Google Earth Blog: September 2007 Archives

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September 28, 2007

Sierra Club Wants to Protect 52 Places in the US - See in Google Earth

The Sierra Club is seeking to protect US public lands from threats like oil and gas drilling, unchecked development, irresponsible recreation, logging, and global warming. In order to save what remains of the wild, the Sierra Club has launched a campaign to protect fifty-two of the most exceptional places--one in every state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia--over the next ten years. They have released a new report called America's Wild Legacy. And they have also released a Google Earth collection showing all 52 locations as placemarks, with information included in each description bubble including photos, and links to the report and other information.

Google Earth is an excellent visualization tool to help people understand issues effecting the environment. You will find many examples of this in the GEB's environment category and under the Google Earth Global Awareness layer. And, Google recently formed a new Google Outreach program to help non-profits promote and develop content using Google Earth.

The Sierra Club has used Google Earth several times for various causes, read about some of them here:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 27, 2007

Google Earth Reveals Nazi Swastika -shaped Navy Barracks

Back in February of 2005, someone named 'James_A' was looking around at Google Earth and discovered that the US Navy barracks at a base near San Diego are shaped just like a Nazi swastika. This of course captured the attention of many Google Earth users for a while and has even been the subject of lots of bloggers and Diggs. It turns out the unfortunate building design has been standing since the 1960s, but it wasn't until now that so many people could look at it from above . Soon, some outraged citizens in the San Diego community were began complaining to the Navy about the building.

Yesterday, CNN reported that after two years of complaint the US Navy has announced plans to change the appearance of the building using solar panels, new landscaping, and structural changes. The changes will cost about $600,000 - but, at least the offensive symbol will be gone.

Or will it? It sometimes takes a few months or years before new imagery makes its way into Google Earth for any one location. Although, I guess Google might make a special case and update the image sooner. One has to wonder though - wouldn't it be cheaper to just get Google (and all the other mapping companies) to agree to use a photo-shopped version of the building that would have a different look? :-) But, then Google would be in a quandary because they don't want to be showing re-touched photos.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 04:05 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

Ten Easy Steps to Learn About a Place with Google Earth

When I show people how to use Google Earth effectively to learn about places they see, they are usually amazed how quick and easy it is to do it. So, I thought I would share 10 easy steps used to learn about a place I read about today at GoogleSightseeing.com. They were writing about the extensive canal system across Germany - something I was not really familiar with. I was fascinated by their fourth entry which described the Magdeburg Water Bridge, which they said is the longest aqueduct in Europe. Here's the placemark they provided to a view of the bridge in Google Earth. Watch the slideshow to see 10 steps I took to learn more about this place in GE:

You can watch the steps I took in the slideshow above. Here's a written summary:

First I found something interesting through a blog post at GoogleSightseeing.com. Alex posted some details in his post, but I find it more interesting to discover with Google Earth.
So, I followed the link to view the location in Google Earth.
The first thing I do in Google Earth is turn on the Geographic Web layer in Google Earth.
The blue icons represent photos taken by many people around the world found at Panoramio (over 2 million photos are mapped into Google Earth).
I quickly found a ground level photo which showed the bridge (there were even aerial photos in this case).
Found a nice photo from the bridge itself as well.
The purple icon from Geographic Web represents a Wikipedia story. Here you get a good description of the Magdeburg Water Bridge and a link to the full article with even more details.
You can use the Google Earth navigation gadget in the upper right to turn and tilt your view to get other perspectives of any site.
Zoom out a bit and turn on the Roads layer and the Populated Places layer to get a handy map of the area.
Zoom out even more and turn on the Borders layer (you might want to turn off the other layers at this point). This gives you a broader perspective. (Tip: you can also turn on the "View->Overview Map" - or hit "CTRL-M" to get a fast broad perspective map).

These are just some really basic steps I often take when trying to learn about a place. Another useful layer is the Google Earth Community layer. Although, for some popular places you may find dozens of placemarks by people who have posted about their favorite places - almost too much information. There are many other collections and tools (written about on this blog) for learning all kinds of things like weather, conditions of the environment, real estate prices, history, etc.

The world is a big place, and these techniques won't work for every single place on the planet. But, if you try them out, you will probably be surprised just how much you can learn (and how many hours you can spend learning about places you've always wanted to visit).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 26, 2007

Beautiful Sky in Google Earth

I have always been fascinated with the beauty of the night sky when seen through the eyes of a telescope. So much so that I got a degree in astronomy. Looking at the pictures available of galaxies, nebula, quasars, and more in the new Google Earth 4.2 with Sky can result in some amazingly beautiful views. This image is part of a study by astronomers from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). They conducted this study, called the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS), that focused expressly on the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud—the nearest major galaxies to the Milky Way. More than 1,500 individual images from MCELS have been assembled into a large mosaic. You can see this in Google Earth by downloading this collection of imagery from the NOAO. The first folder is the "Large Magellanic Cloud". If you double click on it and start zooming in, you will be amazed that the universe can create such wonderful art.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 25, 2007

3D Warehouse Open to All 3D KML Content

This is pretty cool. Google 3D Warehouse has been a repository for any SketchUp 3D Models. Google has just announced they have opened it up to allow any KML with 3D. This means you can now include KML files which do animations in Google Earth. Or other innovative 3D applications. For example, Joey Wade's animation of the Blues Brothers bridge jump:

