Google Earth Blog: October 2007 Archives

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October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween Google Earth

Pumpkin Google Earth It's that time of year again. Last year I got whimsical and decided to turn the Earth into a pumpkin for halloween. To check it out, simply download this pumpkin Google Earth File. You must have GE installed. KML file. Make sure you turn off the "View->Atmosphere" menu toggle and zoom out for the full effect. Look at the bottom of the pumpkin for some credits. To get your Earth back, simply turn off the PumpkinEarth placemark.

I had planned to do a new variation, but since I've just returned from a trip I'll just mention a few tips on how to do this kind of thing yourself. Start by creating an image with a 2 to 1 ratio (2048 x 1024 in this case) and paint the pumpkin using a paint program (Gimp is what I used). Then select "Add->Image Overlay" in GE and give it the location of the image. Select the "Location" tab and set North, South, East, West to 90, -90, 180, -180 respectively (this overlays the image so it covers the Earth). The finishing touch in this case was to create a 3D model of the stem - the free Google SketchUp is the quickest way to do that.

By the way, Google got whimsical this year for Halloween with Google Maps StreetMaps. Check out the story at GoogleMapsMania.

Happy Halloween!

[UPDATE: Google has posted a bunch of halloween maps to look at on their Lat Long blog.]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:45 AM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2007

It's About Time - KML Articles by Google

Google has published a couple of articles at the Maps API blog about using KML (the markup language behind Google Earth which makes the good stuff work). It's good to see more attention being given to helping people learn how to use the more sophisticated aspects of Google Earth. I particularly like the fact that Google uses examples developed by people from the user community who have developed some of the more innovative applications of the features highlighted.

The first article talks about the features which enable time animations in Google Earth. I particularly like the London Eye with Shadow animation done by James Stafford (more details from GEB story here). They also use the Blue Marble time animation which I developed last year (although they didn't credit me in the article - I had a bit of a challenge developing the animation at the time because there was a bug in the beta of GE 4 at the time - and there was no tutorial like this).

The second article is by Valery Hronusov from Perm Russia on the subject of "Using KML in the Google Mashup Editor". Valery has probably developed more innovative applications of KML than anyone else in the user community (see examples written about at GEB). Valery seems to really like this new Google Mashup Editor. He uses examples from the PictEarth flying missions which Valery is involved with.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:42 AM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2007

Trip Status, Links: PhotoOverlay tool, CIA World Factbook, Another BMNG

Those of you following this blog know I traveled to New Mexico this past weekend for the X PRIZE Cup at the Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo. This was a great air and space show! I'll be bringing a full trip report (including photos) later this week, but I'm still on my way back. I flew a Cessna 182 out there, and its going to take me a little while to get back. On the way out, I flew via Houston, Tx where I stopped to visit family. While there, my sister-in-law Christine took me to the Houston Museum of Natural Science where we got to see Lucy (the 3.2 million year old remains of a very distant ancestor). See the GPS track of the flight to New Mexico from last Wed/Thursday in Google Earth. The track was colorized by altitude and 3D datapoints courtesy of GPSVisualizer.com (see previous story on how this is done).

Here's some other news of interest:

PhotoOverlay tool - DigitalUrban has released a tool to help you place photos with the new PhotoOverlay feature in Google Earth 4.2. I will review this later this week after I get back from the trip.
CIA World Factbook - This nice collection of placemarks showing links to CIA World Factbook data in Google Earth for countries around the world was updated last month to reflect the update of the database. Read more about the layer.
Another BMNG - Barry Hunter announces he is hosting a new NASA Blue Marble Next Generation (BMNG) network link which provides superoverlay 500 meter resolution views of the Earth (open the folder to see the choices of different versions). These specially enhanced world-wide satellite photos include different versions for each month of the year so you can get a sense of the seasonal changes viewed from space (see a time animation of this). As Barry notes in his post, this version isn't intended for every day use, but it does produce some higher-resolution versions of the BMNG which are nice to view. The new version was developed by Jonathan van Tuijl.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 5:30 AM | Comments (1)

October 26, 2007

UAV Photos of Burned Areas in San Diego in Google Earth

Just a quick post because I'm going to X PRIZE Cup. Pict Earth - a company which produces image processing technology for aerial photos with special skills in Google Earth - has started flying over some of the burned areas in San Diego. They have published some photos of burned regions in Google Earth. Definitely worth checking out. Thanks to PictEarth for bringing it to my attention.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:51 AM | Comments (2)

Google California Fires Master Layer

Google has produced a network link which is essentially a California Fire master layer . By using a network link it is something you can save in your Places folder which won't take up any space until you turn it on. It also will automatically update as Google adds new layers of data from various sources. Simply turn on the folders (or layers) of information from sources which interest you. Right now the layer contains:

Thermal IR Imagery - Imagery taken by the Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle with thermal infared sensors. Showing the hot spots in areas flown.
NASA MODIS Satillite Photos - A series of photos from NASA satellites showing the progression of smoke seen from space coming from the fires.
Fire Perimeters - Data maps from San Diego County showing the fire perimeters and locations of fires on specific days. On a related note, I found this San Diego County emergency web site, which has a perimeter fire map for Google Earth which looks very informative.
DigitalGlobe - 60cm high-resolution imagery from DigitalGlobe satellites of a portion of the fire area.
Spot Image - False color imagery of the fire with 10 meter resolution. This is by far the most dramatic satellite imagery I've seen of the fires (as shown in the thumbnail). You can see the flames and smoke quite clearly in a few regions especially on the northern edge.

As said above, Google can add to this layer any time. Either keep the network link in your Places pane, or check back here for more updates. Also, for other fire related info reported earlier, see this post. Also, FortiusOne has posted a collection of datasets and maps related to the California fires at their GeoCommons mapping site.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:22 AM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2007

Comet Holmes Gets Bright

[UPDATED 16-Nov-2007: Updated placemark below to reflect new position of Comet Holmes - still visible to the naked eye, very noticeable with binoculars or a low-powered telescope! Also, added an image and link from Sky & Telescope which shows the positions of Comet Holmes over the next few weeks.]

A comet called 17P/Holmes, not normally visible to the naked eye, on October 24th suddenly burst a million times brighter. Scientists believe the comet is a ball of dirty ice which has cracked open and revealed new white ice which is reflecting the sun much brighter. The object is still dim to the naked eye, and it appears like a normal star. But, the fact it can be seen at all is highly unusual. Read more at Space.com.

