« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »

December 31, 2007

Top 10 New Google Earth Features 2007

A ton of new features were added to Google Earth in 2007. The official release of Google Earth version 4 was made on January 10th. But, since that product was available in beta during the last half of 2006, I'm not even going to count those new features for 2007. See the top 10 new features for 2006 for more information. Make sure you look over this list carefully, there are some amazing new capabilities in Google Earth compared to 2006. Here are the top 10 new features for 2007:

1. SpaceNavigator Support - Google Earth starting with Version 4 on both Windows and Mac OSX supports the fabulous 3D mouse by 3DConnexion called SpaceNavigator. See my review (based on the beta release). I highly recommend getting a SpaceNavigator if you enjoy using Google Earth (or other popular virtual globes - also supported on NASA Worldwind, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and Google SketchUp).

2. Google Sky mode - When Google Earth 4.2 was released on August 22nd, we were all treated to a new mode in Google Earth called "Sky". Sky lets you look up at the night sky from the Earth and Google has placed high resolution imagery from Hubble Space Telescope and other sources for you to zoom deep into space. You can also search for your favorite astronomical objects like "Andromeda Galaxy", or "M57" (aka the "Ring Nebula"). Read my initial review of Sky.

3. Flight Simulator mode - Hidden in GE 4.2 was an easter egg feature - the very cool Flight Simulator mode for Google Earth. Read my Flight Simulator tips post for all the details.

4. PhotoViewer - Another feature introduced with GE 4.2 - the new PhotoViewer allows you to view photos in the same orientation as the original photo was taken. The mode allows very high resolution photos to be inserted. It also allows you to show panoramic or spherical photos. See this cool view inside a helicopter for an example.

5. New Imagery - Google again continued to add and update huge amounts of new imagery. Although no numbers are put out by Google, there have been millions of square kilometers of new and updated imagery all around the world. The most recent update in mid-December had new and updated magery on all the continents - including most of Antarctica. If you haven't looked at your house or other favorite places recently, look again - there are new images in Google Earth you haven't seen before.

6. New Layers - One of the more overlooked features of Google Earth are the built-in layers. These layers contain a vast array of useful and very powerful information. In addition to the basic Roads layer, you have the very useful Geographic Web layer which has grown many times in 2007 since it was originally introduced late last year. Google has added many new layers throughout 2007, and added vast amounts of new data to existing layers. The business listings for many cities and countries were added in 2007 and contain millions of new businesses.

7. Panoramio Layer The Panoramio layer is part of the Geographic Web layer. It stands out as one of the most useful GE layers. The Panoramio layer contains photos posted by many people all around the world which have been placed in the location where the photo was taken. Turn it on (or just turn on the Geographic Web layer), and you will see placemarks of the photos as you zoom in to a location. The Panoramio layer now contains millions of photos for you to see more interesting views for most popular places around the world (and many places you would never think of visiting). Google acquired the company Panoramio because it was so useful.

8. YouTube/Flash Support - Another GE 4.2 feature added was support for limited flash applications within Google Earth placemark description windows. Right now, this feature only works on Windows, but Google was able to introduce support for embedded videos - so they introduced the new YouTube layer (to see videos tagged to a location).

9. Weather Layer - For a long time I hoped Google would introduce weather into the layers. They finally did in early November. Here are more details on the weather layer.

10. KML Standard - Google submitted KML as a standard to the Open Geospatial Consortium. Google has substantially improved the integration between Google Maps and Google Earth using KML as the standard underlying format for geospatial data in both platforms. ESRI (the largest GIS software company) began supporting KML last year in their products. Even Microsoft has begun supporting KML for the Virtual Earth platform. Some of the new features mentioned above (like Flash support, and PhotoViewer) required new features in KML to enable the new capabilities. Along with GE 4.2 came KML 2.2. One overlooked new capability in KML 2.2 is the ability to link between placemarks in description bubbles. For a powerful example of this new feature, check out the geography quiz done for National Geographic Magazine's Geography Awareness Week. I hope to see a lot more use of this new capability in 2008.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 27, 2007

Top 25 Stories of Google Earth 2007

The following are my favorite stories about Google Earth in 2007. In retrospect, Google Earth had a fantastic year both in terms of new features and data added, but also in the wide acceptance and influence the application has created throughout the world. There also were a lot of interesting finds in the imagery, and cool content developed by creative GE users around the world. The list is presented in chronological order - with a few comments for perspective.

