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August 31, 2007

Flight Simulator Mode in Google Earth 4.2

[UPDATED Monday, 3-September - See new Basic Flying Tips article]

Well, Google slipped in a new feature inside GE 4.2 (released last week) and didn't even tell us! Yes, there is a new Flight Simulator mode. This is more of a "real" flight simulator mode than the G-Force mode I've talked about before. Hit the special keyboard shortcut: CTRL-ALT-A (Command+Option+A on the Mac) and you get this requestor allowing you to choose from two types of aircraft - an F-16 or a SR-22, and choose from one of several airports. [UPDATE: UK readers have an issue with the language settings, but the easiest way around it is to start the mode by hitting CTRL-A. Read comments below for more.]

When you're ready, select "Start Flight". But, before you do, you might want to check out the web page describing the controls (or hit the Help button). You'll find controls for flaps, landing gear, trim, and more. I recommend you start off with the SR22 which is a slower plane, and easier to fly for beginners. Here's what the flight simulator looks like in action inside Google Earth (UPDATE: See the new basic flying tips article):

You get a head up display (HUD) just like in a fighter-jet. And the indicators tell you which direction you are moving, rate of climb, altitude, and other useful information most flight simulator aficionados will understand. Hit the Page-Up key to add power to the throttle and begin moving. Even if you're used to flight simulators, it may take a little while to get used to flying with the mouse (with the arrow keys it's harder). Click the left mouse button (your cursor changes to a "+" sign) and make small movements around the center of the screen. Read the help page for more tips on other controls. This mode will also work with joysticks and flight simulator yokes. I'll try my flight simulator yoke mount later this weekend and let you know how it works. Imagine how much easier the Swiss Alps Fighter Jet video I made would have been with this new mode?

[UPDATE: Once you hit the hidden CTRL-ALT-A shortcut to enable the flight simulator, you will from now on get a menu choice: "Tools->Enter Flight Simulator..." in Google Earth. By the way, this shows they intended to make this a "hidden" feature on purpose. :-) ]

I've been trying to get the release notes for GE 4.2 out of Google all week - but, I guess they wanted to see how long it would take for people to find cool new features like this. I wonder if there are even more hidden features? via Marco's Blog who appears to be the first person to find it.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:04 PM | Comments (63) | TrackBack

Google Earth Sky 3D Animation - Han Solo Escapes

Here's a little Friday fun. Although the new Sky mode from Google Earth 4.2 is designed to look up at the night sky - and doesn't have the ability to tilt your view like Google Earth - it is still a 3D view. So, I decided to add some 3D to Sky. Naturally, I decided to play with something from the Star Wars universe. So, I grabbed a nice model I found in the Google 3D Warehouse. Using SketchUp, I was able to place the model into Google Earth (with a bit of altitude) and then switch to Sky view. This showed the model, but it needed something else to show off the model. So, I asked Joey Wade, who has done lots of time animations with Google Earth, to create an animation with the model. He quickly agreed, and now you can see this cool 3D Sky animation which I'm calling "Han Solo Escapes ". After it loads in GE, switch to Sky view. Then double-click on the "Sky3d" folder in your Temporary Places. Then turn on the time animation by clicking on the right-arrow "play" button next to the time slider. Open the "Sky3d" folder and play with the different camera views while the animation is playing. Hope you like it!

Thanks to Joey Wade for doing the animation, and to IDW who posted the model to the 3DWarehouse.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 30, 2007

The Gmail Video Collection in Google Earth

Google has done a really cool viral marketing thing which both simultaneously promotes their Gmail product, but also has the by-product of promoting many of their other products. They asked people to create video clips with innovative ways of passing the Gmail mail logo from the left to the right in a huge round-the-world "e-mail" hand-off. They got over a 1000 submissions and picked a few to create the following video:

Of course, they asked submitters to post the videos to Google's YouTube. And, some of the people have mapped the location of where they made their clips. So, GoogleMapsMania has posted a map of the Gmail videos. And now that you can easily embed Google Maps, you can see it in this blog post (see below) - or you can view it in Google Earth (you just click on the KML button when viewing the larger map). If you are using the Windows version of GE 4.2, you can see the videos inside the placemark descriptions. There are some hilarious video clips on the map. And, this shows off Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Earth all at the same time. Amazing marketing Google!

View Larger Map

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sky Goodies: Hubble Tracker, Sky KML Guide, Horizon Add-on

Here's a collection of new goodies to play with for Google Earth's new Sky mode (note, you must have GE 4.2 to see the new Sky mode - read about Sky here).

• Hubble Tracker - Alberto Conti, of the Space Telescope Science Institute - and one of the scientists who developed the data for Sky, has posted a cool network link which lets you see the track and position of the Hubble Space Telescope in Google Earth. It automatically updates every 5 minutes to show you its current position as it orbits the Earth.
  
  
• Sky KML Guide - A Googler has written a document explaining how to prepare KML files for Sky. It also explains how to convert the coordinates between normal GE and Sky. via Using Google Earth.
  
  
• Horizon Add-on - One of the most frequently requested features in the last week, since Google's Sky was released, is the need to show a horizon so you can know which stars are visible from your house at the current moment. Michael Kosowsky has created an application that will generate a horizon in Sky, and it shows the position of the sun, moon and planets as well. This technically makes Sky into a "planisphere" showing your sky as it is now. The network link automatically updates to show you the planisphere for the current time. It may be a bit intimidating at first, but follow these instructions and you'll find it isn't too hard. These steps are necessary so you get the horizon for your particular location on the Earth. If you are too impatient, here is a KML for London, England .
  