Now the many applications of 3D models for Google Earth by folks like Joey, James Stafford, Gerardo Paz, and many others can be uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. Here are just a few candidate examples I would like to see uploaded:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:50 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 24, 2007

Links: Planet Orbits, SuperOverlay 2.0, GEC 1 million, Google Social Network

Planet Orbits - James Stafford has posted at his Barnabu blog another Google Earth Sky add-on. This one goes perfectly with the Planets in Motion layer to illustrate why the planets move the way they do in our night sky. The Planets in Motion layer shows icons representing each planet and its position on a particular night. It also uses the Google Earth time slider to let you watch how the positions change from night to night. James created a planets overlay showing a diagram of the planets in their orbits (not to scale) in the upper left which also has the time data. As the time slider moves, you can see the positions of the planets relative to each other and the sun. Another one Google should ask to let them include in the layers - nice work James!
SuperOverlay 2.0 - Valery Hrosunov has posted a new version of his tool for inserting high resolution image overlays into Google Earth: SuperOverlay 2.0 (beta). This was the same tool that is being used to create the Burning Man 2007 aerial image overlay.
GEC 1 million - By the way, the Google Earth Community a few days ago crossed over 1 million posts! And, there are now over 900,000 registered members.
Google Social Network - Ionut Alex Chitu posted at his Google Operating System blog some information from students at Arizona State University who were given a questionnaire from a "major Internet company" that alludes to a new 3D social network world. Based on several factors, he concludes the proposed social network link is coming from Google. The questionnaire even says the product is hypothetically called "My World". There has been a lot of speculation about Google doing something like SecondLife using Google Earth or technologies based on it. Avi Bar-Zeev picked up on this new speculation and posted at his blog, Reality Prime, some more thoughts. Avi, who helped develop software at Key Hole which eventually became Google Earth, thinks Google could add social network functions to Google Earth, or a version of Google Earth, and even let people use Google SketchUp to help add 3D objects to the world. He thinks the result would be something more like a "3D My Space" than a GE SecondLife. He doesn't believe it is possible to use the current GE model to create a SecondLife type metaverse - and I agree.
I also think that adding more social network functions (don't forget, we already have the Google Earth Community layers and community built 3D Buildings in GE) inside GE would be an excellent way to continue to help build the GeoWeb. Encouraging people to help add more meaningful information tied to location and tie it back into the web is what the GeoWeb is all about. A few months ago Google started supporting KML searching by indexing KML files so you can search them. Google Earth could be an even better mechanism for creating the GeoWeb with the proper social networking interfaces - something I've thought about for a while now. I just hope Google comes up with a better interface for layers, because the one in Google Earth now is already difficult for people to fully grasp and properly use. Add more social networking content and things could get really messy. Google will have to turn to their knowledge of search to make working with the layers better.

Instead of "News Roundup", I'm switching over to "Links" for these type of collective posts. The reasons being that the label is shorter, and "Links" is what more and more blogs are using for the title to posts with combined entries.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 21, 2007

3D Red Bull Flights in Google Earth

Joey Wade has created some new 3D model time animations depicting flights of the Red Bull air races in London and Monument Valley. These animations pretty accurately depict the way the planes fly through the "cones" or "pylons" placed on the ground. Try the Red Bull London file first. Wait until the green animating icon turns off (which indicates it is loading the animation files). I recommend you set the speed of the animation to slowest (click on the little round clock icon to the left of the time slider and set the "Animation speed" slider). Then select the "play" button to the right of the time slider. And, after you've seen that, check out the Red Bull Monument Valley.

For extra credit, try turning on the Google Earth flight simulator and see if you can fly the pylons! You'll most likely have to do some advanced configuration file editing to get your plane to behave more like the Red Bull planes.

Here's a YouTube video showing what these Red Bull air races look like in real life (Joey includes some videos in placemarks along with the GE files above):

Other interesting animations by Mr. Wade:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:45 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

News Roundup: UFO Sightings, Free UK GE workshops, Godwit migrations, Boating videos

UFO Sightings - A long time ago, in Google Earth History, Michael Jones (Chief Technologist of GE) was known to have spoken about how cool it would be to implement the time dimension in GE (see story in Dec. 2005 post at OgleEarth). A bit of time passed and, in the summer of 2006, the time feature was first released as part of a GE 4 beta. During Michael's presentation in 2005, he showed an example of a UFO sightings database over time. For a long time, I've been meaning to take the UFO Sightings in Google Earth (and Google Maps) map from UFOmaps.com, and add time stamps. Yesterday, after a fair amount of Emacs macro parsing, I came up with the new UFO Sightings over time animation (2 Mbytes). (Note: I chose to not include some earlier random sightings - one in 1860, and a few others in the earlier part of the 1900s). After loading hit the play button to the right of the time slider (or just drag the slider). You can almost see the spread of UFO psychosis brought on by TV, junk food, and sci-fi... :-) On a related note, someone called 'Mangani' has released a BigFoot sightings file which shows a time animation as well. Notice the similarities in growth of sightings?
Free UK GE Workshops - From Royal Geographical Society:
The Royal Geographical Socieity with IBG, with generous support from Google, will be offering 10 free workshops for LEA-maintained school geography teachers. These practical workshops show teachers how to create virtual fieldwork using Google Earth. They involve hands-on experience with digital cameras and GPS units creating mini-fieldwork projects outdoors. Participants are then shown how this data can be transformed into a virtual journey using Google Earth.
The workshops will take place across the UK at the following venues:

RGS-IBG, London – Tuesday 16 October 2007
Swansea – Monday 12 November 2007
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne – Monday 19 November 2007
Edinburgh – Tuesday 20 November 2007
Belfast – Monday 10 December 2007
Leeds – Monday 14 January 2008
Cornwall – Monday 21 January 2008
Birmingham – Monday 28 January 2008
Southampton – Monday 4 February 2008
RGS-IBG, London – Tuesday 4 March 2008

More details and further documents at this RGS web page.
Godwit migrations - You may have heard the news a while back about the little Godwit bird - designated E7 - which was tracked flying all the way from New Zealand to Alaska and back non-stop. The longest recorded non-stop migratory flight in the world - 10,200 km (6340 miles). The USGS has posted Google Earth track data for the flights of the birds they were tracking. Load this Godwit tracks file , and turn on just the one labeled E7 to see her record flight.
Boating videos - EarthNC continues to explore the ability to access the YouTube API to grab geo-tagged videos based on specific tags. This time they have released a collection of YouTube boating videos . If you use GE 4.2 on Windows, you can watch the videos in the placemarks. More details here at EarthNC. I like Virgil's earlier post about YouTube Airport videos more.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:45 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 20, 2007

News Roundup: Poles Overlays, Rocket Garden, Army Topos, Astronomy, Roads

Poles Overlays - Gerardo Paz has posted another good idea. He points out that you can use the new photo overlay feature of Google Earth 4.2 to place image overlays over the poles. Google Earth has a problem with normal photo overlays at the poles - due to the geometry of Google Earth and the poles reducing to a single point. In fact, the base imagery itself has difficulty with that region. But, Gerardo shows an example of a photo overlay working quite well over a pole. The scientists for International Polar Year should take note. Gerardo also provides translation services for the Spanish version of GEB.
Rocket Garden - The Google Lunar X PRIZE web site has a page that lets you load a collection of scale 3D models of rockets so you can compare them to your favorite landmarks. Visit the rocket garden page and enter an address to load the models in GE at that location. Turn on the 3D Buildings layer to compare to other 3D models. via OgleEarth.
Army Topos - PriceCollins at the Google Earth Community has been putting together a KML collection of hundreds of topographical maps which were created by the US Army Mapping Services and organized by the Perry-Castañeda Library of the University of Texas at Austin. Read Price's post for more details, or download the collection to see what is available - mostly for areas in India and southeast Asia at the moment.
Astronomy - Google Sky is more than just another Internet planetarium program. Because it is built on top of a very broadly installed application (Google Earth), and is built on standardized file formats (KML), it enables scientists to confidently develop ways to share their data and expect it to be available to a broad cross section of the world. Stefan Geens at OgleEarth talks about how observational astronomy will be transformed by these developments.
Roads - Google announced a few days ago that they have added 54 more countries with roads information for Google Maps. In a few weeks or months, these roads layers should make their way into the Google Earth server as well.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2007

New Google Earth Layers Update - September 19

[UPDATED 20-Sept: More details on the preview layer]

Google has made some changes to the layers in Google Earth today. You will automatically see these in your layer list on the lower left. Here's what I've found so far (I will update this if I find further information during the day).

Geographic Web - First up, the Geographic Web layer has been changed again - and is turned on by default so you'll notice it. Previously they combined the 3 sub layers into one layer, but now they are separated again (which is the better way to do it I think). The Geographic Web layer is intended to help present useful information when you zoom into a place. They've added a new fourth sub-layer called Preview. Here is what you get:
- Best of Google Earth Community - this layer shows some of the best placemarks put up by people in the Google Earth Community forums for places all over the world.
- Panoramio - this layer shows photos taken by people all over the world for all kinds of places world-wide. This layer has grown to 2 million geo-tagged photos.
- Wikipedia - this layer shows placemarks with links to Wikipedia information for all kinds of places all over the world.
- Preview - this new sub-layer gives you a taste of information from a variety of other layers available. If you find one of these layers interesting, you can click on one of the previewed placemarks to open the description bubble and choose "Show this layer" to see the full layer. Afterwards, you can similarly choose the "Hide this layer" to go back to simple preview mode. See the Google Lat Long post about it.
Gigapan Photos - another new Featured Content layer showing high-resolution panoramic photos using the new Photo Overlay viewer in Google Earth 4.2. This layer represents photos from the Gigapan.org web site.