1. Google Earth 4 Officially Released - Major new release, lots of new features added.
2. Car parked on side of building - Not a fake!
3. Guatemala Sinkhole - Found the location of a bizarre news story.
4. Swiss Alps Fighter Tour - I was told Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, liked this one!
5. Dig a Hole Through Google Earth - Ever wondered what is under you?
6. Clean Underwear and Google Earth - Funny!
7. Rising Sea Level Animations - Popular animations.
8. Google Earth on the Simpsons - This proves GE has reached critical mass!
9. Crisis in Darfur Layer Released - Gets Presidential Notice - Most significant new layer.
10. Google Acquires Panoramio - Very cool news!
11. Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth - Weather is cool stuff in GE!
12. Google Earth Outreach Announced - Significant new program for reaching the public.
13. Western US High Resolution Terrain - Lots of new high-res terrain added this year!
14. Blues Brothers Jump Bridge - You have to watch this video if you're a fan!
15. Our Sailing Holiday - GPS tracks, photos, and placemarks.
16. Google Earth Layers - the most overlooked feature of Google Earth
17. Google Earth 4.2 Released - Google Sky - Big new release! Lots of new features!
18. Google Earth Flight Simulator Tips - Tips on how to use this cool easter egg.
19. Star Wars 3D Sky Animation - Fun animation for Sky
20. Help Find Steve Fossett - No one found him, but they sure tried. Notice comments.
21. YouTube Layer in Google Earth - Cool new layer.
22. California Fires in Google Earth - Big news turns to Maps and Earth
23. Weather Layer in Google Earth - Finally a weather layer!
24. Arctic Ice Melting Animation - Whoa, the ice melted that much!?
25. Astronaut Mode in Google Earth - Very fun add-on for Google Earth

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 26, 2007

Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007

The official site of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007 is again supporting Google Earth to track the race. The race began on December 26th and the positions are updated every ten minutes. The route goes from Sydney, Australia to the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania. This yacht race has been going on for about 60 years and has often been in the news. You can download the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Google Earth network link and follow the race right now.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 06:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Links: Santa Tracker, Santa Mapper Poem, VE Followup, GPS Spider

• Santa Tracker - This year's Santa tracker in Google Earth was essentially the same as last year. It included a 3D representation of Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer. Every 30-60 seconds he would appear in a new location and you would fly to see him in each new location (usually seeing him from a slightly different perspective). Google used network links to make it all work - you can read about the KML techniques for the Santa tracker in the second half of this post at the Google Maps API blog. There's a video showing what it looked like in this article fom PC Advisor.

• Santa Mapper Xmas Poem - An interesting twist on a classic christmas poem, showing how Santa's mappers helped plan his route, was posted at VerySpatial. Definitely worth a read.

• VE Followup - My post the other day in tribute to Virtual Earth's new imagery and 3D data generated some interesting commentary. Someone on the Microsoft team posted about it, and someone even imitated my post with a slight twist (changing it to say Google should share with WorldWind).

• GPS SPider - James Stafford has posted an interesting new GE visualization on his Barnabu blog. James developed an animation which simultaneously shows the position of GPS satellites over a particular point along with the viewing angles from that position - over time. He calls it the GPS Spider. Then, a day or so later, he posted a variation which lets you position anywhere on the Earth and see the positions of GPS satellites for it. He also tried using Google's new charting API to show the duration in hours particular satellites would be visible for that location. But, because his article was so popular he ran against a limit on the API useage. So, that has been temporarily disabled.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 23, 2007

Google Earth Santa Tracker is Available Now!

The NORAD Santa Tracker is viewable this year in 3D using Google Earth. Go to the official NORAD Santa Tracker web site to get the details and to choose the language of your choice. You can see Santa's position as he crosses the Earth making his deliveries.

[UPDATE: Here is the NORAD Google Earth Santa Tracker network link (this is the English version folllow the link above for other languages).]

Also, check out this post for more details and links to other Santa-related Google Earth content.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 23, 2007

Happy Holidays from Google Earth Blog

It's been a great year for Google Earth and this blog. I've enjoyed sharing with you the many amazing developments and cool content and finds for this fun application. My holiday greeting of course is best viewed in Google Earth. Check it out!


Thanks to Stefan Lorimer for the graphic design!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 21, 2007

Microsoft Needs to Share Data with Google

Ok, this isn't a serious business recommendation. But, I sure wish the cool data Microsoft has been generating for Virtual Earth could be combined with Google Earth. Microsoft's Bird's Eye views, quality aerial photography, and auto-generated 3D buildings are really nice to look at. It's just too bad the Virtual Earth user interface isn't better. Microsoft has been spending an enormous amount of money acquiring the technology, buying the airplane time, and the computing resources to process and host their imagery. And, the results are really spectacular. This week, Microsoft released a ton of new imagery, and 60 new cities with 3D buildings. Since they were good enough to capture the Raleigh, North Carolina area - where I live - with new aerial, Bird's Eye, and 3D buildings, I decided to make a little video showing how nice this new data looks. Some important notes:

1. Using a 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator 3D mouse makes using Virtual Earth much better. I rarely used Virtual Earth until they started supporting it. Microsoft needs to improve the user interface for non-SpaceNavigator owners - or they need to give everyone a SpaceNavigator for Christmas!
2. The Bird's Eye views in the 3D mode of Virtual Earth are really cool. The white rectangles show you available photos, and you just click to load them up. Notice you can click the rotation buttons to get different angled views.
3. The upload process compresses the video so it doesn't look as good as when you view it on your screen. Also, the video capture process loses some frames, so it actually updated a bit more smoothly - at least on my computer.