Surprisingly few news reporters even mentioned how to find the star, or published the coordinates. But, I did find the coordinates and quickly made a placemark so you can view the location in Sky of Comet Holmes. It is in the constellation of Perseus. I plan on checking it out tonight. We need to teach journalists to start publishing KML files to point out the locations of their stories - whether it be somewhere on Earth, or somewhere up in the sky. By the way, thanks to my friend Jim Scotti who is an astronomer at The Spacewatch Project. See a picture he took with a regular SLR digital camera showing the comet.

[UPDATE: I found it in tonight's sky quite easily using the view from Sky. Amazing!]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:32 PM | Comments (6)

Links: More Fire Maps, New Tutorials

[UPDATE 1900 EDT: Google has posted a master network link where they have compiled a bunch of resources. It will automatically update with new stuff as they add it. Download the master layer for the California fires here .]

Just a quick few links - I'm traveling today:

More Fire Maps - Google posted a compilation of many different organizations and individuals using Google Maps to track the fires in California as well as relief efforts. Google also has released a zoomable high-res overlay of a recent DigitalGlobe satellite photo of a portion of the fires in San Diego, and later they added new imagery from NASA and the USFS showing thermal imagery of the area. See other GE related content here .
New Tutorials - Google has released some new tutorials at Google Earth Outreach on how to make maps with Google Maps which can also be used with Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:20 AM | Comments (1)

October 24, 2007

Headed to X PRIZE Cup 2007

Today I'm flying out to see the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup 2007 at the Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico. This will be a great air & space show with aircraft and rockets blasting off to the thrill of thousands attending this year's events. The event gets started on Friday, October 26. But, since I'm flying a small plane, I'm leaving a couple days early. The X PRIZE Foundation set these events up to help stimulate interest in commercial space travel. Contests are being held with big-figure prizes for things like lunar lander technology, space elevators, and - most recently - the new Google Lunar X PRIZE.

Last year I had a great time attending the show. The Google Earth team will be back again this year with a booth. Last year Google processed some aerial photos I took of the 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup - and we posted it on my blog on the same day. Now whenever you look at last year's airport - Las Cruces, New Mexico - you can see the 2006 X PRIZE Cup . This year I wasn't sure I would be flying out, so no plans were made for an aerial photo shoot (and I'm not sure the AFB would approve).

I've been using Google Earth to plan some sightseeing. So far I've identified several places I want to visit like: the New Mexico Museum of Space History, New Mexico Skies (several observatories - they rent out telescopes for both on-site and over-the-Internet use), several geocaches using a network link from Geocaching.com, and lots of other sights identified using the Google Earth Community and Geographic Web layers. Read Ten Easy Steps to Learn About a Place with Google Earth.

Read more about the 2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup with links to lots of space-related Google Earth content.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 5:00 AM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2007

New Imagery for Google Earth - October 23

[UPDATE Oct 24: - Yesterday Google posted another series of riddles suggesting some of the locations. Today they not only provided the answers, they also provided a complete list of all the major locations with new imagery. Look at the bottom of this post for the full list. I'm very glad to see Google post a more complete list of imagery updates. The recent trend of doing riddles is fun, but give us the full information and we are more likely to look at places with new data.]

A bunch of new imagery for Google Earth has been released. This came to my attention courtesy of an E-mail from GEB reader Artak in Germany. No word yet from Google on the official list, but here is a summary of places found so far (the list started by folks at the KugelErde.de - German Google Earth forum, others added as reports come in - and as I find them):

Germany - Wilhelmshaven, Hamburg, Lübeck, Travemünde, Timmendorfer Strand, Münster, Magdeburg, Chemnitz, Stuttgart, Rostock, Erfurt, Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Sylt, Aurich, Wiesmor, Mellum, Wangerooge, Spiekeroog, Langeoog, Norderney, Juist, Memmert, Borkum, Wiesmoor
Netherlands
Yerevan, Armenia
Tunisia
Syria
Oregon, USA
Marshall Islands, French Polynesia
North Carolina, USA joins the list of entire state coverage with high resolution imagery
At least portions of Puerto Rico are updated - the blimp has moved.
Leeds, UK
Reykjavik, Iceland
Derby, England
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and substantial portions of Pennsylvania
Niagara Falls, New York

Also, according to GEB reader Dan Saxton, Canada has much better 3D terrain now.

This is the second imagery update in October. A highly unusual occurrence. Usually it's about 60 days between imagery updates.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 4:07 PM | Comments (56)

California Fires - Satellite photos, Fire Data in Google Earth

[UPDATE November 2008: If you're looking for maps from the November 2008 fires (Sayre Fire, Tea Fire, etc.) read this post for detail and links to view maps in Google Earth for better 3D data.]

[UPDATE October 2008: The October 2008 fires in San Fernando Valley can be seen in another map for Google Earth/Maps from the LA Times. Read the details and links to the maps here.]

[UPDATE June 2008: This article is about the southern California fires in the fall of 2007. If you are interested in the new fires in Northern California of the summer of 2008, see this new post about the June 2008 fires.]

[UPDATE Oct 26: Google has posted a California fires master layer you can download showing several collections of satellite photos and maps.]

Yesterday I posted a KML file showing the smoke from the California fires from space as an image overlay in Google Earth. Since then, I've discovered a number of useful fire maps for Google Earth (and updated the original story). I'm re-organizing the best information here to make it more convenient and add additional information. Here are the main resources I recommend:

US Forest Service Active Fires Map - The USFS has a web site dedicated to tracking active fires. They use a combination of satellites from space which detect the fires, and combine that with ground-based information to produce the maps. All data points are placemarks with further information. Check out the fire map for the continental US which includes the California fires.
NASA MODIS - NASA's MODIS satellites are continuously taking photos of the Earth from space. They just released new photos showing smoke from the fires in California. A blogger in Spain has released a series of image overlays in Google Earth showing the smoke from several of these photos over the last few days. Open the "Incendios in California" folder and click on the different dates to see several different views of the smoke. [UPDATE: Here is a super image overlay (more detail as you zoom in) of the smoke from space by Matt Fox.]
KPBS Fire Map - The radio station KPBS is maintaining an up-to-date map of the fire situation in San Diego. You can view the map in either Google Maps (see below), or view the map in Google Earth . This is an excellent example of being able to use the KML content to view in either 2D or 3D maps (which Google highlighted on their Lat Long blog). Here's the Google Maps version:

View Larger Map
Time Animations - Google Earth Community member Joey Wade has produced some time animations for Google Earth. The first illustrates the spread of the fire over time from the MODIS Active Fire Maps. After viewing that, turn it off. Next, Joey produced an animation of the growth of the smoke plume from the biggest fire based on satellite photos. Select the "play" button to the right of the time slider to see the animations. Just make sure only one is selected at a time, or that you have the settings set to "Restrict time to the currently active folder". See post 1, and post 2.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:38 AM | Comments (15)

October 22, 2007

San Diego, California Fires - See Smoke in Google Earth

The wildfires in Malibu and San Diego are visible from space in this NOAA GOES 11 satellite image taken today. The image was made available at NOAA's Operational Significant Events Imagery web site. I took the photo and created an image overlay so you can see the smoke in Google Earth. The image has not been processed for proper cylindrical projection, but it's not too far off. You can definitely see the larger amount of smoke from the San Diego fires. CNN has also been using Google Earth to show maps of the fires. [UPDATE Oct 23, 0830 EDT: NASA has released new satellite images of the smoke. Here are nicely aligned image overlays (taken on different dates) from NASA's MODIS satellites. via this spanish blog.]

[UPDATE 22:30 EDT: And here is a great resource from the MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program and the US Forest Service - they have some great maps for currently active fires in various map formats - the one for Google Earth is particularly useful. Check out this one which covers the continental US - including the California fires. The data is a combination of data from earth-orbiting satellites which detect the heat signatures of fires, and ground-based information as well.

Also, there is a fire map being managed by radio station KPBS in San Diego with up-to-date information about the situation there. The fire map is available in Google My Maps (see below), and you can use the KML option to view the map in Google Earth . via Google Lat Long. Here is the map:

View Larger Map

Posted by FrankTaylor at 6:22 PM | Comments (5)

Links: Chinese Cop Catches Crook, Malibu Fire, EveryTrail Update, CIA WorldFactbook, Hungary Weather

Chinese Cop Catches Crook - An innovative young policeman in China's Fujian province spent a month mapping data in Google Earth used to track a suspect in human trafficking (see article from GlobalVoicesOnline). The map data was used to help identify houses where the suspect might be located. Satellite photos helped police plan a stakeout, and they apprehended the culprit. Recently the province public security director visited the police station and commended the innovative cop (see photo).
Malibu Fire - The posh coastal community of Malibu California is the location of a raging wildfire due to dry conditions and strong winds. The area is home to many wealthy people with large mansions situated on hills overlooking the ocean. Over 200 homes were evacuated yesterday and thousands are in jeopardy. A famous house built like a castle has already burned - it was known as Castle Kashan, home to Lilly Lawrence, a local philanthropist. The home was evacuated before engulfed in fire. Here is a Google Earth view of the castle (via Mibazaar).
EveryTrail Update - EveryTrail announced an update to version 2 of their GPS trail mapping web site. The site lets you upload your GPS tracks and geotag your photos so you can share your trips with others. The maps are viewed with Google Maps, or you can download a KML file for Google Earth. Some details on the changes from their blog.
CIA WorldFactbook - The CIA WorldFactbook web site was updated this summer. The Google Earth version , which was created by GEC member 'Herrminator', has been updated with the new data. See original GEB story.
Hungary Weather - GEC member 'syzygy' has posted a nice collection of image overlays showing weather in Hungary from Metnet and OMSZ.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:37 AM | Comments (1)

October 19, 2007

Links: Glider Towing, 3D Bonanza, John Hanke Presentation, Google Maps Profiles, Virtual Earth 3D Modeling

Glider Towing - GoogleSightseeing highlights a great plane in flight find showing a glider being towed to altitude in southwestern England. See it here . The amazing thing is that this aerial photo is clear enough to see the tow cable - probably due to the right sun angle glinting off the cable. The sighting was discovered by Noisette at the GEC.
3D Bonanza - The 3D Warehouse can help you find all kinds of interesting model collections in Google Earth. Some 3D building collections are amazingly detailed. Fly to "Beaver Creek, Colorado " and turn on the 3D Buildings layer for a very detailed model of this ski village. Even the chair lifts are models (and there's no lift lines! Hmmm). Note: depending on your connection and computer, this collection may take a while to load due to the detail.
John Hanke Presentation - John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps at Google, and the CEO of Keyhole before it was bought by Google, spoke at Berkeley where he got his business degree (video here - Real Player required). This is a fascinating lecture as it tells the story of his several business ventures and the challenging history of Keyhole before it was acquired. Also, at the end he shows some interesting slides about the success of Google Earth. I especially liked the heat map showing all the placemarks on Earth in their search index on a map. He also shared a photo of the fleet of cars Google is deploying to take Streetview imagery which was taken by a blogger. Well worth watching if you want to know more about the history of Google Earth. Video discovered via this blog post.
Google Maps Profiles - Google is increasingly adding social networking elements to Maps. This week they announced you can make a real profile of yourself in Google Maps (picture photo, pseudo, and other info), plus when people look at your photo they can see your reviews, photos, links, and the My Maps you've chosen to share. They also made a video talking about the new profile features presented by SketchUp newsletter Googler Tasha.
Virtual Earth 3D Modeling - There haven't been many blog posts about this, but when Microsoft released their big update to Virtual Earth this week they also released a free application for building 3D models. This is not a SketchUp killer or anything, but it was yet another move to have the same suite of tools Google has created for Google Earth (gee, is this a competition or something?). Earthware Blog has three posts mentioning, showing a video demonstration, and comparing Microsoft's 3D tool to SketchUp.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:39 AM | Comments (4)

October 18, 2007

3D Warehouse Update - Collada Files

[UPDATE: If you are viewing the 3D Warehouse in a different language than English, you may not see the Collada file format option for a given model. Google is still in the process of having the new site translated to other languages. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to see the new feature unless you have your language set to English.]

Google has updated the 3D Warehouse with a significant new feature. Models in the 3D Warehouse can now be downloaded in the Collada file format (an open standard 3D file format). Collada files are supported by Google Earth. This is particularly significant because this means you now have an even faster way to bring models from the 3D Warehouse into Google Earth. The Collada files are downloaded in a Zip file. After downloading one you can simply drag the model's DAE file from the Zip file straight into Google Earth's Places folders and the model will be loaded on top of your current location. You can then use the gadgets for positioning and resizing the model you want to place. By the way, this process is actually faster than downloading the SketchUp file into SketchUp and then placing the model into Google Earth (there are fewer steps, and less conversions taking place).