I just got a list of the other updated layers:

UNEP - Under Featured Content
AIA Blueprint for America - Under Featured Content
North Amerca Ferry Lines - This layer is found under Transportation->Waterway shows the main ferry routes in North America.
Google Earth Community - update to show more placemarks posted by people at the GEC.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:20 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Planets Add-on for Google Earth's Sky

When Sky first came out about a month ago, Google included a simple animation showing how the planets move in the night sky using time animation. The planets were represented by little icons, but their relative size were not shown properly. Enter James Stafford, aka 'Barnabu' at the Google Earth Community, and creator of many innovative KML visualizations. He has posted at his blog a couple of nifty new planet implementations which really add value to Sky in my opinion. First, James loads the current position of the Sun, planets and Moon for the current day and time. He put an arrow icon for each position so you can see them at any zoom level. He then decided to implement image overlays of the planets, and our moon, which are represented with their true size as seen against the Sky's scale. And, each body is shown with a nice color photo (if you zoom in and look - double click on the arrows to see them close up). Not only that, but he chose to represent the moon in its current phase (crescent shape, full or new moon). James then made available his file as a network link - so you can turn it on and it will load the current positions of the planets and moon into Sky and keep it handy in your My Places. Download the Sun, Planets and Moon , and try it out. Read details at the Barnabu blog.

Of course, one would like to be able to show the planets and moon position over time. So, James created a time animation showing the planets over a 60 day period (30 days in the past and 30 days into the future). It also shows the track over time of their position so you can see the way the planets move. And, again, the moon's phases are properly represented. Download the Animated Planets . You need to select the folder and then use the time slider to see the effects. Please note that this animation file has a lot of data, and may slow down Google Earth while it processes all the data. And again, more details at the Barnabu blog.

In order to see your current horizon in Sky - so you know which stars are visible tonight, you should check out this excellent horizon add-on by Michael Kosowsky.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2007

DigitalGlobe New Satellite WorldView I is Black and White?

Lots of folks, including myself, may have been confused by the news about the new DigitalGlobe satellite which just launched today. I'm glad the launch was successful and will improve DigitalGlobe's imagery data gathering capabilities. But, I'm not sure this satellite will be destined to help improve Google Earth imagery. Closer inspection of the specifications of the imaging system of the WorldView I reveals that it is "panchromatic" - which, while sensitive to many wavelengths, is essentially a black and white imaging sensor.

I'm going to do some more checking on this. It seems odd that they would spend all this money and not be able to produce color imagery. I know some imaging systems use color filters and blend processes to produce colors. Any remote sensing experts out there care to comment?

[UPDATE 1835: Quickbird - is also panchromatic, but it produces color using multispectral sensors. But, those types of sensors aren't listed in the specs for WorldView I.]

[UPDATE 1920: Ok, so according to analysis in the comments below WorldView I isn't color, but DG wil be able to fuse the imagery data with other color sources to get imagery that is mostly colored correctly. The limitation was possibly due to government contracts on the satellite which apparently won't be the case with the WorldView II satellite.].

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:35 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Burning Man 2007 in Google Earth

The guys from Pict'Earth (who offer image aquisition products and services) attended the Burning Man 2007 a couple of weeks ago. Burning Man is a huge outdoor art festival in the desert where tens of thousands of people camp in the desert and do strange things. During the event, they flew in a Cessna 172 and took aerial photos of Black Rock City - the temporary city built during the event and completely cleaned up afterwards. Pict'Earth has released their new Burning Man 2007 imagery for viewing as an image overlay in GE (as you zoom in, you get more detail). Google already has the 2006 event available for viewing in the base imagery. If you compare the two (try the transparency slider), you can see the 2007 event was larger than the 2006 event. See previous stories on Pict'Earth, and take note that they have a new web site. The new imagery was posted by 'Valery35' at the Google Earth Community - Valery has been developing the image processing software and the overlay.

The guys from Pict'Earth have also released the same imagery for viewing with Virtual Earth using MapCruncher, and using the new Yahoo MapMixer. Here are some photos from Flickr of Burning Man .

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

New Google Earth Satellite Launching Today

[UPDATE 1630 EDT: The launch of the satellite on a Delta 2 rocket was successful! Here are some photos of the launch from SpaceFlight Now. It will be a few months before the satellite is fully tested, begins operational status, and photos start appearing in Google Earth - read below for more details.]

DigitalGlobe (DG) is the company with the largest contract to provide satellite photography to Google Earth and Maps. Today, DG is launching the first of two new satellites, called WoldView I and II, with better technologies to provide resolution up to 50 cm / pixel, enhanced data speeds, and better quality data. WorldView II is expected to be launched in late-2008. Once WorldView I is fully deployed and tested, DG says the satellite will enable it to acquire data at about 7 times the current rate. See details from this ZDNet story.

Boeing is the company launching the satellite today from the Vandenburg AFB launch site. See the launch site here in Google Earth. You can watch the rocket launch live today between 11:15 and 11:49 AM PDT (that's 1415 EDT) as a web cast. Visit this Boeing site for details. After the launch window, a web cast recording will be available by tomorrow.

Those of you who are eager to see more Google Earth imagery should realize it typically takes about 6 months for a satellite to be fully tested after its launch before new data becomes available for use. This new satellite will not mean Google Earth will suddenly have live data. It will still be typically several weeks to a few months before new data is put into Google Earth. In addition, the satellite is still dependent on having the right weather conditions before getting a good photo (no clouds, haze, smoke, dust, right angle of the sun) worth putting into Google Earth. But, the faster data acquisition should speed things up some. Having more satellites will definitely improve the chances for new data.