So, here's the video I've made of Virtual Earth showing Raleigh, North Carolina:

Thanks Microsoft! Now, would you pretty please create an API for your data for Google Earth?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:30 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

December 20, 2007

AGU Fall Meeting - Day 2 Highlights

This is the second summary from the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference I attended in San Francisco last week. Read the first summary for more details on the event and why I attended. There were too many interesting presentations for me to summarize them all at once, and the organizers do plan to post presentations sometime after the event (I suspect after the new year).

The second day was a similar format with oral presentations in the morning followed by poster sessions/demos in the afternoon. I liked the fact that the organizers set up a mixture of presentations of enthusiasts and developers of geospatial products, and a larger group of scientific visualizations. Not surprisingly, pretty much all of the presenters mentioned using Google Earth - but, there were also many using Google Maps and some using NASA WorldWind and other tools for specific applications. Google Earth is the favorite tool for powerful 3D visualizations. But, it is sometimes difficult to do live presentations in oral presentations due to audio visual/Internet issues. Fortunately GE demonstrates quite well with videos - which is what most presenters used.

There were two interesting applications of Google Earth I wanted to highlight in this summary:

Declan De Poar of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Department of Physics gave a presentation about using Collada 3D models (the format used in Google Earth), to better illustrate geological research and education. He demonstrated several examples where using basic 3D primitives you could demonstrate seismic fault models and many other concepts difficult to illustrate in any other way. More importantly, he has come up with the best way to illustrate sub-surface characteristics I've seen yet for Google Earth (subsurface illustration is something geologists have been wanting for a long time for GE). Declan simply makes a copy of the surface imagery and places it on top of a 3D block, then uses time animation to rise the block out of the ground. He then places illustrations on the sides of the "ground" block so you can show what's under the surface. A simple, but very elegant solution! Richard Treves was also quite excited by this idea.

The second presentation I wanted to mention was by the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, Univ. of New Hampshire (summary here). Working in conjunction with NOAA, they have developed an excellent visualization in Google Earth to illustrate where shipping traffic has been accidentally killing right whales (these whales are close to extinction). They took data on reports of whale collisions and detailed shipping position tracks (from NOAA AIS vessel tracking), and combined it with known whale migration patterns. This resulted in discovering that with some slight modifications to shipping traffic paterns, vessels could greatly reduce chances of collisions. Google Earth clearly illustrates the dynamics of the situation. I hope to get a screenshot and KML file from these guys later.

For those of you wondering, the purpose of my presentation was to encourage scientists to develop more and better science visualizations using Google Earth. I offered tips on developing better content, explained how to reach a larger audience on the GE platform, and showed some powerful science visualizations (written about at GEB). I explained GE can be used to reach a really large audience, which could not only help spread the word on important results, but might help them raise more funding. I showed a cool video which I plan to post on YouTube after I do some tweaking.

I forgot to mention in the first report that Google had a booth at this year's event. They were showing examples of Google Earth in action and were giving out some Google swag if people would answer a quiz by using Google Earth to find places based on geography questions. It really worked out well that the Google booth happened to be in the same row as the poster sessions. This made it easier to hang out talking to scientists about using Google Earth and speaking to Googlers about new Google Earth ideas and content development challenges.

I plan to summarize more AGU highlights in the coming weeks.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 19, 2007

December 16 Google Earth Imagery Update Details

On Sunday December 16 some GEB readers alerted me to a big Google Earth imagery update and many of you commented on the different areas of the world with new data you discovered. Now, Google has released the official details on the new imagery update (from the Google Lat Long Blog). In addition to the new imagery, there is also new terrain for Massachusetts. As you can see, this was a really big holiday gift from Google of new imagery in Google Earth to fly through during the holidays. The details from Google are below:

New high resolution:

• Americas:

  • Canada: Significant amount of British Columbia
  • USA: Jefferson City (MO), Central Virginia, Tioga County (NY), Cayuga County (NY), Jefferson County (NY), Broome County (NY),
  • Brazil: Uberlandia
  • Colombia: Cali, Pasto
  • Mexico: Veracruz