As an example, here's a few quick steps to getting a model from 3D Warehouse into Google Earth (Note: if the model you are looking at is already available for Google Earth, then these steps aren't necessary):

First, find a suitable model in 3D Warehouse. I chose this nice model of a space shuttle by 'decten'.
Select the "Download" option next to the Collada file format.
Open Google Earth and find a location to place your model. I searched for Kennedy Space Center, then moved my view over one of the launch pads.
Next open the Collada zip file downloaded and drag the file "Space Shuttle + Booster.dae" to a Places folder. The model will be transferred straight into Google Earth.
You can use the green gadgets to drag the model to a better position, and/or make the model larger or smaller. You can also use the properties window to change other features such as altitude.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:28 AM | Comments (3)

Crocodile Man Easter Egg in Google Earth

Yesterday I was having a discussion with Gerardo about the many models selected by Google to be in the 3D Buildings layer. I was showing him a 3D model I had been using for a project for a forthcoming GEB story. I commented that I was surprised more models didn't have little easter eggs hidden in them. A moment later Gerardo says "I just found one!". He says "It's that crocodile guy from the TV show". Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Man, is probably the best known Australian. So naturally, the model we were looking at was the best known Australian 3D building: The Sydney Opera House. Here's a short video showing the easter egg and how to find it in Google Earth:

Or, you could just turn on the 3D Buildings layer, and follow this link to see Crocodile Man in Google Earth. By the way, the 3D model of the Sydney Opera House was created by Josh Wilson.

For another example of an easter egg in 3D Buildings, check out the Blues Brothers jumping over a draw bridge.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:32 AM | Comments (4)

October 17, 2007

Improved KML Support for Google Maps

Last night Google announced improved support in Google Maps for more sophisticated KML files. In particular, KML files which use network links whose content in based on your current view are now supported in Google Maps. Google gave some examples of KML files used in Google Earth which work now in Google Maps like: Panoramio photos of the world, and Wikimapia. Cool as they are, they both have their own Google Maps versions - which you can find by browsing the Google My Maps directory - which work a little better (Panoramio uses smaller pictures for their My Maps version).

Mickey of Gearthhacks.com is quite excited that several of his network links work quite well with Google Maps - see his GearthHacks most popular network link for lots of interesting sites (make sure you're in "satellite mode" in Google Maps).

Initially I was also excited about this announcement and I rushed to try some of my favorite network links in Google Maps. But, I found many still would not work - or at least parts of them failed. I was surprised the USGS Earthquake Monitoring KML didn't work (but, they have a My Maps version at least). Global image overlays still aren't supported in Maps - so my favorite real-time global clouds network link still isn't supported. The ones that work or don't work are hit or miss at this point. But, obviously Google intends to continue to improve KML support in Google Maps.

Here is one very nice network link which works with Maps: UK Fall Foliage (read the story on it here). It's a network link which shows the current color of fall leaves in the UK. Also, the large KML collection I developed documenting our sailing adventures in the Caribbean works quite well now in Google Maps (see post).

This new support for network links will enable people to develop even more KML files which will work with both Google Earth and Maps. And, they won't even need to learn the Maps API to do it.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:15 AM | Comments (6)

October 16, 2007

Business Layers Have Reviews and Pictures in Google Earth

Apparently during the layers update last week there was also an update to the information provided for business layers. First open up the Places of Interest layer folder near the bottom of the layers list. If you turn on the layers such as Dining, Lodging, Travel and Tourism, or Shopping and Services you get a wealth of placemarks for many cities in many countries (Google continues to add more countries every few months). Now, when you click on the placemarks you get more than just a name, URL, and possibly an address and phone number. You also get reviews and photos. These features were available for a while now in Google Maps, and now they are available in Google Earth as well. You can also follow the link to write your own reviews. Great stuff!

These layers are a great resource in Google Earth. But, I suspect a lot of people don't realize they are available. I wish Google would improve the layers interface so more people would realize this fantastic resource of information is available. In Google Maps, you can't just turn on a "Dining" layer because the Maps interface can't show varying degrees of placemarks - or large numbers of them (at least not yet). But, with Google Earth you can zoom in and get increasing amounts of placemarks and see the full data available.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:01 AM | Comments (1)

October 15, 2007

Microsoft Virtual Earth Supports Basic KML and KML Searching

Microsoft has released a new version of Virtual Earth (2D and 3D) tonight (see press release). I've already written about the really nice new Bird's Eye support which now works in the 3D view. Buried in the press release is that the new release also supports two significant elements related to Google Earth:

Microsoft now supports search results of user-generated content. This of course means collections of locations saved with Virtual Earth, but it also means they are now returning results of KML files. This is the same concept which Google introduced to their search results starting in February. This is fundamental to creating the "GeoWeb" - being able to find different forms of geospatial content on the web via search. Now Microsoft has a start at this as well.
And, you can't really do anything with KML search results unless your mapping program can show something. Now Microsoft's Virtual Earth can view KML files. If you search "collections" for something - say "google headquarters in mountain view" - you get back some results which include KMZ files from bbs.keyhole.com (NOTE: so far the only KMZ files I've seen come from there). The other important thing to note: So far, the only KML support I've seen is for placemarks. Lines, polygons, image overlays, and 3D models all don't seem to be supported in this first release from Microsoft. [UPDATE: After reading a review of the new features by OgleEarth, I found there is better support for KML - but, in my case the better support only works in the 2D mode of Virtual Earth. So, it appears the update does support lines and polygons at least - in 2D mode.]

Although this is just a baby step for both KML searches and KML support, Microsoft has fired a significant shot across the bow towards Google with this start. And, Microsoft now has millions of new pieces of information by supporting KML through searches since now Virtual Earth users will be able to find so much more thanks to the efforts of so many Google Earth users. However, without supporting the many other features of KML, most of the information is very limited in usefulness. People are still going to get a lot more out of viewing the KML files in Google Earth rather than Virtual Earth.

Speaking of usefulness, Microsoft's new user interface for Virtual Earth has been changed significantly. I had some initial problems because I hadn't restarted Firefox after installing the new update (it didn't tell me I should). But, after I did that, I could see elements of the new interface better. They seem to be adhering to principals Google has done so significantly - very simple look and feel. However, the interface doesn't encourage or help someone really manipulate the scenery. I found the buttons on the side did not really help me interact (at least on Firefox). In fact, something has happened and I can no longer manipulate the view with CTRL-LMB like I could before. If it wasn't for the VE SpaceNavigator support, I would find it very awkward to use Virtual Earth. There are aspects to the collection search results which I do like - more information about the search result - file name, and where it came from. I wish Google would do something like that in their KML search results.