  
  1. First visit his site HeyWhatsThat.com
     
  2. Next, check "All Panoramas" at the top and see if your location has already been calculated by looking for it on the map. Or in the list in the View menu. If your location isn't listed, simply select "New Panorama" at the top and find your location on the map. Follow the instructions to set your location and Submit request. After a couple of minutes you should get a map showing your location.
     
  3. Now in the upper right above the map, look for View in Google Earth -> by night and select the night link. You will get a KML file taking you into Google Earth. Choose "Switch to Sky".
     
  4. Once it loads, I recommend you click and drag the "Planisphere" network link for your location from the Temporary Places into your My Places. You can turn it on when you need it the next time you're looking at Sky. Since it is a network link it will automatically reposition the horizon and planets to their current position.
     
  5. For further reading, here are Michael's technical notes from his FAQ on the horizon feature. It shows you how to do even more with the network link. Great work Michael! I think Google should talk to you about making this a permanent feature in Sky.
     
  
  

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 28, 2007

FlashEarth Mashup with Google Earth 4.2

This is pretty amazing! Valery Hrosunov posted that you could include FlashEarth (a very cool mashup itself which lets you switch between several mapping application aerial/satellite views - like Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps, and more) all within a placemark bubble - if you are using GE 4.2 on Windows. Then, Barry Hunter of Nearby.uk.org posted a cool "mashup" which uses a network link to present a placemark for your current view (NOTE: you may need a large GE window to see this properly). When you click on the arrow placemark you get Flashearth which will open right over the same place you are looking at.

This is a very handy way to view places in Google Earth and quickly check to see if other aerial databases have a different view. Thanks Valery and Barry!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 28, 2007

Greece Fires in Google Earth

The smoke from the terrible fires in Greece were visible from space. NASA has a program called MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) which has two satellites called Aqua and Terra which are continuously taking photos around the world. The photos from these satellites are available on a web site on a near real-time basis (in raw form, they require some processing before they can be viewed properly in Google Earth). NASA has processed some images for the fires in Greece (see this one for example).

Someone in Spain has posted a nice KML file which shows several satellite photos showing the progression of the fires in Greece over the course of four days. The file overlays the images into Google Earth just like normal satellite photos. After opening the file , you can clearly see the smoke from the fires. The satellites also detect heat and mark them with red outlines (blurry in these low-resolution shots). Just select one of the four different dates to see the progression of the fires. The KML file was posted (in Spanish) at Dulce's GE blog, and I've translated the file into English.

For some more interesting overlays and pictures of the Greece fires, see this thread at the Google Earth Community.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 27, 2007

Google Earth 4.2 Roundup

Google Earth 4.2 was released last week. The big news of course was the new Sky database which uses Google Earth to let you explore telescope views of the night sky. But, GE 4.2 also contains some pretty cool new features in support of the new KML 2.2 beta specification. In particular, the new photo features and the ability to embed flash applications in placemark descriptions (sadly, only on Windows though).

Here is a roundup of some interesting contributions from KML developers experimenting with the new features:

• Live Webcam - Valery Hrosunov has posted how you can include a webcam in the new PhotoOverlay tag of KML 2.2 and include refresh tags to cause it to update as frequently as the webcam updates. This means you can position a web cam in Google Earth just as the real camera is positioned, and have it dynamically update. OgleEarth explains more about how it is done. The example above is from a webcam near Valery in Perm, Russia.

• YouTube Airport Videos - Virgil Zetterlind of EarthNC has been anxious to try out some of the new features of KML 2.2 since the Google Developer Day three months ago. Now that GE 4.2 is out, he has produced this pretty amazing KML file (it works best with Windows version of GE 4.2 since you can only see embedded videos with Windows). He has queried the YouTube API for videos related to airports around the world. He is also using another KML 2.2 option which lets you link to other content within placemarks, so you can see multiple videos within the same placemark. Says Virgil: "The file was created by running a ICAO airport identifier search against the YouTube API. As such, it's subject to errors and it misses a large number of videos due to poor tagging. Here's hoping that over time more people will use the geotagging options on upload and that Google will better expose geotagged results via the YouTube API." Virgil posted this at PlanePlaces.com.

• GEB Text-to-Speech RSS - This will only work on Windows with GE 4.2. Joey Wade has posted a text-to-speech RSS feed which you can view in KML for Google Earth Blog. It uses a flash text-to-speech tool. Since I still haven't set up my RSS feeds for GeoRSS, the only placemark location is tagged to my office for GEB.

• New Sky Stuff

  • Reviews of Sky - SciFi.com shows snippets of reviews of Sky from a variety of media.

  • Sky forum - Lots of neat things are being posted in the new Sky forum at the Google Earth Community. If you're into astronomy and like Sky, you should check it out. I'll be summarizing the most amazing stuff in posts as usual here at GEB.

  • Best of Hubble - This KML file is interesting, not only because it gives an overview of Hubble Space Telescope pictures in Sky, but also because it uses some innovative KML features. It was published by some of the folks who worked on developing Sky at the HubbleSite. Instead of relying on the placemark descriptions, it uses KML ScreenOverlay tags combined with regions to show descriptions in the upper left. This way the view is not impeded as much by the unpredictable placemark bubbles. I don't think this technique relies on GE 4.2, but tell me if I'm wrong. Anyway, I think it is an innovative idea which may have useful applications for educational KMLs.

