing Image (RS) refers to film or photos recording the size of electromagnetic waves of various land objects, mainly divided into aerial images and satellite photos.
The United States began to implement the "Keyhose Project" in the 1960s, and has successively developed and launched a variety of types of reconnaissance satellites to collect massive remote sensing images on the earth.
Satellite maps have a wide range of applications, mainly used to detect ground information, detect geographical location, terrain, etc. It can also be applied in urban and rural planning, navigation systems, military command and deployment, disaster monitoring, disaster relief deployment, etc.
Google Maps products benefit from this military and technological achievements of the United States. With a powerful image data management system and professional image processing software, we can accurately and quickly provide users with image query, production and processing services.
Among them, the "Keyhole Project" archived a total of about 930,000 historical remote sensing images from 1959 to 1986, which were later decrypted. They were introduced to my country in 2008, thus filling the gap in my country's historical remote sensing image market.
These historical remote sensing images are used in key projects of national and provincial units, and have also promoted my country's remote sensing images, geographic information technology and industry.
In this era and technology background, map platforms such as Baidu and Gaode came into being.
So, the gap between Baidu and Gaode and Google in this regard is obvious.
Enterprise strength and scale
First talk about Google (Google).
It was founded in September 1998 and started as a search engine. It is a pioneer in this technology field in the world.
It is a world-renowned Internet company and has many business areas.
As we all know, the search engine website Google is still one of the most visited websites in the world. There are also browser Chrome, pinyin input method, and mobile operating system Android.
In addition, Google has hardware such as mobile phones and laptops, drones, driverless cars, smart contact lenses and and other AI products. It also develops Go artificial intelligence program AlphaGo, which cooperates with Honor mobile phones, and the overseas version is equipped with Google Mobile Services (GMS), etc.
Google was listed on Nasdaq in August 2004, and later surpassed Microsoft to become the second largest technology company in the world's market value.
How much financial resources are Google? It spent US$1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, , Motorola mobile , etc.
Google also has its own venture capital companies and investment funds. For example, investing in China JD.com for US$550 million, etc.
Baidu and Gaode can only match their strong technological R&D capabilities and comprehensive strength like Google.
Based on its powerful information search technology, Google has expanded into the field of geographic information.
In October 2004, Google acquired the Keyhole (keyhole) company engaged in digital map surveying and mapping in the United States.
From this, Google has successively launched a series of software called "Google Maps". Moreover, the map coverage expanded to the world in June 2005.
Let’s talk about Baidu again.
Baidu company was founded in Beijing in January 2000.
Baidu draws on Google's development model and started out as a search engine to become the world's largest Chinese search engine. The company has also achieved strong growth.
Baidu has the top technical team in China and even the world. It makes China the only four countries in the world with core search engine technologies besides the United States, Russia and South Korea.
is based on search engines. Baidu has evolved artificial intelligence technologies such as voice, images, knowledge graphs, natural language processing, etc., and has invested in cutting-edge fields such as deep learning, conversational artificial intelligence operating systems, autonomous driving, and AI chips, becoming the world's leading AI company.
Baidu is a world-renowned Internet company in China and the world, but its comprehensive strength is still far from Google.
Baidu Map is an online map service provided by Baidu and was released in September 2005.
Let’s talk about Gaode again.
Gaide's entrepreneurial team began to enter the GPS field since the 1990s, and established Beijing Gaode Software Co., Ltd. in July 2002.
Shortly after its establishment, Gaode established a joint venture with Aisin AW (invested by Toyota and Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd.) and Fuji Ten (Japanese automotive electronics manufacturer) to open up the in-vehicle navigation electronic map market.
Gaide is committed to exploring and innovating business models and expanding business fields while developing and accumulating electronic map database content and navigation engines.
That is, Gaode's development model started by Google and Baidu with search engines is very different, but has entered the field of geographic information from the beginning.
In July 2010, Gaode was listed on the Nasdaq, USA.
In May 2011, Gaode Map Amap was released online.
In April 2014, Gaode officially acquired Alibaba Group .
Today, Gaode is China's leading provider of digital map content, navigation and location service solutions, and ranks as a leader in China's navigation industry.
map data source channel
Google Maps data mainly comes from data provided by the US government, geographical data from acquisition of third-party institutions, satellite detection and ground-based data.
For example, to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Google released the online service of Google Moon on July 20, 2005, based on Google Maps, and satellite data comes from NASA (NASA).
Also, in Google Maps application, visual weather information such as clouds in the weather layer are provided by NRL (US Naval Research Laboratory).
In September 2008, Google Maps satellite was launched to provide Google Maps service with 50 cm resolution high-definition photos.