• Europe, Middle East and Africa:

  • France: Le Havre, Dunkerque
  • Poland: Poznan
  • Russia: Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Vladikavkaz, Volzhskiy, Barnaul
  • Ukraine: Rivne, Odesa
  • Morocco: Agadir
  • Nigeria: Abuja
  • Egypt: 2.5m imagery for eastern half of the country

• Asia & Oceania:
  

  
  
  • Japan: Kagoshima, Hamamatsu
    
  • New Zealand: Manawatu Wanganui Province, Thames-Coromandel Province
    
  • China: Guiyang, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan, Neijang, Anshun, Zhuzhou, Changde, Jiaoijang, Sashi, Qinhuangdao, Mudanjiang
    
  • Indonesia: Sukabumi, Surakarta
    
  
  

2.5m imagery for the eastern half of Egypt.

Updated Imagery:

• Americas:

  • Canada: Calgary
  • USA: Bend (OR), Reno (NV), Googleplex (CA), San Miguel (CA), Paso Robles (CA), Buellton (CA), Thousand Oaks (CA), Los Angeles (CA), Orange County (CA), Denver (CO), Saint Louis (MO), Knoxville (TN), Chattanooga (GA), Dayton (CA), Atlanta (GA), Desoto County (FL), Onondaga County (NY), Cayuga County (NY), McAllen (TX), Sanger (CA), Bellevue (WA)

• Europe, Middle East and Africa:

  • France: Nantes, Lyon
  • Germany: Sindelfingen, Ausburg, Leipzig, Aachen
  • Denmark: Entire country
  • Niger: Niamey
  • Zimbabwe: Harare
  • South Africa: Johannesburg
  • Iran: Tehran

• Asia:

  • Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano
  • Thailand: Bangkok
  • Vietnam: Hanoi

Antarctica: new 15m imagery - from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica Project

Updated Terrain:

• Massachusetts

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:31 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

December 18, 2007

Astronaut Mode For Google Earth

This is just too cool! Someone photoshopped a NASA astronaut photo and created a screen overlay in Google Earth that just makes browsing the Earth a lot of fun! The photo is a little weird to look at because it shows the astronaut's reflecting helmet mask with his arms seen out front. But, the fun part is imagining yourself as an astronaut flying around in Google Earth. The mode gives the same sensation whether you use it in Google Sky mode, or in Google Earth mode. Download the astronaut overlay here (577 KBytes). Choose whether you want Sky or Earth mode (you must be using GE 4.2 or greater). The file was posted at the Google Earth Community. This is truly amazing - check it out!

NOTE: to turn off the astronaut, simply look in the Temporary Places folder in your Places pane for "SpaceSuit" and turn it off.

By the way, the astronaut also works well with the Google Earth flight simulator mode, or even better if you use the SpaceNavigator (the 3D mouse I use every day with Google Earth). A couple tips on creating screen overlays: KML documentation, or a free application on making them by FreeGeographyTools.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:55 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Links: Daily Earth Imagery, Antarctica Photos, Panoramio Searchable, Santa Sleigh

• Daily Earth Imagery - I was contacted by the University of Wisconsin at Madison that they have worked to produce the most recent imagery available of the Earth viewable in Google Earth. They are grabbing some of the photos from NASA's satellites and color-enhancing them. The photos are as recent as 1 hour old. As you zoom in you get more details. The University has a web site which lets you choose which day you would like to view in GE from this page. See for example December 18 imagery in Google Earth.

  NASA's OnEarth site also has a repository of whole earth imagery from the same satellites. They have a mosaic of the entire Earth (the imagery in this one is as little as 6 hours old, and much of it is 24 hours or older) - NOTE: Zoom in to load more detail! According to NASA: This layer is the most current, near-global image of the earth available. The 80 GBytes of daily imagery is made available through NASA's OnEarth program. The satellite imagery from all of these come from the NASA MODIS Terra and Aqua satellites and has been processed with natural colors (read more). The University of Wisconsin also have similar data showing just the US available at this page or click on the link for viewing in GE.
  

• Antarctica Photos - Google did a huge imagery update for Google Earth on Sunday which included the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA). This very nice quality medium resolution imagery of the Earth's most southernmost continent is much better than what was previously in GE. Google is asking anyone who has photos of Antarctica to upload them to Panoramio so they can be viewed in the Panoramio layer in GE.
  