  • Arp Catalog of Peculiar Galaxies (500) - A collection of placemarks to 500 peculiar galaxies in the night sky posted by 'scottVee' at the GEC. More on Arp.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Burning Man 2007 in Google Earth

Burning Man is a difficult to explain event which occurs each year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada for one week. This year it is being held August 27 (today) through September 3. Basically a wide variety of people build a city in the desert. There is art, music, drinking, and much more. There are basically few rules (except for safety). People build things and destroy things. They play, they party, and they even work. When the event is over, the entire city is dismantled leaving just the desert behind again. According to the web site, you really can't explain it except by going there. But, you can read their "What is Burning Man?" article for more details.

During last year's event, someone took aerial photos of Burning Man and Google has included them in Google Earth. You can see the huge "city", buildings, structures, and thousands of people in the desert. This year, there is a Burning Man KML file that will show you in Google Earth the layout of the city, and a 3D model of the central area where they planned to install a huge burning man statue above a giant tent. Here is the web site with more details on Burning Man for GE.

I am expecting to get some reports from Burning Man this week including some aerial photos. Watch this blog for more. By the way, on the last night of the event, the big statue of a man is set to fire.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 26, 2007

Google Earth 4.2 - Release notes wanted, new icons

Google still hasn't updated the release notes for the new Google Earth 4.2. So I'm still discovering little things which have been updated in 4.2 from the last beta. We are well aware of some of the big changes like the new Sky and the new 3D photo viewer. But, I'm sure there are lots of smaller changes like the bug which kept the navigation gadget from going away when on automatic in 4.1 is now fixed. Last night, I noticed that the standard icons used for placemarks have changed. They are now more similar in style to the icons used in the layers and in Google My Maps. The image below shows the new choices (if you create a placemark and click on the icon button, this is what you see).

Click on the image above to see a comparison of the new images to the old.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:30 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

August 24, 2007

Thoughts about Google Sky

Ok, I've had a whole 48+ hours now to play with the new Google Earth 4.2 Sky feature. Since I worked in a planetarium, and have a degree in astronomy from the University of Arizona, my enthusiasm for Sky is pretty high. I'll explain more reasons why below. I've read many posts in blogs and forums in the last two days about what people are saying about Sky (some bad, but mostly good). There's no question the release of this new product is a significant event which has captured a lot of attention from people and the media world-wide.

Here are my thoughts and ruminations about Sky so far:

General observations

Many of us, who think Google Earth has been a wonderful tool for viewing the Earth, have asked Google to use the same tool and techniques to look at other planets and places of the universe. Sky is certainly a wonderful first step. It stays true to Google Earth's formula for success by providing high resolution imagery, intuitive and easy-to-use interface with the mouse, layers with more information, the same kind of tools for sharing and annotating places with others (placemarks, image overlays, network links, etc.), and most importantly it gives an exciting new look at places many people have never viewed with their own eyes. Just like GE opened our eyes and gave us exciting opportunities to explore our planet, this new release is already doing the same thing for the night sky.

Criticisms

Some people have already criticized the new Sky feature because they claim it is not doing something original. There are many night sky viewing applications (or planetarium software applications) already out there. Some cost money (for example Starry Night - a wonderful product I consider well worth the money!), but many are free (for example: Celestia, Stellarium, and WorldWind), and some even work in browsers (e.g. Sky-Map.org). Some complaints are valid and are simply related to Sky being such a new beta product (like where is the SpaceNavigator support?). And, some of those who believe in these other "competing" products have been quick to criticize missing capabilities in Sky which they view as essential. For example, they ask: Where is the horizon in Sky? Why does it do such a poor job at showing the planets? Where is the Sun? Can it control your telescope? Why doesn't it find all of the most popular deep sky objects when you search?

Some of these criticisms are valid. Sky doesn't do all the things these other programs can do. It isn't a real planetarium program which would help you plan a night's observations of deep sky objects with a good telescope. It doesn't really simulate the sky with day and night and exact views of the heavens and planets as you would see them with your unaided eye. But, I think the people who are criticizing Sky for some of these limitations are missing the potential significance of Sky and the positive effects it will have on astronomy, and in raising awareness. Things that will help increase the number of people who will want to use some of these other applications.

There were similar reactions when Google Earth first came out. In fact, Google Earth had a profound effect on the GIS industry because it suddenly made so many more people aware of the importance geospatial information and the importance of professional data and services for maintaining things like our civic infrastructure and plans. At first, many in the GIS industry criticized Google Earth strongly and said it would damage the credibility of GIS. And generate inaccurate/false information. And many developers of other similar applications also criticized features which they felt were missing or inadequate in Google Earth. Instead, I think Google Earth has had a significant effect helping to raise geo-spatial awareness world-wide. Many people and companies are now thinking about the importance of tying information to location. All of the other applications out there have also contributed to this effect, but if you look at the numbers - Google Earth has clearly had the most significant effect. And, many in the GIS industry now will tell you they are glad for what GE has done to help their industry grow.

Not only that, but many scientists have found Google Earth a great way to help the general public visualize their scientific results and get more support for their research. Non-profit organizations have been able to show the public the locations of man-made disasters and get support for their causes. And businesses have been using it to help market their goods, show the locations of their establishments, and even sell new products and services. And, other similar products to GE have mostly continued to grow in popularity themselves.

