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December 02, 2008
Vendee Globe in Google Earth
It used to be very difficult to follow the drama of an around-the-world-sailing race. But, the Internet changed all that. One of my all time favorite Internet experiences was following the 2000-2001 Vendee Globe solo non-stop round-the-world race. The shining star of that race was a young 20-something Ellen MacArthur from the UK who managed to take second place in a very dramatic race. Ellen was later awarded an MBE for services to sport - so she's now Dame Ellen MacArthur. Being able to follow the racers' positions on a map and read daily updates and even see pictures and video from solo competitors at sea was a revolution in the sport of round-the-world sailing races. But, the story of Ellen's race was especially captivating.
The Vendee Globe is only held every four years. On November 9th, 2008 the current race began from Les Sables d'Olonne, France. The competitors are currently in the southern Atlantic Ocean and is a very close race so far. Since the last race was held in 2004-2005, this is the first time the Vendee Globe has been held since Google Earth was released. When the race started I was disappointed to find there was no published KML file for viewing the race in Google Earth. They do have a web based map and race tracker.
Fortunately, some enterprising French programmer has created some KML for following the race in Google Earth. You can visit his web site here (french). Here is a link to download the current positions of the racers 
. Alternatively, I've created a Vendee Globe network link which will automatically load his file and refresh every 6 hours so you can keep the file handy for putting in your My Places in Google Earth.
The data for the Vendee Globe racer positions is available in spreadsheet files at the Vendee Globe rankings page.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2008
Street View for New Zealand Released
Google has released Street View imagery for New Zealand today. It's available in the Street View layer in Google Earth and I'm sure it will be available in Google Maps within minutes or hours from now. Rumors were out this morning based on a premature press release that came out in ComputerWorld. As promised in the press release, it looks like Google did a thorough job creating imagery all over New Zealand. Below are a couple of shots from Street View New Zealand.
Old Ferry Building, Auckland, New Zealand:
Queenstown, New Zealand:
Don't forget, you can see full 3D panoramas of each Street View image inside Google Earth. Here are some tips on using Street View in Google Earth.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
Tilt Shift Photography Using Google Earth
DigitalUrban blog regularly provides a look at many different visualization techniques for cityscapes with a special emphasis on 3D building views. Recently DigitalUrban has been writing about tilt-shift miniature faking photography (see Wikipedia) - which can be used to make a life-sized location or object look like a miniature scale model. The technique distorts the focus of the photo to simulate a shallow depth-of-field. Using image processing software you can even use normal images and simulate the tilt-shifting technique. This morning, DigitalUrban pointed out Google Earth is an excellent source of material for faked tilt-shift videos and shared a video someone made using the technique with San Francisco as a subject. It's a really cool way to use Google Earth and the "miniature" effect is quite noticeable. Check out the video yourself - produced by Inoue_k3D at Vimeo:
Flight over Miniature San Francisco (Tilt-Shift) from Inoue_k3D on Vimeo
Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:05 AM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2008
Another 500K Photos for Google Earth
The Panoramio layer (found under the Geographic Web layer folder in Google Earth) was updated this weekend with another 500,000 photos. The last major update was back in September when 1 million photos were added. These photos come from the popular free Google Panoramio web site which lets you upload your favorite photos and map them to the location where the photo was taken. Google then takes photos (which meet the criteria) and adds them a few weeks or months later to the Panoramio layer. According to the announcement on their blog, the Panoramio layer now contains photos up to ID 15,881,277.
The Panoramio layer is a great way to explore places around the world and get a ground-level perspective of those places. Google updated the layer look in August. Popular locations may have dozens of photos from many angles. The Panoramio site even has a cool "Look Around" mode that combines photos from many people to let you look at a site from many perspectives. If you see a site with lots of photos, just click on the photo in its placemark and look for the "Look Around" link (if available).
Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
Norad Tracks Santa 2008 - With Google's Help
Like last year, the Norad Tracks Santa site will open its web site on December 1st allowing kids everywhere to watch the countdown to Christmas Eve. The web site will feature fun holiday games and activities daily until December 24th. And, like last year, the official application to watch Santa fly around the world on Christmas Eve will be Google Earth.
The NORAD Tracks Santa (NTS) program began on Dec. 24, 1955, after an errant phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa Claus. This began the tradition of tracking Santa Claus, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958. This Christmas marks the 50th anniversary of NORAD tracking Santa Claus as he goes around the world delivering presents.