• Panoramio Searchable - Speaking of Panoramio, Google announced the other day that they have again updated their searching in Google Maps to include other data. These same searches also work in Google Earth. So for example, go to the GE "Fly to" search pane and enter "Big Ben in London". The placemarks you get back include search results related to Big Ben. Not only that, but some of the placemarks are from the Panoramio layer which include photos of Big Ben. You can also turn on the "Geographic Web" layer (which includes the Panoramio layer), and see lots more photos. The Geographic Web layer also includes a Wikipedia placemarks about Big Ben and other sights nearby, best of GEC placemarks, and a Discovery Channel placemark showing a video of London.
  

• Santa Sleigh - Google has been seeking a good 3D model of Santa's sleigh in 3D made with Google SketchUp (a fantastic free 3D modeling program). They are asking folks to make a sleigh in SketchUp and post it at the 3D Warehouse (deadline is December 31st). Of course, once a model has been placed in the 3DWarehouse, you can use Google SketchUp to place it in Google Earth. Maybe they'll use it in next year's Santa Tracker. Don't forget to follow this year's Santa Tracker by Google and NORAD.
  

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 17, 2007

Montserrat Volcanic Island in Google Earth

Montserrat was popularly known as the "Emerald Isle of the Caribbean" because of its tropical beauty, and because many of the early European settlers were from Ireland. It was home to a music studio built by Beatles star George Martin - the studio was visited by many world famous musicians who came to record in this island paradise. Tourists from around the world enjoyed the tropical island and its pleasant people. Then a terrible thing happened - in 1995, the previous dormant Soufriere Hills volcano became active. Over a period of weeks the main populated areas were evacuated. But, ultimately the volcano destroyed the main populated areas including the capitol of Plymouth on the west coast and the airport on the east coast. Two-thirds of the population were forced to move away from the island and most of the rest were forced to move to the northern part of the island (which was previously mostly uninhabited). The volcano is still active today and the mountain is much larger than it was previously. The southern part of the island is an exclusion zone where only limited access is permitted.

Thanks to the imagery update which Google released yesterday, you can now see the devastation caused by the volcano. Not only that, but Google has updated the terrain as well so you can see that the volcano is now the tallest feature on the island (the mountain to the south was previously tallest). Here is a collection of placemarks showing the volcano, what remains of Plymouth, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and the remains of the airport which is mostly covered in mud and ash.

On a personal note, I visited the island in 2003 while sailing in the Caribbean (read about it here - including pictures). At the time, the volcano was still spewing house-sized flaming boulders down the side of the mountain. We visited the volcano observatory which had just opened. A travelogue of our trip with details viewable in Google Earth can be found here.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 16, 2007

Big December Imagery Update for Google Earth

[UPDATE: Google has released details on the imagery update. Read the details here.]

Google has quietly slipped out a new imagery update today. [UPDATE: Google has made an announcement with a guessing game again.] Google's gift to some of us for the holidays. First reported to me by the guys at KugelErde.de. They found several cities:

• Germany: Leipzig, Augsburg, Aachen
• France: Le Havre, Nantes, Lyon
• Salzburk, Austria
• Warsaw, Poland
• Saint Louis, MO
• Denmark
• Austin, Tx
• Japan: Tokyo, Nagoya - There is some nice aerial imagery in Tokyo with less than 10 cm resolution!
• Sydney, Australia

But, there are many locations all over the world - some really large ones (like Antarctica) - Check out the comments below.

Gerardo Paz and I just spent some time and we found some other sites with new high resolution imagery:

• Antarctica now has new broad imagery from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica Project

• San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina - a favorite place of Gerardo's is there
• The island of Montserrat - including the new volcano is now in high res. And the terrain is updated to show the new volcano's terrain
• The Ile des Saintes, Guadaloupe are now in high res
• Canoun and Tobago Cays, in the Grenadines are updated
• Dominica is entirely high res now
• Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the western part of Virginia was all high res before...?

Someone in the comments below pointed out some new imagery on the north island of New Zealand. Interestingly, this imagery is aerial photography from something called "Image Horizons Regional Consortium". Some of the imagery is about the same resolution as satellite photography - but, there is also some really nice 10 - 20 cm resolution imagery in places as well.

Oh, and the Google Headquarters has been updated as well - you can see the solar panels.

I will update this post with more details when they are forthcoming. Please add your comments below if you find other locations.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:40 PM | Comments (65) | TrackBack

3DWarehouse Enhancements

Google has updated the individual model views in the 3DWarehouse with a nifty preview mode of related models and collections. You see a bunch of screenshots of other models in a stack which you can animate left or right in a method that reminds me of the new Mac OS X Leopard Cover Flow. Another enhancement is that there are now tabs above the current model which let you switch between an image of the model and the map showing its location (if it is a Google Earth-place model). See an example of this in action:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Sky with a Maps API

Google has released some APIs from some space-related data they support. First, they added Maps APIs for Google Moon and Google Mars (both Maps-only available data - at least for the moment). And, they have released a Maps API for the Google Sky data (released last August) as well! See the announcement with examples at the Maps API blog by Michael Weiss-Malik. He also gives high praise to Michael Kosowsky of HeyWhatsThat.com. HeyWhatsThat now has a cool Cosmic Visibility page which uses the new APIs to let you see and understand the phases of the moon, and where the day/night is on Earth and Mars. It also shows you where the planets and day/night are in the sky. All using the new API. Very cool!