What is the significance of Sky?

Sky is a great new way to view the night sky and learn and see wonderful objects in deep space. But, more importantly it is riding on the coattails of an incredibly popular product (Google Earth) and the brand awareness of Google. As a result, I believe Sky will rapidly gain public awareness and popularity. In fact, if it hasn't already happened, it won't be long before there are more people with Sky installed on their computer than all of the other installations of astronomy programs combined. Google has obviously worked hard to incorporate the same elements which made GE so popular. It has a huge deep database of imagery, and a wealth of annotations with the layers showing some of the most interesting things visible in Sky. And, it uses most of the features which have made sharing exciting finds with other people easy and fun.

I think Sky will have a positive effect of making more people aware of astronomy - just like GE has done for GIS, cartography, geography, and more. A big part of the team who developed the data for Sky are actual astronomers who work for organizations like Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA (more info on those who helped). Other astronomers will find that Sky can help them share their data with the general public and get more support for much-needed funding to further their research (see an example already). And just as GE is increasingly being used in education, I think Sky will also prove valuable to help educators teach about science and astronomy (astronaut Sally Ride thinks so too). I predict that even more people will be interested in buying or using other popular night sky applications (like Starry Night, Celestia, Stellarium, and Sky-map).

If you haven't done it yet, go ahead and downlaod GE 4.2. Try out the new Sky feature, and enjoy the other new features for Google Earth as well.

Some other notes

If you want to see some interesting examples of how Sky is already being extended through communities and new KML content - looked at the new Sky forum, or see some of these KML files. Some of the Sky team members have been commenting in the forum on the suggestions and future plans of Sky.

About the name

Apparently at one point the product was going to be called gSky. Many are calling it Google Sky now. I'm sure Google struggled with whether to make this a separate product, but they obviously chose to make it a part of Google Earth. I kind of like calling it Google Earth & Sky. But, what happens when Google starts adding other planets and the moon (which I think they will obviously do one day)? The "Google Earth, Moon, Mars & Sky"? Someone will need to think about a new naming convention I think.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:33 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

August 23, 2007

Censorship in Google Sky? See new Sky Forum

Someone has found a blacked out area in the new Google Earth Sky (viewable with the new GE 4.2 - download here) where stars should be shown. This find was posted by 'ZhingHong' in the new GE Sky Forum at the Google Earth Community.

My theory is that an alien government has forced Google to censor this area in order to hide their secret planetary systems with giant palaces built with money stolen from taxes of their unwitting alien citizens. :-) Someone else posted that the black square is the giant black monolith from "2001: A Space Odessey".

Another amusing find: 'Jeffryv' "found" the Starship Enterprise

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:35 AM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

Hidden Feature in Google Earth Sky

Yesterday I discovered an interesting "feature" (I would call it a bug, except it is cool) in the new Sky feature of Google Earth 4.2. You can fly yourself outside the "universe" and see how Sky really is just Google Earth turned inside out. When I realized that unfortunately the SpaceNavigator doesn't work with Sky, I decided to try the seldom-used feature called "G-Force" which lets you navigate in GE by flying (with the mouse or other controllers like a flight simulator yoke). Only, this mode was not intended for use with Sky. It instead transports you outside the "globe" of the sky and shows you the "universe" looking inwards. Here's how to do it:

1. Load up GE 4.2 and switch to the "Sky" mode (using the button in the upper center, or the menu "View->Switch to Sky"
2. Hit the "Ctrl" and "G" keys together - this switches you to G-Force mode and you will see your mouse cursor switch to a little airplane
3. Click once in the sky view and your view will go blank and/or show the globe of the sky
4. Hit "Ctrl-T" to switch back to normal mode and try moving the sky (zoom in and out to help see it). You should now see the sky as a "globe" as shown in the screenshot above. Things don't work normally, but its pretty interesting.
5. To fix things back to normal, you have to switch back to Earth view, or close GE.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:35 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 22, 2007

Embed Video In Google Earth 4.2 Placemarks!

One of the most-requested long-awaited features for Google Earth has arrived* with version 4.2 (download the latest GE here): You can now embed YouTube videos in placemark descriptions! Just copy the embed string from a YouTube video and paste it into your placemark description (just like you would for a blog). For an example, check out a simple placemark showing a video on the new GE 4.2 photo overlay showing the location of the first part of the video shown in the placemark description. This is really cool! It can't be long before Google releases a network link showing already geo-tagged YouTube videos for viewing in GE (they started allowing you to map your videos in YouTube several weeks ago).

I'm too excited to go and research whether other interesting Adobe Flash things can be embedded. But, expect more details here as I find out more. I have determined you can't embed a Google Maps (which uses <iframe> tags) in a placemark - that would have been interesting.

[* UPDATE 2040: Stefan Geens just alerted me that this new feature doesn't work on the Mac. But, it does work quite well on the Windows version of GE 4.2 (I'm guessing it may not work on Linux either - anyone know?)]

For more details on Google Earth 4.2, read here and here.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:18 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

More Information on Google Earth 4.2

Today Google released a new version of Google Earth - 4.2 (beta) which has two major new features: 1) "Sky" view - which lets you view the night sky from earth providing you with high resolution astronomical observations from a variety of reputable scientific sources; and 2) a new "photo viewer" capability (with support from the new KML 2.2 specification) which let you view photos in a new 3D-like and interactive way.