Overall, I give Microsoft high marks for the massive amount of new 3D and aerial imagery they've been adding. The new release of Virtual Earth also gets high marks for the implementation of Bird's Eye. I really like the way it works a lot! Simply click at a location and it automatically pulls up the best Bird's Eye view. Very cool! This is one area where Microsoft has a decided advantage - both in terms of the BE photography data, and the implementation for viewing it. But, I still don't see this as being a major threat to the continuing popularity of Google Earth. Why? Because the overall user interface, smoothness, usefulness, and massive amounts of very useful data in Google Earth continues to outshine what Microsoft has built so far. But, Google should definitely sit up and take notice, and not drop the ball on continued development for Google Maps and Google Earth. Microsoft is definitely gaining momentum.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:42 PM | Comments (5)

Virtual Earth Bird's Eye Views in 3D - Seen in Google Earth First

Microsoft has announced a new capability for showing their excellent Bird's Eye photography in a new way. The Bird's Eye (BE) photography are oblique (at an angle) photos taken from aircraft. Microsoft has been offering views of this imagery through their 2D mapping software (aka Virtual Earth 2D) for quite some time. The neat thing is that for cities with the BE photography you can look at any point from 4 different directions (North, South, East, and West). The photography was taken by planes flying in a grid over a city.

Now Microsoft is releasing a way to view the Bird's Eye photos from within the 3D interface. It uses a method somewhat similar to their PhotoSynth software where you can see outlines of the photos before the real photo is loaded. This works particularly well when combined in cities which Microsoft has 3D models of the buildings (which is a great deal of cities now - Microsoft has been adding dozens of cities with 3D and BE every month). You can watch a YouTube video of what it looks like:

What you may not know is that there was already a method for accomplishing something similar inside Google Earth - literally showing the Virtual Earth Bird's Eye views while viewing 3D views. Don't believe me? Then check out this story about GlobeGlider written in May. GlobeGlider lets you mashup Virtual Earth with Google Earth. Watch this video demonstration of combining Google Earth with Virtual Earth and the Bird's Eye imagery (the BE part starts about 2:28 from the end):

In any case, I think Microsoft's move to add Bird's Eye views this way will probably draw more attention to their very useful BE photography. And, I think the way they've combined 3D views with BE so seamlessly is really excellent. (UPDATE: Now that I've had a chance to play with the new feature - I really like it a lot! Simply point at a location with the mouse and it automatically finds the best BE view. It works really well!) Theoretically, using the new PhotoOverlay in GE 4.2, you could overlay images in a similar fashion - if Microsoft were to release the position and camera angle information data for each BE photo. But, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Anyway, kudos to Microsoft for their new feature! via O'Reilly Radar

Also from Microsoft's press announcement: there are now nearly 200 cities in 3D in Virtual Earth, and they claim to be now allowing search results of content from user-generated content for Virtual Earth as well as support for KML (more on this later).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:59 PM | Comments (2)

Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails in Google Earth

Sometimes while perusing for stories for this blog I get lost exploring new places or researching things that grab my interest. This morning somehow I got caught up in the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail (AT) was first proposed in 1921 to have one connected trail in the US from Georgia to Maine to help protect the environment from industrial growth. The trail was first completed in 1937, but its integrity was lost during World War II. In 1952 it was re-connected and has been maintained ever since. The trail is more than 2000 miles long (2174 miles/ 3498 km). People who complete the trail are called "2000 milers" - "thru-hikers" are hikers who complete the trail all in one year. "section hikers" complete the trail one segment at a time over multiple seasons. More information is available at the official web site of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, or from Wikipedia.

Naturally, I was curious to see what was available to view the trail in Google Earth. A quick search turned up this thread at the Google Earth Community. The first post listed a placemark collection showing all the locations of shelters (about 300) maintained along the AT. Earlier this year, two people took data from the ATC which shows the entire trail in detail (4 MBytes) and converted it to Google Earth and posted it in the same thread.

Most hikers like to get a better feel for the terrain and locations of streams and other information before making a hike. Topographical maps are great for helping with this. With Google Earth, you can quickly get a better grasp of the terrain by simply tilting your view (make sure the Terrain layer is turned on). The 3D terrain is even much better in Google Earth since Google has added much higher resolution terrain this summer. But, you can get the best of both worlds by downloading a tool which will overlay USGS Topographical Maps into Google Earth for your current view (Note, better quality topo maps are loaded as you zoom in closer). Another thing you can do, is turn on the Geographic Web layer which will highlight photos of the regions (and even photos taken by trail hikers), and placemarks to interesting places along the way.

The same thread at the GEC also pointed me to a GE map of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). The PCT is an even longer trail (2650 miles / 4240 km) which extends from Canada to Mexico on the western mountain ranges of the US. See the PCT trail here (1 MByte). Read more about the PCT at Wikipedia.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:44 AM | Comments (9)

October 14, 2007

Links: Google Maps Zoom, GE Pro Classes, 10 Features of GE, Arc2Earth V2, Spot Image Layer

Google Maps Zoom - Google has increased the levels of zoom in Google Maps so you can zoom in further on high resolutions areas. You can still go further with Google Earth, but the level of zoom in Maps is now about as far as you can go before things get blurry. See LatLong.
GE Pro Classes - Google has announced the availability of a training class for learning how to get more out of Google Earth Pro. Read more from the SketchUp blog. While your attending a GE Pro class, you can also consider one for SketchUp. I also recommend these SketchUp tutorials on DVD.
10 Features of GE - Mickey takes a stab at describing the 10 best new features of Google Earth since it was released. I find myself mostly agreeing, but I have a harder time choosing the best 10.
Arc2Earth V2 Released - Brian Flood has announced on his blog the release of Version 2 of Arc2Earth. Brian has been developing and selling Arc2Earth as a suite of tools for converting and publishing GIS information for Google Earth. His latest version adds an impressive list of new importing and exporting capabilities.
Spot Image Layer - Last week when the new YouTube layer was added, Google also added a new layer at the bottom called "Spot Image". This layer shows the locations where the French company Spot Image has taken satellite imagery during the last year. The layer only shows the location, not the imagery, but provides a link where you can go buy the imagery. Spot Image imagery is available between 2.5 and 20 meters resolution. Not the high resolution most people come to expect, but still very useful for business, science and agriculture. I'm just wondering why it is a default layer in Google Earth since it doesn't really provide much to GE users - this content would have been better served as a file you could download off the http://spot.com">Spot Image web site. via OgleEarth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:34 AM | Comments (0)