By the way, this new API was first leaked out through the Google Maps API forum (via OgleEarth). I met Michael Weiss-Malik at the Google booth at AGU, along with Noel Gorelick who was involved with the API development. They were pretty enthusiastic about the possibilities of the new API. The HeyWhatThat example is a pretty cool demonstration of the possibilities.

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

December 14, 2007

Outreach Showcase

Last summer Google announced with great fanfare, at their offices in New York, their new program called Google Earth Outreach. Outreach is designed to help non-profit organizations reach the public by creating Google Earth content to help more people understand the issues we face with the environment, social issues, natural resource management, and more.

A new team of people were being assigned to the new project, and the first thing we saw were the very useful set of web pages for Outreach which include sections for helping people design better Google Earth content. However, we haven't seen much else from Outreach in the nearly six months since the announcement. This week they added a new layer called "Earth From Above" to the Global Awareness layer. I was particularly impressed that this layer was simultaneously released in several languages. The first time I believe this has been done. But, I had expected by now there were would be a flood of new Outreach-derived content. Maybe they're going to wait for the start of the year?

Yesterday, Google announced a new Google Earth Outreach Showcase. There is already a Google Earth Gallery which includes many types of Google Earth content (including the type which I would classify as outreach). But, I guess they decided they needed a special showcase just for the Outreach-type content. Maybe this is a clue that a lot of new content is coming?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 13, 2007

AGU Fall Meeting - Day 1 Highlights

Yesterday was the first day of the special session called "Using Geobrowsers for Science" at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Like last year, I'm attending this conference to report on the many scientific visualizations using Google Earth to share their results. The principal organizers of this session are: John Bailey and Jon Dehn (Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska at Fairbanks), Glenn Richard (Stonybrook University), and Dina Venezky (USGS).

On Wednesday, there were eight oral presentations followed by about a dozen poster sessions held during the afternoon. Today, there will be a similar set of oral and poster sessions. Since I am presenting today, I will not be providing a detailed summary of all the sessions from yesterday just yet. A full summary will have to wait until I have more time.

For this first summary, I will highlight two interesting applications of Google Earth:

An interesting display of multiple datasets with time animations was being shown by Daiki Yoshida and Akinori Saito of Kyoto University, Japan. They have a system called DAGIK - showing daily geospace data in Google Earth using data from many sources showing solar wind, magnetometer, GOES satellite magnetic fields, and many other options. You can choose data from a calendar for specific days. Some of the data visualizations use unique 3D representations, and the time slider is used to show animations. I was particularly intrigued to see an innovative use of screen overlays to show a "progress bar" on 2D data charts overlayed on the screen while the time animations were in action. Daiki implemented this using time stamped colored gifs which were constrained to line widths and projected in their own screen overlay designed to match the underlying chart screen overlay. You can see the data and have a look at the KML of the screen overlays by visiting the DAGIK web site. You might want to watch this video first for tips on how to get it working (or just see the charts in action).

Another excellent use of Google Earth was presented during the oral sessions by Danny Hardin of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The application referred to in the talk was the Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) which is an interactive visualization application based on Google Earth which is used in real-time to provide situational awareness and strategic decision making during field campaigns. These field campaigns involve multiple aircraft which are sent to monitor tropical storms in the Central American and Caribbean waters. They show the position and tracks of the aircraft, along with the planned routes, overlays of live radar and lightning strike data, and other information unique to each mission. By using Google Earth and network links, they are able to share this real-time data with scientists, air-flight personnel, and management at locations all over the world simultaneously during a live exercise. I was very impressed by this application of Google Earth, and hope to find out more about it. Their web site unfortunately has very few details on the GE capabilities.

My apologies that I don't have time to summarize all of the applications of GE I saw yesterday today. But, watch for more details in the coming days.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 12, 2007

Earthquake Activity Time Animation

This week I am attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting. Over 10,000 scientists from around the world attend this event in San Francisco each year. There are thousands of presentations and poster sessions discussing a broad range of topics on geology, atmospheric sciences, marine science, hydrology, etc. I will be reporting on several presentations and poster presentations regarding the use of virtual globes for science applications over the next few days.