Google has released a number of resources to help show off the new Sky feature:

• A new web page devoted to the new Sky feature
  
• A link to more information about the sources of the imagery (which include NASA, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Digital Sky Survey Consortium),
  
• a video showing the Sky application in action
  
• Today's GE Gallery has six new interesting new tours designed to show off the new capabilities of Sky. I particularly like the one showing the locations of all the new extra-solar planets, and the one showing an animation of a star exploding.
  
• Also, see the video I created showing the new Sky feature.
  

There's also a new overview from Google Earth of the features in Google Earth 4.2.

So far there isn't a lot of material from Google about the new photo viewer capability. The new photo viewer is essentially a way to view photos in a more 3D view inside the Earth. It's supported by the new PhotoOverlay feature in a new version 2.2 of the KML file format which is used to exchange information for Google Earth. You can show the photos as they were taken, and then move into the viewer and view the photos up close. See this video which demonstrates the effect in action.

Already, a group that works closely with the Google Earth team called GigaPan has produced an excellent collection of panoramic views which take advantage of the new feature in an innovative fashion. View the Gigapan panoramic views in Google Earth 4.2 (you must have the new version of GE 4.2 installed). According to Randy Sargeant of Gigapan: "Anyone can upload a large panoramic image (50 megapixels minimum), click on 'Place in Google Earth', and you can adjust the panorama's orientation and field of view until it's correctly placed."

The techniques for doing this are already published, and people are already busily creating new GE files to show photos with the new technique. Expect to see a wealth of new innovative photo displays in the coming days and weeks.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 03:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Video Showing New Google Sky Feature of Google Earth 4.2

I wanted to demonstrate the new feature in Google Earth 4.2 (just released today - download here) which allows you to view the night time sky from Earth. After downloading and installing GE 4.2, you simply select the new "Switch to Sky" button in the top center of GE (or under the View menu). This video gives you a basic demonstration of the new feature and shows you some of the beautiful views of galaxies, nebulae, and stars as if you had you own super powerful telescope:

This video also available en Español.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

New Photo Viewer with Gigapixel Layer in Google Earth

Part of the new Google Earth 4.2 which was just released today (download here) is a new photo viewing feature which lets you view photos in a totally new way. Rather than try to explain it in words, I've made a quick video to illustrate the new feature. It is really amazing! To see the first set of available photos using the new technique, you will need to turn on the new "Gigapxl Photos" layer under the "Featured Content" layer. This new layer shows placemarks for many places with photos that were taken with a gigapixel camera.

Some of the photos in the Gigapxl photo layer were taken by Google Earth Chief Technologist Michael Jones (read more about the camera and techniques at Gigapxl.org). There are some beautiful photos, and viewing them with the new feature in Google Earth is very cool. My only real disappointment is that the SpaceNavigator is not supported yet for panning and zooming with the new photoviewer. Hopefully that will be corrected soon.

Anyway, this new photo viewing feature is an open new feature and Google is releasing tools allowing you to easily put your photos in Google Earth and use the new photo viewing feature. More to come!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:12 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Google Earth 4.2 Released - New Night Sky Feature

Last night, Google pushed out a new beta version of Google Earth called 4.2 (download it here). Read the announcement here. This version adds a substantial new feature (many are calling it Google Sky) which lets you not only look down on the Earth, but also look up at the night sky and see the starry heavens through the perspective of the world's most powerful telescopes. You simply click on a button at the top center of the new version and it switches to this new mode. Then, you can use the same type of navigation as always in Google Earth to zoom in and look at the stars, galaxies, nebulas, etc. of the universe. You also see a new set of layers on the bottom left which let you show/hide the constellations, and take tours of famous collections of amazing sights in the heavens like the Andromeda Galaxy, the Horsehead Nebula, the Ring Nebula, etc. Not only that, but you can use the same tools of Google Earth to placemark your own favorite places and share them with others. Simply click on the same control button in the upper center to switch back to Earth viewing.

This new version also has support for new features announced at the Google Developers Day last May for a new KML version called 2.2, and it hopefully addresses a number of problems from the last beta version of GE 4.1, which most of you have been using for the past few months.

I will be doing a more thorough review of features during the course of the day. I've already found out that the new Sky feature does not (added in the latest version) support the SpaceNavigator. A big disappointment since it would be so much fun to fly through the sky with my favorite 3D mouse. In the meantime, read some more details on the new release from Stefan Geens at OgleEarth (who had the advantage of waking up 5 hours earlier than me).

Here's a video I've put together showing the new Google Sky feature:

Also, here is a story with video showing the new photo viewer in GE 4.2.

Read on for more information on GE 4.2.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:00 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

August 21, 2007

New Real-Time Traffic Layer in Google Earth

There was a another new layer in addition to the new Book Search layer for Google Earth in yesterday's update after all. GEB reader Patrick pointed out in a comment (and others by E-mail) that there is a new "Traffic" layer (found down below the Transportation layer), and Google also posted about it late last night (since the main GE blogs seem to have missed it). Google Maps has had real time traffic since late February. Now Google Earth also has that feature. As with Google Maps, I presume the traffic data is only available for certain major cities (about 30 according to the latest count) in the US. The layer shows red dots for slow/stopped traffic, yellow for caution areas, white where no data is available, and green if traffic is moving normally. If you click on the dots, you get information about the conditions including the speed traffic is going.