The new satellite is limited to releasing images for commercial use at no higher than 50 cm resolution by government restrictions. Most of the high resolution satellite imagery is already at 60 - 100 cm resolution. So, this new satellite imagery will at best be slightly higher resolution. Google Earth also has acquired higher resolution aerial imagery (e.g. taken from planes) that is as high as 5 cm resolution (see Las Vegas for example). Although details haven't been made available, it is possible the satellite is capable of higher resolution imagery. Maybe someday the government will allow higher resolution imagery to be sold.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:55 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 17, 2007

Supernova Explosion in Google Earth Sky

In the year 1054, Chinese and Arab observers recorded a bright star which was later determined by astronomers to have been a supernova in the constellation of Taurus. The location is now known as the Crab Nebula. An animation showing what the event looked like was created and someone posted the animation to YouTube. Google Earth Community member Joey Wade has created a KML time animation showing portions of the video clip inside Google Earth's new Sky mode. Simply click on the supernova KML animation and load it into Sky. Then select the right-arrow "play" button to the right of the time slider to start the animation. Here is the video used for the animation.

This is not only an interesting visualization for Sky. Joey says he is impressed with improvements in GE 4.2 in the way it handles multiple image overlays. This means time animations like this will work better, for both the normal Google Earth and Sky. Joey did something similar by creating a 3D race car video inside Google Earth.

Other interesting animations by Mr. Wade:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 16, 2007

New Update to Google Earth: v4.2.0198

Last Wendesday, Google briefly pushed out a new version of Google Earth 4.2 with some minor bug fixes and one new feature. But, there were some problems and they pulled the update. The update as been re-released as Google Earth v 4.2.0198 (download the latest version here). This release mostly addresses some bugs from the first release of 4.2 on August 22nd (if you haven't already read about 4.2's new features - go here). But, there is one important new feature in this new release: the night sky mode now supports the SpaceNavigator! This means you can fly your way around the astrophotography with the handy SpaceNavigator (a 3D mouse you can buy which also works quite well in the normal mode of Google Earth).

Here are some notes on the fixes from the (release notes):

Support for SpaceNavigator in Sky
Spherical PhotoOverlays - there was a bug in the earlier release with spherical photooverlays. If you turned your view too far to the right or left, the image would flip. That has been fixed with this new release. A great example is this view inside a helicopter. Try it with the new version of GE 4.2.0196.
Better Sky Movement - when you move between different placemarks in Sky, the flying between points is smoother.
Fixed several crashes in PhotoOverlay
Reverted "Restrict time display to folder" checkbox default to off

Thanks to GEB reader 'smokeonit' for the tip on the new release.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Google Earth Outreach Enhancements

Google announced the Google Earth Outreach program in June of this year. The new initiative is designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do. The Outreach web site highlights content from non-profits, provides tips and tutorials for producing better KML, and GE Pro grants are available to US non-profits.

Outreach Showcase

Google has enhanced its showcase with many examples of Outreach Google Earth content. For example, look at the many powerful examples of Google Earth content about our environment. Many of the showcased examples have been written about with more detail in Google Earth Blog - see the GEB environment category.

Outreach YouTube Channel

Goolge has developed an Outreach YouTube channel with clips about non-profit content as well as tutorials for developing better KML. Here is an example of the UNEP layer:

Background Information on Global Awareness Layers

In addition, there are now new in-depth background information pages on several of the Global Awareness layers from Google Earth. These well-written stories provide interesting details about how and why they these layers were created. For example:

UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)
Crisis in Darfur
Appalachian Mountaintop Removal
Neighbors Against Irresponsible Logging
Gombe Chimpanzee Blog

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 14, 2007

3D Buildings - Groningen, Netherlands

It's been a while since I did a Friday morning 3D Model highlight. Today I'm highlighting a collection of models of Groningen in the Netherlands. This collection was created by four students at the local university and André Scholten who wrote me an e-mail to let me know about them. The models were created using Google SketchUp and most use photo textures to add detail. I've created a KML folder with a sample of the buildings to allow you to more quickly load several of the models within Google Earth. Double click on each network link to be flown to a view of each building. The models are a little too detailed I think to make it in the "Best of 3D Warehouse". They should read the tips on qualifying for the 3D Buildings layer here. There is a write-up of the collection at a local web site (dutch), which includes a nice YouTube video showing off the buildings:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:55 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 13, 2007

New DigitalGlobe Imagery for Steve Fossett Search

[UPDATE 21-Sept 1330: I found a new KML file put together which not only shows all the released imagery datasets, but also includes placemarks of already marked locations. Download this master GE file , which comes to us from this Search for Steve Fossett web site]

New imagery is available to help search for Steve Fossett and it comes from DigitalGlobe (the biggest supplier of satellite imagery in Google Earth). This new imagery is to the south-east of the earlier search imagery from GeoEye. The imagery available for loading in Google Earth has been posted at this Amazon Mechanical Turk site. You can use the Amazon site to search, or you can just look with Google Earth. I've created a new Steve Fossett network link that lets you look at both sets of imagery. The network link includes red outlines around each set of imagery so people don't accidentally search beyond the new imagery. If you go outside the borders you are looking at the base Google Earth imagery - which was taken long before Steve Fossett went missing.