Jerry Landis, Aerial Photographer Pioneer

Jerry Landis began flying and taking pictures from planes in the mid-1950s. He started his first aerial photography business in 1958 and grew Landis Aerial Surveys to a national company before selling it in 1989. But, Jerry went on to start two more aerial photography companies. If you ever met Jerry in recent years, you would have been surprised to find he was in his 70s. When I met him in the summer of 2006 he still woke up each day and hiked 5 miles near his desert home in Tempe, Arizona. He had a zest for life, and his business, which would lead you to believe he was 20 years younger. I'm sure there is no one else who did more in the aerial photography business in one life. Jerry passed away on October 8th, 2007 after a courageous battle with brain cancer. His enthusiasm for life, and the aerial photography business, is carried on by his son Bill Landis at their company Aerials Express - which provides aerial photography throughout the US. Read more about Jerry Landis' life at Arizona Central. And, here are a few placemarks in Google Earth showing some key places in Jerry's life - a great pilot, entrepreneur, and a legend in the aerial photography business.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:20 AM | Comments (1)

October 12, 2007

New Google Earth Add Content Button

Google has added a new button to Google Earth called "Add Content" which appears in the Places pane if you've downloaded the latest update. (By the way, as far as I can see this update does nothing but add the button - it doesn't even change the version number.) The button simply takes you to a web page listing entries from the Google Earth Gallery (<-That's the page you see when you click the button). The Gallery shows GE content people have submitted which Google is hosting and highlighting in various ways. My guess is that despite the efforts of the Gallery, and the many web sites which highlight GE content, Google's statistics are showing not enough people are finding and trying other GE content. So, they are trying this rather brute-force method of getting people to see other content.

In my opinion Google should also highlight on this page some of the many other sites available for finding GE content. Sites like GEarthHacks, GoogleSighteeing, OgleEarth, the GEC Forums, and more should all be available as links when people click on the "Add Content" button. Come on Google, help people find even more content, not just what you have in the gallery.

[UPDATE: They may only have the new button in the English version so far. I have a report from Gerardo Paz that it isn't in the spanish version, but when he switches to English he sees it.]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:05 AM | Comments (3)

October 11, 2007

New Community Maps Search Results in Google Earth

This has been a busy week in terms of releases from Google's geo team - the team which produces Google Maps and Google Earth. The first big release was that six new cities have StreetView photos in Google Maps (Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland and Tucson). Back in February they first released the ability to search for things and see at the bottom results from KML files and later also for GeoRSS files, and Google My Maps found in their searches of the web.

Now Google has substantially updated the ability to search and get meaningful results in Google Maps and Google Earth. I like the new search results much better. Depending on your search, you may first get results called "Community Maps" (before, any "user" results were at the bottom after local business results). You can do interesting searches like "Anchorages near Martinique" or "Lions near Tanzania" and immediately get user placemarks which are relevant and location-aware. Your results will include results from My Maps, KML files, GeoRSS, and reportedly even Flickr photos. The GeoWeb is really growing!

Google has just added a new YouTube layer to Google Earth to allow you to view geo-tagged YouTube videos. But, in my tests, it appears they haven't yet linked in the geo-tagged YouTube videos into the new search results.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:15 AM | Comments (3)

New YouTube Layer in Google Earth

Google has added a new layer today to Google Earth's ~~Featured Content~~ Gallery layer folder (UPDATED). The layer allows you to view YouTube videos which have been geotagged (some of you may remember Google added the ability to map your YouTube video back in June). I predicted then that we would see a layer allowing us to see YouTube videos in GE, and here it is! NOTE: as you zoom in closer to a place - more YouTube placemarks appear. This is to attempt to keep the view from being too cluttered. There are a LOT of videos already geotagged. You can watch surfers in Tahiti, Penguins in Antartica, and lions in Africa. Amazing stuff! Google Earth really is becoming a way to view the GeoWeb - all types of web-based information are viewable now in Google Earth including: photos, blog posts, GPS tracks, maps, weather, and now a great wealth of video content.

Important caveat: on Windows you can view the video embedded inside the placemark description bubble (GE version 4.2+ only), but with the Mac or Linux you will have to click on a screenshot from the video and view the video in your browser instead. Embedded flash apps like YouTube videos only work with Windows at this time for GE 4.2.

If you want your YouTube video to appear you need to map its location and allow embedding of your video. Google will periodically update the layer to show the latest videos (based on past experience with other layers this may happen every 30 days or so).

via TheTestBed

[UPDATE: and now here is the Google LatLong post about the new layer - no new information though.]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:30 AM | Comments (12)

October 10, 2007

Astronomy Picture-Overlay of the Day in Google Sky

For a long time, I've been viewing the splendor of the universe on the web by viewing the web site Astronomy Picture of the Day which is hosted by NASA. In fact, the site had its beginnings in 1995, so it really has been a long time. And, with better and better telescopes, and enhanced digital image processing, the pictures from the heavens have only been getting more beautiful. This is one of the reasons Google Earth's new Sky mode is useful (for showing these pictures). But, even with the large number of photos built-in to Google's Sky mode, it has only begun to show a small portion of the photos already available. And, every day more photos are being taken. There are sometimes many different photos taken of the same location with different telescopes. Fortunately, with Sky, you can overlay other imagery of the same spot.

Put this all together, and Google Earth Community member 'syzygy' came up with the great idea of doing a Astronomy Picture-Overlay of the Day for Sky at the GEC forum for Sky. He's been taking photos from APOD and Space.com and overlaying in the appropriate point in Sky. You just view the attachments to see the images he displays in Google Earth. For example, here is an image of NGC-7331 (which came from Space.com's image of the day) - astronomers say it is close to being the twin of our own Milky Way galaxy. (NOTE: after you "Switch to Sky" mode in Google Earth, you may have to double-click on the NGC 7331 placemark in Places to be flown to see it). Syzygy has a great idea with this thread of posts, but an even better idea would be to get Space.com and NASA to start providing a KML file image overlays for their imagery by default. And, having a network link which automatically shows all the photos available would be even better.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:09 AM | Comments (1)

October 9, 2007

Google to Announce Partnership with Multiverse

CNET has published an article about an announcement due out later today between Google and Multiverse Network to create virtual worlds using Google Earth technology. Specifically, people will be able to take models from the Google 3D Warehouse and get 3D terrain from Google Earth to create virtual worlds of real and/or imagined places. There have been rumors that Google is working on a 3D virtual world like Second Life for some time. But, according to the article, this is not necessarily the basis of those rumors. What this does do is encourage even more development of the rapidly growing collection of 3D models at the 3D Warehouse, and provides yet another way for Google Earth's content to be useful for other applications. OgleEarth also has some thoughts about the article. I'll write more on this when the formal announcement is made.