The roads layer also has some refinements. When you zoom in close, the roads names don't disappear as early as they used to. And the road thicknesses seem adjusted a bit.

Now that I've been playing with the new layer, I think the traffic layer should be a sub-layer to the roads layer. Cities which don't have the information won't show anything anyway.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:07 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

August 20, 2007

New Google Earth Book Search Layer

[UPDATE 2140: This new layer is apparently only available to English GE users. Apparently the Google's Book Search content is not yet extended to other languages, so the layer isn't available except to English version users. I think Google should just offer layers in other language versions, but label them as English only (or whatever language applies).]

Google pushed out a new "Featured Content" layer today called "Google Book Search". This layer, when you turn it on, shows little book icon placemarks when you zoom into different places around the world. You don't have to enter a place into the search, just browse places and the placemarks will appear. These placemarks are results from search of places found mentioned in books indexed by Google's search engine. For famous places like "Rome", you will see a huge array of icons in a series of concentric circles. Each icons shows the results of that city mentioned in a particular book. There may be dozens of such references, but you you can click on a summary link that will take you straight to the book search results on a web page.

This is an interesting new way to explore information about places based on literary references. It could be very useful for scholars, school kids with projects, or just for learning even more about places you are interested in or want to visit.

Stefan Geens at Ogle Earth has already done a mini-review. He indicates that some of the search results have accuracy problems as the names of places in history are not always consistent with today's maps. He points out that Google could use "crowdsourcing" by allowing people to click on placemark link to suggest corrections or better information.

Michael Jones (Chief Technologist at Google Earth) had attempted to preview this new layer on at least three occasions in talks this summer. I know this project was a bit of a pet project for Michael, but it was frustrating I never saw the demo work. With all the anticipation, I was expecting this layer would generate holographic projections of dead authors speaking quotes from their books! While it's not quite that good, it will provide some entertaining new exploration.

It's disappointing to not see any other new layers pushed out today. This one new layer doesn't even have the usual "New!" moniker to help it stand out. Here's the Google Lat Long blog entry about it.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Video Showing Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth

In order to give people a better idea of how you can use Google Earth to track storms, I've put together this YouTube video showing a sample of the possibilities. The visualizations you see in this video are available to anyone with Google Earth by using a collection of tools which were developed by both weather professionals and hobbyists who have shared their tools with the public. You can get these tools yourself and become your own weather man. Read my article on the best storm tracking tools for Google Earth. Here's the video:

Here's the link again: http://tinyurl.com/2huetq

Stefan Geens of OgleEarth shows you some other available tools which you could use to make yourself into a YouTube weather forecaster. See his article about making your own Google Earth backdrop to a video broadcast. Here's his first try with the tools (ignore the gray stuff in the first few seconds):

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Humanitarian Issues in Google Earth - Central African Republic

Another humanitarian organization has turned to Google Earth to help visualize conditions in another African country. This time it is the Central African Republic (CAR) which is adjacent to the violent and serious situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. The northern part of CAR also has many related humanitarian issues with refugees, violence, death, displaced people, crime, and sickness. The Humanitarian and Development Partners | Central African Republic have developed an informative Google Earth file with a wealth of information of both civic and humanitarian use. The file contains basic information about the region including towns, roads, 3D population graphs, locations of civic aid, water, etc. It also contains information about health issues, destroyed villages, refugee numbers, and more. Similar techniques were used by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in the "Crisis in Darfur" layer which you can turn on under the "Global Awareness" layer in Google Earth. The Crisis in Darfur layer got international attention in the media when it was announced in Washington DC and promoted by Google. This new layer on CAR may also be destined for the Global Awareness layer if they have worked with the new Google Earth Outreach program.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 17, 2007

Savvy Electoral Boundaries Commission Uses Google Earth

The British Columbia Electoral Boundaries Commission has done something rather interesting. They have new proposed electoral boundaries. Rather than just create a static graphic map and publishing it in local papers or on a web site, they have released new proposed boundaries in several forms including Google Earth KML files (see example here ). They have two sets of boundaries in the proposal (explanation here), but it is certainly easier to get in and see the details with Google Earth. What I found particularly interesting is that they also have released a time animation showing the changes to the electoral boundaries over the last several decades (found on this page - use the time slider to see the animation). Assuming more commissions were to use this progressive approach to sharing information, it may make it more difficult for politicians to use gerrymandering to redistrict voters to their advantage by making small changes to the boundaries. Anyway, my hat's off to this commission in British Columbia. Thanks to Jason Birch for bringing this to our attention.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 16, 2007

News Roundup: Peru Earthquake, Virtual Earth Update, Stefan's Alps Hike

• Peru Earthquake - Last night Lima, Peru was near the epicenter of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. You can see the earthquake (and the aftershocks) in the real-time Earthquake monitoring tool for Google Earth developed by the USGS (see earlier story). The size of the placemarks indicate magnitude, and the color indicates recency. It updates automatically to show you the latest world-wide seismic activity. In addition, another useful way to monitor earthquakes and other disasters going around the world is the Global Disaster and Alert and Coordination System (GDACS.org). They have an excellent Google Earth KML for visualizing current world-wide disasters . The only drawback to it is that they have a problem with their KML which causes it to fail in a network link, so you have to re-download the file to get the latest.