NOTE: I tried asking Google about this previously reported imagery from DigitalGlobe. But, Google is not commenting on their involvement. I called DigitalGlobe today, and they told me they had given this imagery to Google, but had not heard anything as of early this morning. Obviously, somebody processed the imagery and turned it over to the Amazon Mechanical Turk people. The DigitalGlobe photography available in the network link is better aligned with the base imagery. So, it makes it easier to compare before and after.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:22 PM | Comments (112) | TrackBack

New Google Maps Moon Update

Google has posted a new update to their Google Maps version of "Google Moon" (read more at their LatLong blog). This was done in tangent with the new Google Lunar X PRIZE just announced. The new version includes new high resolution imagery, details on the Apollo missions to the moon and includes a "Charts" overlay which show detailed terrain-relief maps of the mission areas in color. If you click on the bottom you get placemarks with photos, and even tracks of the lunar rover paths. And, best of all, they have StreetView-type panoramas you can pan around and zoom in on! What I don't see yet is a Google Earth file with all this data. Where is it?? (According to the FAQ I found: "Not yet, but we're working on it!") One other little thing - It used to be when you zoomed in all the way on Google Moon - it would show the moon was made of cheese. Not any more... Anyway, check it all at Google Maps' Moon.Google.com. Here's what it looks like:

By the way, if you simply must see the moon in Google Earth - look at this.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Google Lunar X PRIZE - Race to the Moon!

Google is the sponsor of $30 Million in prizes, the biggest part of which is to be given to the first private venture to send a robotic mission to the moon and also transmit a video "mooncast" back Earth - or at least the Internet. The prize will be the Google Lunar X PRIZE (I like how they call it "Moon 2.0") and is being run by the X PRIZE Foundation. The prize was announced today at the Wired Nextfest in Los Angeles, California. Also, check out the new Google page about it. Here is a short excerpt from the announcement made by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation (with Bob Weiss, Peter Diamandis, Larry Page, and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin):

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

...Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth. The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “We are confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration.”

A little background here: The X PRIZE Foundation, which was founded by my long-time friend Peter Diamandis (Peter and I started SEDS together in our college days), was created to help stimulate interest in space travel. It was modeled on the concept started by the Orteig prize which stimulated aviation when the Spirit of St. Louis flown by Charles Lindberg crossed the Atlantic to win the prize. The first Ansari X PRIZE was the one which prompted Burt Rutan to build Space Ship One and win that $10 Million dollar prize to privately launch a man into space. This new prize is doubly-exciting because it involves not only a bigger prize and a very interesting objective, but also because Google is the sponsor!

Google Earth Angle

Now maybe Google will produce a new version of Google Earth to show the moon. You can get a taste of what it might be like from this moon image overlay which will turn Google Earth into the moon. This is not a high resolution image, it's only suitable for viewing at a distance. Deselect the "View->Atmosphere" menu item (since the moon has no atmosphere). You can add some interesting lunar placemarks that a Google Earth Community member named 'Withaar' posted to go with a moon overlay like this (load both files).

Maybe Google will create a real Google Moon (I mean in the 3D sense like Google Earth) now that there's going to be greater interest in going there? Maybe we'll be able to control our own lunar robot rovers from Google Moon someday? Meanwhile, check out the 2D Google Moon here.

Make sure to visit the Google Lunar X PRIZE web site for all kinds of other details. Things like a store, educational videos, and interesting background information for why they are doing this. I especially like this video showing the relative scale of the Earth and Moon.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:35 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 12, 2007

Sky News Roundup: New Horizon, SpaceNavigator, Google plans for Sky

The new Sky feature in Google Earth 4.2 just keeps getting better. Here's some new things for you to use and explore with Sky:

New Horizon Add-on for Sky - I previously mentioned about a Horizon add-on for Google Earth which was created by Michael Kosowsky of HeyWhatsThat.com. He E-mailed me today to let me know he had incorporated some suggestions I made for the add-on. You can now not only produce a horizon for your particular position on the Earth, but also get a version which uses the time slider feature of Google Earth to show you the horizon during the course of the day or night. He also has tried to simplify the steps for creating the KML add-on file. Here are some instructions from his e-mail:
To try it all out, head over to this web page. Find yourself on the map. Select the next to last option (a full day at one hour intervals) and hit "Submit." When Google Earth opens up with our overlays, open the "Sun, Moon, planets" layer and double-click on "Sun" to center it, then start the animation. You should be able to watch the Sun cross your horizon. (Actually, your horizon crosses the Sun; you'll understand what I mean when you try it.)
Quick tips for running the animation: A slider appears on the top
right of the window when you load an animation. Hit the big
arrow to the right and stuff should move. There's a cursor you
can manually drag. Click on the icon that looks like a clock to
the left of the slider to set options. More documentation here and here.

Note that if you save the network link in your My Places you will automatically have the horizon when you need it.
SpaceNavigator - The newest version of GE 4.2 (version 4.2.0196 was just released today - 12-September) now supports the very cool 3D mouse called the SpaceNavigator in the Sky mode. However, two of the axes are not set properly - you can fix this by bringing up the 3DConnexion control panel (usually the right button on the 3D mouse brings it up). Go to the Advanced settings pane and reverse the axes for "Pan Up/Down" and "Spin". Now it will work properly in Sky, and its a great way to explore the Sky mode. But, when you go back to Google Earth, you have to reset the axes again. Hopefully, Google will get this fixed soon.
Google plans for Sky - Google, and the team of professional astronomers who helped develop Sky, have grand plans for getting the astronomy community to embrace Google Earth's Sky mode. You can read a paper they've submitted here, and the full paper here (PDF). OgleEarth's Stefan Geens summarizes some significant highlights from the paper here. I think this is great thinking, and have already encouraged some of my astronomer friends to look into it.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 03:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

New Update to Google Earth: v4.2.0196 UNReleased

[UPDATE 2104 EDT: Google has decided to remove this update temporarily. They have told me they will have a new version posted "soon". But, they will now go back to the previous - 4.2.0180 version until the problems are resolved. If you got it while it was still available, you can play with the couple of new features. But, there are some problems with it they want to resolve.]