In 2006 Google created a 3D game in Google Earth where you had to find Christmas presents somewhere on the Earth for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. They had Santa's North Pole home and his sleigh rendered in 3D, and then the Santa tracker was linked to the Norad data. Google also used Google Earth to track Santa in 2005. Last year (2007) was the first year Google's mapping applications were the official ones used by Norad for following Santa on the Internet.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. So, I'll be taking it easy and enjoying time spent with family, as well as lots of food (including Turkey)! For the third year in a row, I'm sharing the world's largest Thanksgiving greeting card. Happy Thanksgiving! in Google Earth. Feel free to share the link with your friends or family. (By the way, if you look closely, you'll see a placemark with a turkey icon. Check out the placemark for a little Thanksgiving trivia.)
Posted by FrankTaylor at 06:41 AM | Comments (1)
November 25, 2008
Ocean Biogeographic Maps in Google Earth
Marine scientists have formed a data repository for information about marine life around the world called OBIS (Ocean Biogeographic Information System). In order to help people better visualize the data, scientists from Duke University have created the OBIS SeaMap which lets you visualize the geospatial marine life data on maps - including Google Earth. It lets you explore the interactive online archives for marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds data.
Visit the SeaMap site and you can either start by viewing species on the main map page, or you can select a dataset or species. Don't worry, they recognize both common names as well as scientific names for each specie. For Google Earth they provide a link for mapping all the species in one file - you can open folders and turn on the different categories within GE. Or you can go to a specific specie and map their common habitat areas. For example, go to the species map, and enter "Blue Whale", then select the Google Earth link. Once the link loads in GE, you can zoom to different parts of the Earth and it will then load the data from their server showing the density of population of habitat for that view.
This is the kind of data I hope will be available when/if Google Ocean becomes available. Maybe this data was developed with that plan in mind.
Collection spotted via AnyGeo
Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2008
Where on Google Earth for Waitangi Day
Maori Television, New Zealand's national indigenous broadcaster, is using Google Earth to help celebrate Waitangi Day 2009 (the National Day of New Zealand held each year on February 6th). This year, they are encouraging kiwis to report where they will be on Waitangi Day by putting a placemark in Google Earth. They can put simple text, pictures, or even YouTube videos into their placemark to tell others about where they are, and what they are doing. Maori Television will compile and share a layer showing where everyone will be on the holiday in Google Earth. Read more about the announcement here, and the official Maori TV web site for the Waitangi Google Earth project is here. Read about this via AllPointsBlog.
Since many citizens are often abroad when their national holiday is being held, this is a great way to help people both remember their home, and still participate a bit in their holiday celebration by sharing their experience with others back home. Although, I think they intend people at home to participate as well. You can use their simple Google Maps-based form to mark your spot, but a Google Earth network link will presumably be used to show the full map. It will be interesting to see how many people actually participate and to see how widespread New Zealanders will be around the world on their holiday. I'll keep an eye on it and report on its progress next February.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
Google Earth Captures Tsunami Striking Fiji Island
It's a Friday, so I thought I would share with you this interesting find from GEB reader Peter K. It appears Google Earth captured a giant tsunami about to strike this remote island in the Pacific. You can see it yourself right here . No tricks, this is really inside Google Earth! However, this isn't a real wave. Instead this is an anomalie in Google Earth's terrain data. The world is a big place, and 3D terrain data is based on billions of data points and then later processed to remove errors. However, not all errors are properly processed, so you occasionally get anomalies like this. These errors can be reported to the GE Data Error Compendium, and eventually Google fixes them.
Here are some other interesting data errors found (terrain, imagery, and other errors). Some of these errors may have been fixed, but others are still there:
- Taylor Monument
- Double Chicago Building Error - still there!
- Giant Bug Found in Germany
- Cruise Ship Goes Off Edge of Google Earth
- Planes in Formation - Faked!
- Unidentified Flying Water Object
- Giant Building Found in Google Earth
- Funky Buildings in Google Earth
Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:00 AM | Comments (7)
November 20, 2008
360Cities - 3D Panoramas Now Available in Google Earth Layer
The very cool panoramic photo site 360Cities.net now has their own layer found under the Gallery layer folder. The new 360Cities layer contains placemarks to nearly 10,000 full 360 degree panoramas which are viewable inside Google Earth. Here's what 360Cities' Jeffrey Martin has to say about being included as a Google Earth layer:
"This ranks at the top of 360cities' achievements to date. It brings our beautiful content to a whole new audience and it serves as a great showcase for VR photography, which is starting to get the attention it deserves. It's a real honor."
In a recent post, GEB not only shared with you details on what is available from 360Cities, but also produced this video which shows you what the new layer looks like:
Congratulations to 360Cities! I highly recommend you check out the layer for some really unique photography.
There are also two other layers available in Google Earth with very high resolution immersive panoramas: Gigapxl and Gigapan both also found under the Gallery layer. Read more about Gigapxl here.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
Links marked with this icon are Google Earth files. You must have Google Earth installed to use these links.