• Virtual Earth Update - Microsoft continues to release gigantic amounts of imagery and 3D building collections to the public. I have to say that Microsoft is definitely keeping pace with - if not challenging - Google with the amount and speed of imagery and 3D data they are releasing. Microsoft's most recent update adds 71 US cities, and 31 European cities with Bird's Eye imagery, and two new cities with 3D buildings: Montreal, Canada and Toulouse, France. Check out the full details, with links to most of the locations, from Microsoft. DigitalUrban blog has already produced a video showing a fly-through of the Virtual Earth Toulouse 3D buildings:

• Stefan's Alps Hike - Stefan Geens of OgleEarth has posted his approach to geotagging and sharing photos from his recent hike in the Swiss Alps. He points out a couple of approaches to getting the photos into Flickr and then creating KML files. He also doesn't fail to point out that Google Earth's high-quality 50 cm resolution imagery combined with 10 m resolution terrain make the Swiss Alps look close to real life. Stefan used his Nokia N95 to take photos, but chose not to use the GPS in the phone due to its appetite for battery energy. He packed a portable GPS instead, but unfortunately it was stolen while on the way to the mountains. So, he doesn't have a GPS track. Given enough encouragement he could use Google Earth to pretty easily show us the trails he took. On a related note, check out the way I documented my recent holiday in the Virgin Islands where I chartered a sailing catamaran.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

August 15, 2007

Best Storm Tracking and Weather Tools for Google Earth

We now have two named tropical storms in the Atlantic (Dean and Erin), a tropical storm in the East Pacific (Flossie) - near Hawaii, and a typhoon in the west Pacific (Sepat) . One of Google Earth's most powerful features is the ability to pull in real-time information from other sites and overlay the information for visualization (thanks to the network link). Weather data is one of my favorite applications in Google Earth of this ability. Imagine pulling in the latest satellite photos, radar animations, hurricane tracking, live web cams on the ground, sea surface temperature analysis, etc. Well, you can do all that with the set of the very best weather tools for Google Earth which GEB has bundled together into this: the weather and storm tracking tools collection . Simply drag this network link into your Places folder to keep it handy. It won't take up space until you turn it on. It first loads several folders of weather tools you can explore. You may want to turn only one layer on at a time - these layers weren't designed to all be turned on at once. Although, some of the layers are complimentary (like current lightning strikes with clouds or storms turned on).

Right now the collection includes: two global hurricane tracking tools, global cloud maps, current global lightning strikes animation (from GuiWeather.com, severe weather warning data and radar data from NOAA for the US, TopicWatch by Paul Seabury, a large collection of weather image overlays from TropicalAtlantic, weather observations for the US from WeatherBonk, a real-time day/night viewing tool, and the global annual lightning flash rate map from NASA. Turn on the Hurricanes - Live Positions link to see the latest storms around the world. You will see the storms' tracks, forecasted paths, current positions, and the red dots are nearby web cams. The position of the storms, when a hurricane, will show it's storm strength (level 1, 2, etc.).

These tools were put together by a variety of people (some are weather professionals, others are weather hobbyists). But, these are the best. GEB will continue to add more storm and weather tools to the network link periodically, but if you save this network link, you will automatically see them added.

Here are more details about the weather tools in the collection:

• Hurricanes - Live positions
• Current Global Lightning Animation from GuiWeather.com
• Global Cloud Map
• NOAA Severe Weather
• Weather Bonk - For Google Maps, but GE file available
• Real-Time Day and Night Earth
• Annual Lightning Flash Rate

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:01 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Chile 3D Campus Models Ready for Contest

Early this year, Google started a series of 3D Campus contests encouraging students at colleges to build 3D models of their campus using Google SketchUp and place them in Google Earth. But, the first contest was only for entries from the US and Canada (see the winners here). Students in other parts of the world wanted a contest too. For example, students in Germany have clamored for a contest in Europe. Google recently started a new contest for Australia and New Zealand.

Now, a student in Temuco, Chile has posted some models of campuses there. You can see San Francisco de la Universidad Católica de Temuco , and Menchaca Lira de la Universidad Católica de Temuco . They were posted here and here at the Google Earth Community by 'visah91'. Nice work!

Who knows? If enough students start building campus models in Latin America, maybe Google will hold their next contest there. Or will European campuses go next?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

News Roundup - Maps news, GeoServer Update, Scavenger Hunt, LA Murder Map

• Maps news - APC blog was first to report on a presentation by Google Australia which revealed some new upcoming features for Google Maps. Most significantly: Google Maps will soon give you the ability to easily embed Maps into your web page (with an HTML embed snippet like with YouTube videos). Many other mapping mashups have done this in the past (like Tagzania). I'm assuming this works with MyMaps, but it would be interesting to know if it works with Mapplets as well. Google Australia also used the presentation to dispel rumors that high-res imagery in Sydney had been replaced with lower resolution because of an important upcoming political meeting. They said the imagery had been replaced because of a licensing dispute.

• GeoServer Update - The GeoServer blog reports on a new release (version 1.5.3) which has substantial new features. Most importantly, they have better support for KML. In particular, they now support significant new features for SuperOverlays, custom placemarks from templates, and automatic generation of legend information. They are also now supporting GeoRSS and Oracle database integration. See this interesting article at Oracle about this.

• Scavenger Hunt - VirtualGlobeTrotting has a scavengerhunt for Streetview sights which just started last week. Here's your chance to play with the new cities and Streetview and maybe win something.