Google has quietly pushed out a new version of Google Earth - 4.2.0196(download the latest version here). This release mostly addresses some bugs from the first release of 4.2 on August 22nd (if you haven't already read about 4.2's new features - go here). But, there is one important new feature in today's release: the night sky mode now supports the SpaceNavigator! This means you can fly your way around the astrophotography with the handy SpaceNavigator (a 3D mouse you can buy which also works quite well in the normal mode of Google Earth).

A couple of things I've found which are fixed:

Spherical PhotoOverlays - there was a bug in the earlier release with spherical photooverlays. If you turned your view too far to the right or left, the image would flip. That has been fixed with this new release. A great example is this view inside a helicopter. Try it with the new version of GE 4.2.0196.
Better Sky Movement - when you move between different placemarks in Sky, the flying between points is smoother.

I have found a couple of problems with the new release: the 3D Enterprise I wrote about earlier today, for some reason doesn't work with the new release (it uses GroundOverlay). Also, two of the axes with the SpaceNavigator are backwards in Sky. You need to use the 3DConnexion control panel to reverse "Pan Up/Down" and "Spin" while in the Sky mode. Then it will work, but you'll have to change it back when you go back to Earth mode. I've already reported these to Google.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:31 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

3D Model Roundup: Floorplan Star Trek, Bouncing Earths

Floorplan Star Trek - Google Earth Community member 'PhilRichards' has created an innovative 3D model for Google Earth. He has used the image overlay data type (an inherently 2D only type) showing floor plans (with transparent edges) from a Star Trek Enterprise spacecraft and laid each level on top of each other. The result is a 3D model of the Enterprise using the 2D floor plans. I'm sure this kind of thing has been done before by architects for buildings. But, this is the first time I've seen it done in Google Earth. This is a rather memory intensive way of doing it, and it takes a while to load, but you can move yourself around the image and see the 3D effect. He placed the model in the middle of the ocean in order to avoid adding to memory by having you load imagery and terrain. Phil also created the helicopter photo overlay I wrote about recently. Great work Phil! (and thanks to Gerardo Paz for the tip)
Bouncing Earths - Way back at the beginning of the year, James Stafford created an animation showing a bouncing 3D Google Earth inside Google Earth. James noticed that the new GE 4.2 update included some optimizations which improve its ability to handle multiple copies of the same 3D model. To demonstrate, he's created a new version of the bouncing Google Earth with 50 instances of the GE 3D model. And he set up the animation to show each one bouncing at a different rate. You can download the 50 Earth time animation in GE (this may take a long time to load), or you can just watch this video (notice they also have shadows):

Nice work as usual James!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 11, 2007

Back to School - Educational Uses with Google Earth

It is close to the end of summer in the northern hemisphere. Many kids are heading back to school after a summer break. For those of you who are educators and have thought, or heard, that Google Earth would make a good tool for geography lessons - let me suggest you look closer. Google Earth (GE) is not only a great tool for geography - it has the ability to entice kids to learn about information tied to location in a huge variety of important educational subjects. When you first load GE you have a wealth of information available at your fingertips. Thousands of aerial and satellite photos, dozens of layers of information: city names, country borders, airport locations, photos, road maps, National Geographic content, volcanoes, and more. Since Google Earth is an intuitive and fun tool, I believe you could use it as a visualization and educational tool for almost any subject. Once students prepare their own content, GE can be used to present their work - or even share their work with the world.

Below you will find a sample of possible useful content for Google Earth in a variety of subjects such as geography, literature, science, history, and more. Basically, any information which can be tied to a location on Earth can be illustrated, and made interesting, using GE. Juicy Geography is a web site, by Noel Jenkins in the UK, designed to help teachers learn more about tools like GE for the classroom and suggests possible lessons. Also, check out a summary of educational uses for Google Maps by GoogleMapsMania. And, Google has their own site on educational uses for Google Earth. Continue reading the rest of this post for more information.

Google Earth is a powerful visual tool for visualizing and presenting information tied to location. And now, with Google Earth 4.2 there are even more reasons to use GE in education (GE 4.2 adds the new Sky mode which is wonderful for astronomy lessons, the flight simulator mode for teaching about aviation, and a wealth of new features in KML 2.2 which will greatly enhance educational presentations with GE). GE can also be used as a tool for students to study or even prepare their own presentations. If I were an educator I would use GE for many topics. You can use the "Search" or "Categories" on Google Earth Blog to find more information. Or, you can go to the Google Earth Community to look for materials as well. Here are just a sample of some of the material available organized by subject:

Literature

Science

Astronomy: GE 4.2 Sky Mode, Solar System in Google Earth, Solar Eclipses,
Earth Science: Ice Flows, global temperatures
Geology: volcanoes, earthquakes
Biology: Avian Flu, Chimpanzees, Ants
Environment: Glacier melt, International Polar Year, satellite data
Weather: Weather tools, lightning data from NASA, more weather stories