UPDATE: Also see Avi Bar-Zeev's comments about the Multiverse announcement at his Reality Prime blog. Avi was one of the guys who helped build the original software that became Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)

World's Largest Radio Telescope May Close

The funding for the world's largest radio telescope called the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is at risk. The telescope is so large that it is literally formed by the shape of the hills - it is 305 meters across. It looks like a giant satellite TV dish, not like an optical telescope, and was built in 1963. The unique dish has appeared in several movies including James Bond's "Golden Eye", and the Carl Sagan movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. More importantly, the telescope has been in use since the 1960s and made many astronomical discoveries. A bill has recently been introduced in Congress to try and save the funding for this wonderful instrument. Read more at Wikipedia.

You can see the Arecibo Observatory in Google Earth's satellite imagery. Not only that, but someone named 'GregTSL' at the Google Earth Community posted a nice 3D model of the Arecibo Observatory . He had to create a slightly elevated version of the 3D terrain because the underlying terrain in Google Earth is low resolution and the model would not fit there properly. You can also turn on the Geographic Web layer in Google Earth to get placemarks to photos of the observatory.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)

October 8, 2007

2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup

Last year I had a wonderful time attending the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico - it's like an air show for space. The X PRIZE Cup is a by-product of the Ansari X PRIZE - the US$ 10 million prize which Burt Rutan won by being the first by launching the manned Space Ship one into space and back twice in a row. The X PRIZE Foundation wants to encourage faster development of space travel and commercialization. The X PRIZE Cup is a way to conduct contests, demonstrate technology, and help future space entrepreneurs (kids) see what rockets and related technologies are all about. People see rockets launch, scientific experiments by kids of all ages, jets, helicopters, and more. There are lots of photos and videos on last years event at Space.com. And, you can see my own photos from last year and a GPS track. My favorite though is the aerial photo of the 2006 X PRIZE Cup I took from my plane which is available for anyone to see Google Earth File. You must have GE installed. who looks at the Las Cruces airport (notice the image credit in GE).

This year's Wirefly X PRIZE Cup will be held at the Holloman Air Force Base on October 26 - 28. Holloman is about 60 miles north east of Las Cruces in New Mexico (see in GE here Google Earth File. You must have GE installed. ). They are holding the event in the desert so you can watch higher flying rockets, and faster jets under the crisp blue skies of New Mexico. Read more about the plans at Space.com here and here.

For last year's event, I helped coordinate the development of Google Earth content that was space-related or directly related to the X PRIZE Cup. Members of the Google Earth Community, and the Google Earth development team helped as well. There is some pretty cool space content for Google Earth here. Read these stories for more details on the content:

Or visit Google's showcase for the X PRIZE Cup. You may remember Google recently announced they are sponsoring the new Google Lunar X PRIZE. I like the fact that a big corporation like Google is such a big sponsor for space development.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:01 AM | Comments (0)

October 5, 2007

Links: Ohio Class Sub, Galactic Delight, Constellation Drawings

I'm attending the Annapolis US Sailboat Show at the home of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland today. So, I thought I would start today with an interesting naval find in the new imagery for Google Earth released Oct. 2nd - and, I'm including a link to the boat show as well.

Ohio Class Sub - The new imagery from Oct. 2nd reveals an Ohio Class Nuclear Sub heading toward its homeport in the Hood Canal portion of the Puget Sound. The location was revealed at the Google Earth Community by DelPiero in this thread. Several others added detailed speculations on which sub is in the photo, and noted the presence of three Coast Guard escorts. Here is a KML file with placemarks for all 4 vessels, and a link to the US Navy academy and the boat show I'm attending in Annapolis.
Galactic Delight - A team of astronomers from several space and ground based observatories have combined efforts to study a strip of our sky which includes a huge number of galaxies - and is known as the Groth Strip. The observatories specialize in observing a number of different parts of the wavelengths of light. You can read more about the project called AEGIS here. What's more interesting is they have started releasing results viewable in Google Earth's new Sky mode - see it here (see some instructions here). Stefan Geens at OgleEarth has a nice write-up about it.
Constellation Drawings - Stephanie at the Google Earth Community has put together some excellent constellation depictions of mythological figures as image overlays for Google Sky (see post). The drawings come from engravings from Johannes Hevelius Firmamentum Sobiescianum (1690), and more details can be found from a web site of the Hubble Space Telescope. You can download the network link here which shows the images. Beautiful pictures - and a great idea to make them available to Sky Stephanie!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:47 AM | Comments (2)

October 4, 2007

Hurricane Followspot Animations in Google Earth

This is a new type of animation I haven't seen with Google Earth before. James Stafford has posted at his Barnabu blog a way to view hurricane satellite photo animations which doesn't eat up too much memory. He creates "followspots" - just a circular clip around each hurricane - rather than animating the full-sized satellite photo. And uses the time slider feature in GE to allow you to watch animations. In the example provided (7 MBytes), he shows you several Atlantic hurricanes from 2006. If he had used the full-earth satellite photos for these animations it would have been >300 Mbytes, so this is a much more effective approach.

You can also watch a video of the animation here:

By the way, I'm headed to the Annapolis Boat Show for the next two days. I'll have limited time for posting.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:00 AM | Comments (1)

October 3, 2007

A Discussion Forum Within Google Earth

Mickey at GearthHacks.com has come up with an interesting application of the new feature in GE 4.2 (Windows only) which allows you to use flash applications within placemark description bubbles. We've already seen how you can use this feature to put video, presentations, and audio in Google Earth. Now, Mickey has created a kind of placemark forum within Google Earth - which he calls GEBoards. You need to set up a profile (or sign in if you already have one with Gearthhacks) then you can click on the link to download the KML package which enables the forum.

Using the forum is simple. It will show you placemarks to existing "threads". Each placemark has its own thread. You can read the thread by clicking a placemark and you can also respond to the thread. Or, you can move your view to somewhere you want to comment. After pausing a few seconds (you have to zoom in below 25,000 feet) you get an orange "X" which says "Create new thread here?". Then you can create a new post. When you register your profile, you can add an avatar image which will be shown in your posts as well.