Yesterday, I was talking to a scientist at the USGS about their Earthquake Monitoring tool for Google Earth. Although their tool has not changed much since it was originally made available, it still serves as an excellent example of showing near-real-time data of global science data in a meaningful way to the public. I did suggest they should consider creating a time animation in GE showing the progression of seismic activity over the course of many days. Today I just remembered, I had found an example by 'giasen' who did this and posted it at the Google Earth Community. He created this time animation which shows: "Latest Earthquakes Magnitude 2.5 or Greater in the United States and Adjacent Area sand Magnitude 4.0 or Greater in the Rest of the World - Last 7 days". Based on data from the USGS here. I suggest clicking on the little clock icon to the left of the time slider and selecting "Clamp beginning of time window" so you can see the progression of the earthquakes. I'd like to see the USGS create KML files for several variations of their data for time animations like these.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 11, 2007

New Earth From Above Layer

I've previously written about the book called "Earth From Above" by famed French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. I shared the story of a GEC member named 'rednick' who posted thumbnails of the photos (with permission from the photographer) and asked people to help find the locations of the photos in Google Earth. I liked the collection, and the photos, so much I went to look at the bookstore. The photos in the book (large coffee table-sized book) immediately captivated me, and I bought it on the spot.

Well, it turns out Yann actually hired 'rednick' to create a refined version of the KML collection, and Google has now included this new layer in the Google Earth Global Awareness layer folder. Open up the Global Awareness layer folder and look for "Earth from Above with Goodplanet". Google also has a new web page about the Earth From Above layer. From Google:

Almost 500 photographs by French photographer and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand have been unveiled in Google Earth today. The photographs are presented as a layer in Google Earth with striking facts and figures about the state of the globe today. Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his non-profit organization GoodPlanet.org aim to promote environmental sustainability by highlighting the beauty of the planet and the issues it faces through his photography. The layer, which is called "Earth from Above," will be regularly updated with new photographs plus facts and figures by GoodPlanet.org, using data from various agencies around the world.

[UPDATE: I discovered after I wrote this post that this layer was actually translated in 14 languages. The content of the layer automatically is in the language according to the setting of your GE browser. Also, when you visit the web page at the Google Earth site it is also translated (e.g. spanish). Very thorough job of preparing content for the world!]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

World's Largest Fingerprint and Face Art

When looking at the imagery in Google Earth, you often find amazing sights you would never expect. GoogleSightseeing.com is a blog which often highlights some of the more bizarre and unusual finds. Recently they found a couple I found particularly entertaining.

First up we have the world's largest fingerprint - it's a 38 meter tall fingerprint which you can see in Google Earth . When I first saw it, I thought for sure this was a fingerprint someone put on the negative of an aerial photo. But, when I looked closely it seemed it was really there. Then I noticed the link in the bottom of Googlesightseeing's story which reveals this is actually a fingerprint someone built in a park!

Next up, someone named Jennifer found what looks like an amazingly large artistic-like rendering of a face in a field in Ohio. The general consensus is that it just coincidentally looks like a face, but it's just an odd coincidence of tree, towers, and tractor tracks which when viewed from above our eyes convert into a drawing. But, wow! Check out the face in GE .

Amazing sights!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Links: Maps Terrain in GE, GPS Trip Planning, Geo Lessons, and more

• Maps Terrain in GE - This is cool - a long time ago, someone named 'BernardMuc' at the GEC posted a cool network link that lets you overlay Google Maps image tiles into Google Earth. He's now enabled the ability to add a parameter to overlay the new Terrain layer from Maps into GE! Just add the "&TERR=Y" parameter to the network link to add the feature. Nice!

• GPS Trip Planning - Previously I've written about the application by EarthNC called TakitWithMe. They have now made it even easier to plan a trip in Google Earth and easily import your placemarks and routes into your GPS. Watch a video with all the details.

• Geo Lessons - In a post by Ed Parsons yesterday, he points us to some handy geography lessons by the UK office of Google for teachers of primary school kids.

• Nearby Update - Barry Hunter has updated the organization and look for his Nearby web site. He has a great selection of software tools and files for geospatial applications. And one section is devoted to a number of handy KML/Google Earth tools.

• New Streetviews - GoogleOperatingSystem reports that Google has added several new cities with Streetviews: Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, Boston, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Providence.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:56 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 10, 2007

Mazes of the World in Google Earth

Someone has made a nice video showing a small sample of the cool mazes people have found around the world by searching the Google Earth imagery. I wrote about the maze collection at the Google Earth Community a few months ago. These are mostly mazes people have cut in their corn fields, but also grass cut mazes, other crops, garden mazes, and many other unusual constructions can be seen. Anyway, to get an idea of what's out there, check out this video (which was posted by 'mkbarth' at the GEC):

To see these and dozens of other mazes around the world, just download the maze collection for Google Earth. Open the folders and use the "Tools->Play Tour" menu option (or hit the "play" button) in GE to fly to each maze. Thanks again to Delta102 of the GEC for the tip on the new video.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 06:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 09, 2007

Headed to San Francisco This Week

I'm headed to California tomorrow to attend the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco. There will be another special session on Geobrowsers (or virtual globes) - here's a schedule of the special session. I'll be giving a 15 minute presentation on scientific applications of Google Earth.

