Image faked -- why?

[Forester]

Take a look at the image of Queen Mary 2 alongside in New York.

40° 46'07.35"N 73° 59'54.48"W

There's something fishy about that image of QM2.

The shadows show that the image of the wharves was taken mid to late afternoon, but the shadows of and on the ship look more llike mid-day.

Look at the bow of the ship. You should not be able to see the dockside ahead of her through the fo'c'stle deck.

Look at the waves through the Port side of the ship.

What's happened to the boat deck on the Port side? It's completely missing.

No Harbour Master or Port Captain would leave all those rafts/pontoons there when bringing such a prestigious ship alongside.

Where are the gangways?

Emergency evacuation procedures when alongside are to put everyone ashore. That's why the Port Captain would not allow all those parked vehicles to be left there while the ship is alongside. Neither would the Fire Department.

Look also at the ship moored alongside the W 48th St pier (halfway to the USS Independence and Growler). It is too small for the scale of the background image and is much too low below the height of the pier. The shadow of the pier falls over the monkey island which is the highest deck on the ship and on a ship of that size would tower above the wharf.That ship too is semi-transparent and you can see the waves through it.

Methinks the State of New Jersey or some contractor has done a bit of fakery to this image. I wonder why?

Why would they Photoshop a false image on top of a genuine one?

[McMaster_de]

We had a discussion about that in the forum.

http://www.googleearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4602

[Forester]

I'm still puzzled as to the reason why the images should be faked.

Is it perhaps an attempt to create an illusion that NYC is a more successful and attractive destination for cruise ships than it really is?

After 9/11 there was a massive effort at Federal, State and City level to persuade people to continue to travel to the city and spend money there. Perhaps this fakery was done by the same people who faked all the "evidence" of WMD which was the original basis for the destruction and occupation of Iraq?

Maybe the illusion is being created so that people think that the Big Apple has been more successful in pulling in cruise ships than it actually has? If so, it's unfortunate that the government and its commercial partners apprently naturally and reflexively resort to forgery and dishonesty for commercial reasons.

Was it perhaps an attempt to make the port facilities look more prosperous and the hoped for cruise trade look more lucrative than it actually is? Is it perhaps linked to the recent controversial sale of the port operating company?

How does a company or government department persuade Google Earth or its suppliers to fake imagery to talk up property values or stock prices (if they do)? Is Google even aware that the forgeries are going on?

[Forkboy2]

The ship was definately inserted into the image. You can even see thru the ship where the transparency is too high. I think they just wanted to show that ship to make the area more interesting. Same with the other cruise ship to the south. You can see the water through the ship. Don't think it's a conspiracy, the editors probably just want to make the imagery as interesting is possible.

Matt

[BradG7]

I can tell you one thing, the entire water front is a different image than the river, so I'm guesing the QM2 was there when it was taken, but the other waterfront was taken later that day and the overlay didn't match up perfectly

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, I don't think it's any big conspiracy on the part of the government, just two sets of images taken at different times and pasted together, probably by the Google Earth people, not the feds. It looks like the water image was used because it has a lot of boat traffic, and the angle of the sun made the waves in the water invisible, or it was a really calm day. The coastline image probably has more shore activity/boats docked and may just have been a better image, so that was used. The two were merged and you can see where the river image was drawn around the docks sticking out into the water, and the waves in the water there are very noticable, and the GE people probably thought they would be distracting, so they used the other image instead.

[BradG7]

Your right, and I agree, but the theory on the "waveless" Hudson River going through there isn't that hard to figure out. It's never calm in that part of the river, I've been through there, like you said, it's just the angle of the sun ;)

[paulmellers]

Or perhaps the image was taken before the ship was placed there and they didn't have the licence to take the whole area again so just inserted the image of the ship. Just a possibility, i'm not sure when the ship arrived.