• LA Murder Map - The LA Times has a Google Maps mashup called the "Homicide Map". It not only shows you the location of murders so far this year, but provides a number of statistics allowing you to views by ehtnicity, age, gender, cause of death, day of week, etc. And, you can also select the "KML" button and see the resulting map in Google Earth as well. Gee, this is a fun and powerful mashup! Too bad its such a morbid topic.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 14, 2007

Scientific Ocean Drilling Database in Google Earth

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international scientific research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth by monitoring and sampling subseafloor environments. Through multiple ocean going ship platforms, IODP scientists explore the deep biosphere, environmental change, geodynamics and solid earth cycles. They have created an excellent Google Earth visualization showing the location of drilling of scientific boreholes in oceans all over the world (info here). Each placemark is color-coded according to the different programs, and the placemark descriptions basic metadata about each borehole, links to database information on their servers, and links to scientific publications related to the respective project. This is an excellent example of sharing scientific data in a meaningful way using the power of Google Earth's visualization capabilities, ability to link back to databases for further information, and the network link to keep information up to date. Apparently this is their second version of this file, I don't believe I saw the first version. via Dulce's Spanish GE Blog.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Popular Science - Future of the Environment in Google Earth

Popular Science magazine has a special issue dedicated to the topic of "Future of the Environment". As you might expect, the articles describe many ways that science is being used to either understand issues facing the environment, or to find solutions to help solve those issues. It appears all of the stories are available for reading online. Not only that, but they have produced their own Google Earth environmental KML layer to highlight some of the interesting environmental issues around the world. It isn't a fancy collection, but some of the placemarks include image overlays for demonstrating visible changes to the environment. And, I found the descriptions of the issues and science technologies pretty fascinating.

Similar content is available in Google Earth's built-in layers under "Global Awareness", such as: UNEP: Atlast of our Changing Environment, WWF Conservation Projects, and Appalachian Mountain Removal.

See other examples of environmental information available using Google Earth:

• New Snow and Ice Information
• International Polar Year
• National Geographic - Elephant Poaching in Africa
• Anti-Logging Campaign - California
• Wyoming Gas Drilling
• Amazon Indians Fighting Back with GPS
• Melting Glaciers - View in Google Earth

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 13, 2007

News Roundup - Flickr KML tags, Weather, Arc2Earth V2

• Flickr KML tags - Rev Dan Catt, whose blog is called geobloggers, is the guy who got a job at Yahoo's Flickr - in part because of his work geotagging photos. He has recently posted about some new features he has "sneaked" in to Flickr: geoRSS and KML links directly on tags for Flickr photos. These features only show results for properly geotagged photos. For example, you can show the results for photos tagged "ufo" . And you can put that same link into Google Maps and see the photos there. If you look at the link, you can easily substitute "ufo" with whatever tag you want. Rev is "happy" to be able to link to KML on a Yahoo site and not be "fired". Since KML has already been submitted and initially blessed by the OGC, I'm not sure why he was worried.

• Weather - Saw a post at the GEC with a ton of interesting weather KML content. All of them are bundled into a weather KML network link . They come from the TropicalAtlantic.com website. Also found some interesting weather data for Google Earth put together by Pennsylvania State for the state government's official public access geospatial information clearinghouse. Check it out.

• Arc2Earth V2 - Brian Flood continues to release information about his forthcoming release of V2 of Arc2Earth. He highlights an interesting visualization of property parcel data for Somerset, New Jersey with property outlines, and 3D outlines representing buildings on the properties. He also designed the example to show how if you click the left mouse button while holding down the CTRL key you can get further information on the parcel you are looking at (as I pointed out in his previous examples).

  Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

  August 12, 2007

  R/C Planes and Camera Fun with Google Earth

  The guys at PictEarth have been doing lots of fun things with remote controlled airplanes loaded with cameras, Nokia N95s, and all kinds of gadgets. This weekend, Valery Hronusov (from Perm, Russian) and David Raillant from France have flown to meet up with their US branch in California. Jeff Johnson from the US office let me know they have been working on their software for taking images on the fly from the planes and showing them in Google Earth. They have released an example KML file this weekend which shows a flight with a remote controlled plane. It uses the time slider to show progressive frames from the camera as the plane takes off and flies around. What is interesting to see is the effective alignment of the images with the base imagery from GE. Check out this video they released this weekend showing more about how they do this - from launching the plane, until it lands:

  Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:12 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

  August 10, 2007

  Our Sailing Holiday in Google Earth

  A week ago, I returned from the sailing holiday in the Virgin Islands of the Caribbean I previously mentioned I would be taking. I've already written about some of the Google Earth-related technology I experimented with for navigation during the trip. I have been working on a Google Earth file documenting the trip with photos, videos, GPS tracks, and more. Please view the sailing trip in Google Earth where you can see all the details. If you double-click on the "Anchorages" folder and select the "Tools->Play Tour" option, you can see a flying tour of each of our stops. Similarly, you can get a slideshow of the geo-tagged photos by selecting the photo folder selecting "Play Tour".

  The geo-tagged photos were uploaded to PicasaWeb, so you can view the album here, or you can simply watch this slideshow below. But, I encourage you to view the Google Earth file (or try the Google Maps view) to see the locations where these photos were taken. You will notice I enjoy taking underwater photos (read below for more details on