History

Geography

Try turning on the Geographic Web layer. How about basic geography information about countries of the world? Turn on the Borders layer. Or, try the CIA World Factbook for GE Google Earth File. You must have GE installed. (more details).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 10, 2007

News Roundup: Flight Sim Tips, Clouds and Weather, KML 2.2, Google Solar Panels, Pollution

Flight Sim Tips - If you're looking for starting tips for the new flight simulator in Google Earth, check out my flight sim basic tips post. Also, at the bottom of the HUD guide post, there is a note about an advanced tip describing how to find the configuration files for the GE flight simulator, and several comments on how to modify them. Google says you can always re-install GE to get the config files back to default. Also, you can use "CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-R" to reload the aircraft and planet config files on the fly.
Clouds and Weather - James Stafford has posted GE time animations showing global cloud patterns back to May of 2006 all in a handy Google Earth cloud animation file (note: each month is >16 Mbytes). You can also watch a video showing all the clouds in 15 months in about 40 seconds. Meanwhile, GuiWeather has announced they have enhanced their buoy and ship observations weather file. They have a fast growing list of great weather files for GE here.
KML 2.2 - Google has posted some details about KML 2.2 with lots of links to new documentation. One big point I haven't mentioned before is that KML 2.2 offers some new tags allowing you to create custom description bubbles for your KML in a much better way than before. Google has added better documentation on the new tags. They also indicate that KML 2.2 will be leaving beta soon and are asking for input from developers.
Google Solar Panels - Google has graced the Googleplex (their headquarters) with solar panels. Their solar web site includes some aerial photos of the new installation. Valery35 has used the new GE 4.2 to create photo overlays so you can see the photos in GE . If you turn on the 3D Buildings layer, you can also see the solar panels on the Googleplex in 3D.
Pollution - Google recently posted about some new environmental content various organizations have created with Google's mapping products. For Google Earth, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation has made an excellent GE visualization of pollution data for North America . And, 'tegandrew' at the GEC has posted a similar visualization for pollution in Australia .

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 09, 2007

Help Find Steve Fossett with Google Earth

En Español

[UPDATE 1-October, 2008: Steve Fossett's pilot's license and other items found near Mammoth Lakes, California. Read the story and a link to the area where they were found in Google Earth.]

[UPDATE 14-September: A new KML has been posted with a strip of DigitalGlobe imagery. I've updated the links below to include both sets of imagery with red borders outlining the imagery. Don't bother looking outside the new imagery. The GeoEye imagery is turned off by default - you have to find the folder to turn it on, most of the comments below are from the GeoEye imagery. It would be better if everyone went to the new story I've posted and started your comments here: New Steve Fossett Search Imagery]

[UPDATE: I've made a new network link which has the imagery, but also includes a red border around it. This will hopefully avoid confusion since some people are looking beyond the available search imagery.]

As most everyone knows by now, famed adventurer Steve Fossett went missing last Monday, September 3rd, after leaving a small airport in west Nevada in a small single-engine airplane with blue, white, and yellow colors on it. The area of Nevada where he went missing is very rugged terrain, and so far the search and rescue aircraft have not been able to locate the missing plane. New satellite imagery of the area taken by GeoEye has been taken. Amazon has produced a Help Find Steve Fossett web site which automatically provides you with an image to look at in the search area of new satellite imagery. You have to sign up and give your address to help with the search. If you see something in the small area which looks suspicious you're asked to flag it. The page also provides you with a network link which includes recently taken satellite imagery of the search area. You can load the network link in Google Earth and start looking over the recently taken imagery for a portion of the search area yourself. Or copy and paste the coordinates you were given to get a better look at that spot.

This is an approach to more rapidly search a large area of imagery using many eyeballs of people around the world. A similar technique was used to search for Jim Gray, a Microsoft scientist who went missing on his sailboat off the coast of California. Unfortunately, in the case of Jim Gray nothing was found. In this case, if Steve Fossett did in fact stay within the region of imagery provided, someone should find some sign of the plane in the imagery (unless the plane managed to go into water and sink - I was surprised how many small lakes there are in the search region).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:15 AM | Comments (338) | TrackBack

September 07, 2007

Adding New PhotoOverlays to Google Earth

The new photo viewing mode built into Google Earth 4.2 is best illustrated to date by the layer under Featured Content called Gigapxl Photos (see article or the video below). But, Google also introduced a mechanism for adding your photos into the Photo Viewer through the menu Add->Photos... (here is a brief tutorial from Google on how to do this). Underlying this new mode is a new KML 2.2 tag called <PhotoOverlay>. Google has just released detailed documentation on how to use the new <PhotoOverlay> tag and take full advantage of the features. Also added to the documentation is the interesting new <Camera> tag.

Here is a video showing the new Gigapxl Photos layer:

I also liked the innovative application of the PhotoOverlay someone developed at the Google Earth Community which used a transparent image showing the view of GE as if you were inside a helicopter. Story on the new KML documentation via Google's Using Google Earth blog.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 06, 2007

Flight Simulator HUD Display Guide, and an Advanced Tip

I'm sure Google will get around to creating some more documentation for the new flight simulator mode. But, I've had several people ask what the indica