Some of the satellite maps in the world are aerial photos. But in Google Earth, up to 98% are satellite photos.
Google Maps data is refreshed every quarter and refreshed every 18 months; Google Earth data is refreshed every day and refreshed every quarter.
The high-definition satellite map in Google Earth is provided by DGI (merged by the world's leading provider of earth observation and geospatial analysis, SPOT and other companies, such as 0.6 meters resolution, 1 meter resolution, 2.5 meters resolution, 4 meters resolution, and 10 meters resolution images.
Baidu and Gaode are not as rich as Google, nor do they have their own satellites to obtain geographic information.
Baidu is mainly based on search technology to obtain map data.
In December 2014, Baidu reached an agreement with Nokia , to provide Baidu with map data services outside of mainland China.
Gaide's electronic map database mainly comes from the acquisition of enterprises and their own field surveying, mapping, collection, and geographic information data provided by third parties.
For example, when Gaode was founded, based on the characteristics of the country's basic map data at that time, after hard exploration, it developed a data collection tool and editing and processing platform with independent intellectual property rights.
Moreover, Gaode has made many acquisitions to directly obtain surveying and mapping qualifications and geographical data, and expand professional navigation engine research and development technology and three-dimensional data business.
In June 2004, Gaode became the first private enterprise in the country to obtain Class A surveying and mapping qualifications for navigation electronic maps. Later, he obtained Class A surveying and mapping qualifications for aerial photography and Class A surveying and mapping qualifications for Internet map services.
In August 2005, Gaode acquired Beijing Tumeng Technology Co., Ltd., a leading basic map service provider in China.
Tumeng Company owns independent intellectual property rights "Mapabc Geographic Information System Software", which was the basic map service provider with the highest market share and the richest map data in China at that time.
In October 2007, Gaode built a high-end navigation electronic map database containing 31 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions across the country and two special administrative regions in Hong Kong and Macao.
In September 2011, Gaode Company won the bid for the development of the "Beidou Navigation Service Platform" and participated in the promotion of the industrialization of Beidou application.
In February 2012, Gaode cooperated with the global high-end navigation leader, Dutch TomTom, a company in the Netherlands, to provide HD Traffic high-definition road condition information services.
Thus, Gaode was able to build and optimize a platform that integrates from data collection, production to products and services.
map function application direction
Google Maps can provide vector maps of global city, transportation and business information, satellite photos of different resolutions, and terrain views showing terrain and contour lines.
In June 2013, Google announced the acquisition of Waze, a traffic navigation application company, which uses GPS information from mobile devices to obtain information about road traffic flow. Waze runs on Apple devices, Google Android mobile operating system, and Microsoft Windows Phone devices, and its users cover about 190 countries and regions around the world.
Google Maps’ functional applications mainly include 3D functions, virtual globe three-dimensional model (Google Earth), weather layers (watch actual cloud and weather conditions), voice search, traffic conditions and route inquiry, indoor display (merchant stores, large stores, airports), real-time street scenes, etc.
Google Earth is a virtual globe software developed by Google. It arranges satellite photos, aerial photography and GIS on a three-dimensional model of the earth.
Google also has the map-based "Street View" (street view) function, which allows users to browse real-time scenes around the world 360 degrees, and are immersive, and even see the license plate number of the car clearly.
In the world, unless used in military use, the information captured by satellite is manually filtered and then stored in the server. That is, commercial and civilian satellite maps are images seen by obtaining data from servers, not first-hand information.
Google Maps' "Street View" is so powerful that it shows.
Google Maps focuses on high-end technology applications, while Baidu Maps and Gaode focus on the application of life service functions of maps.
Baidu Map and Gaode have a high similarity in life services, but Baidu Map focuses more on convenient services for daily consumption information.
Gaide's products and services have performed significantly in three major business areas: automotive navigation applications, wireless Internet location services applications, and government and enterprise applications.
Gaide provides navigation electronic maps to many car companies' models, and also provides bus and bicycle navigation services; provides local search services for websites such as Sina and Google. It is Apple's map service provider in China; participates in earthquake disaster relief, Shanghai World Expo 2010 and other map services.
In addition to map navigation, Gaode Map also provides users with one-stop travel services such as taxi, hotels, and tickets.
Because of its main navigation function, Gaode can run offline. That is, it can also be used without a network.
To sum up, Google, Baidu and Gaode have different development goals and directions in terms of map services, and the user experience brought by their products is also different.
Moreover, Baidu Maps and Gaode's life service functions have a more ignited flavor, becoming more and more rich and humanized, and are constantly adding fresh elements, becoming increasingly convenient, comprehensive and meticulous.
believes that with the launch of my country's Beidou navigation service platform, my country's map technology level will usher in a brand new improvement.