This is an innovative application of new features in GE Mickey has developed. This capability would fit in nicely with crowdsourcing mapping approaches. And, the ability to allow other people to annotate existing placemarks is an interesting avenue that I think Google should explore for the Google Earth Community. Great idea Mickey!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:45 AM | Comments (2)

October 2, 2007

New Google Earth Imagery Update - October 2nd

[UPDATE OCT 11: The imagery is now also visible in Google Maps]

Google pushed out a new imagery update today - mostly 60 cm resolution satellite imagery. They haven't given out specifics yet, but the updates are in U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Australia and New Zealand. Google has posted some clues to some of the locations in their post at the Google Lat-Long blog. The post does indicate that the imagery update touches over 130 countries and that it is a "significant amount of new or updated 60cm satellite imagery".

If you find some of the new imagery, post a comment to this post and I'll create a running list in this blog post.

Also, here are the clues - and answers (completed at 1545 EDT):

I don't mean to "flatter," but this remote Northwestern cape is very beautiful. Answer: Cape Flattery - see here - answer by Lauren S.
You can now explore the ruins of this ancient Mayan city, first discovered in 1934. Answer: Becán, Yucatan (see here )
This small Peruvian village attracts many tourists each year for the Incan ruins atop nearby hills. Answer: Pisac, Peru - See here - Answer by Lynne.
This city claims to be the southernmost city in the world, with approximately 64,000 residents. Answer: Ushuaia, see here .
Home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, this city is also Russia's largest Pacific coast harbor. Answer: Vladivostok, Russia - see here .
Named after Saint Irene, though sometimes referred to as Thera, this island is a popular Greek tourist destination. Answer: Santorini, island off Greece - see here - Answer by David Newton.
The Trojan horse from the 2004 movie Troy is visible in this city. Answer: Canakkale, Turkey - see the horse here - Answer by: Lynne, placemark by me.
This city is the second most populated metropolitan area in Africa, second to Cairo. Answer: Lagos, Nigeria - see here - Answered by Lynne.
For better or for worse, the testing done at this site changed the world forever. In 1965 it was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Answer: Trinity test site - Atomic Bomb - see here - Answer by Pat Edinger.
Odessos was the original name of this large city, then a trading colony. Answer: Varna, Bulgaria - see here - Answer by Alex G.
This was the first port on the Shandong peninsula to be opened to the west in the 1800s. Answer: Penglai City - see here .

Posted by FrankTaylor at 12:30 PM | Comments (56)

Links: GE for scientists, Human body, Burma, Census Explorer, Virtual Earth, Cleanup Weekend

GE for Scientists - Dr Jon Blower from the University of Reading won an award for ‘Best Paper’ at a UK e-Science Meeting in Nottingham for describing how Google Earth can help scientists share results with the general public. There's a good write-up at ScienceWorlds which has a particular emphasis on environmental science, but applies to other sciences as well.
Human body - Speaking of science, IBM announced last week that it is building a tool for exploring the human body which works similar to Google Earth. A 3D way of exploring anatomy. Avi Bar-Zeev, one of the original developers of the application which became Google Earth, has posted some interesting thoughts about the enormous challenge for creating a human anatomy explorer using a Google Earth approach. He says he has been doing research in this area for a number of years, and that this project will be even more challenging than Google Earth. In particular because to do it right, you can't just model a single body, but the endless possibilities of human variation - whereas, there is only one Earth.
Burma - OgleEarth reveals some Google Earth data which was commissioned by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to show before and after satellite photos revealing ethnic cleansing in Burma. Stefan makes some good observations about the increasing role of Google Earth to help visualize human atrocities, and the hope that the media will start to realize this and start sharing the KML files. Speaking of which, here is the KML for the Burma visualization.
Census Exploration - A nice new US census visualization tool for Google Earth has been released by Zonums Software. The new tool is called GE Census Explorer and allows you produce colorful 3D bar charts, pie charts, histograms, and scatter-plots. FreeGeographyTools has a good review and lots of screenshots. This new tool requires you to download an application, but a web interface is promised "soon". Meanwhile, you could also try gCensus which does something similar for Google Earth using a web interface.
Virtual Earth - Microsoft continues to release a gigantic amount of new data for Virtual Earth. They recently pushed out over 10 terabytes of new imagery including many cities in the US, UK, France, and Canada (see the list). The data includes both straight-down aerial and satellite imagery and oblique "birds-eye" imagery. I wish Google was adding as much new imagery per month as Microsoft has been doing. In the meantime, you can get the best of both worlds inside Google Earth by using GlobeGlider which lets you use Virtual Earth inside Google Earth synchronized.
Cleanup Weekend - Google is promoting the weekend of October 13 and 14 as International Cleanup Weekend. They are encouraging the use of Google Maps and Google Earth to mark the location and plans of cleanup efforts and encourage people to attend and help out. There are already over 100 locations world-wide with clean-ups mapped. To join the effort, simply visit Google's starting page and add your plan to the map.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:37 AM | Comments (0)

October 1, 2007

Volcano Eruption Kills 8 - Jabal al-Tair, Yemen

Last night there was a volcanic eruption on the island of Jabal al-Tair - an island off the coast of Yemen. A naval base was occupied and there are reports that at least eight people have died. There were reports of seismic activity in the area during the last two weeks. According to reports from naval vessels in the area, the eruption was quite large with lava being thrown many meters into the air.

I was reading this news and trying to determine the location of the island. The coordinates in the Wikipedia story of the island were inaccurate (I'm updating the coordinates). And, searching with Google Earth did not show the location either. So, being a sailor, I turned to a nautical chart from Marineplanner.com. This gave me some coordinates, which I put into Google Earth. Unfortunately, there is no satellite photo for Google Earth for the island. So, I tried FlashEarth.com, and discovered that Ask.com has a low resolution satellite photo of the island. I grabbed a copy of the image and made an image overlay for Google Earth and placemarked the location - see it here . The interesting thing is that while Google Earth doesn't have a satellite photo, it does have the terrain data. So, you can see an approximation to the 3D terrain with the photo overlay helping to add some detail.

You can turn on the "Geographic Features->Volcanoes" layer in Google Earth, and it will show you the location of the island and provide you with some details about the volcano - at least as it was before the eruption.

Another thing I tried, was to turn on the USGS earthquake monitoring tool for Google Earth. Unfortunately, the layer - which shows seismic activity for the last week, does not show the reported activity for Jabal al-Tair. I'm wondering if there is a gap in the USGS data for this area?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:30 AM | Comments (11)