Last year I had a wonderful time at this meeting. See a summary of last year starting here. It was a good opportunity to meet many of the scientists whose content I had written about, and also a fair number of Googlers who work on GE came down from Mountain View. I understand this year Google will have an exhibit booth at AGU. I'm looking forward to both reacquainting myself with those from last year as well as meeting new folks. Please look me up by attending the sessions from the schedule above. Or send me an e-mail.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two Old Planes Caught Close Up in Google Earth

Two old historic planes were caught in flight by the plane capturing aerial photos in North Carolina and added in the last Google Earth imagery update. GEC member 'morgantongis' found the planes , and several members of the GEC have complimented him on the find. The planes are a Grumman Avenger and a North American T-6 Texan / Harvard . See the two planes here and zoom in - you can even read "USAF" on the wing of the yellow one. Amazing find! Thanks to Delta102 for letting me know about this.

A similar show of a plane caught just beneath the aerial camera was found a couple of years ago and is still visible in GE
There are a bunch of people who enjoy looking at the GE imagery for planes captured in flight by either aerial photography or by the satellites. Read more about the planes in flight hobby.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 07, 2007

Google Earth and Santa Claus

During 2005 and 2006, Google Earth was used by Google to help track Santa as he delivered presents around the world. This year, Google will be tracking Santa again in Google Earth. And, there is some other content for Santa you can view in Google Earth right now:

• 

  Official Santa Tracker - This year Google officially teamed up with Norad (the US North American Air Defense Command), which has been tracking Santa on their radar system for many years, to officially provide tracking for Santa in Google Earth. Here is the NORAD Google Earth Santa Tracker network link (this is the English version folllow the NORAD link below for other languages). You should also visit the NORADSanta.org web site to see some games and other information related to the tracking system (and choose alternate languages).

• 

  Santa's Route - You can check out Santa's route right now in Google Earth based on information from Travel by GPS. Click on the "Points" folder and select "Tools->Play Tour" from the GE menu to see a really cool flying tour of the route. Pretend you are Santa! You can E-mail Travel by GPS a placemark from Google Earth for the location of your house, and they will add your house to the route. Click here for more information.
  
  

• Santa from Space - In 2005, one of the Google Earth Community members called 'ear1grey' posted an amazing discovery. He found a huge picture (36 miles tall) of Santa. He made a nifty Google Earth file for kids so they could go find the Santa by following the red nose of Rudolf the reindeer. Download this file and then turn on the "Little world" in your "Temporary Places". Look in the nose of Rudolf for Santa.
  

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:00 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 06, 2007

Space Shuttle STS 122 Ascent Profile in Google Earth

[UPDATE: the shuttle launch was postponed yesterday. The Google Earth file here has been updated to reflect the new ascent profile for the slightly changed departure time for the next launch attempt on Saturday 8 December at 16:09 EDT. The author of the content says he will update it if the launch is postponed again.]

The folks at Analytical Graphics, Inc. have created a Google Earth file which shows the ascent profile of the planned launch today of Space Shuttle Atlantis (mission STS 122). Launch is scheduled for 16:31 EDT today out of the Kennedy Space Center (see Space.com story). Once you load the GE file above, the orange line shows the path of the shuttle from the launch pad until the main engine cut off (MECO). If you zoom in to the bottom of the path, you can see the launch pad 39A where the shuttle will be launched from. Once you open the file above, you see a series of white lines in a fan-like shape. These are sight lines of the shuttle as viewed from Atlanta. You can also go to the folder called "Visibilities" and turn on and off sight lines for a number of other cities where the shuttle launch could theoretically be seen (depending on weather, haze, etc.). The green line shows the orbital position of the International Space Station.

AGI is a graphics technology company serving the space and US defense industries. They have a free graphics viewer which lets you view space events in 3D. A web site called CelesTrak has developed an STS 122 launch event file using the AGI viewer. The free AGI viewer for Windows is a large download (about 75 MBytes), and you have to fill out a free registration form to get it. But, the views look really cool.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December Data Update for Google Earth

Google pushed out some new data for Google Earth today. No new imagery, but this update broadens the number of countries with detailed information. Here's a summary of the update:

• Roads Layer Expanded - South Africa and Poland now have detailed roads when you turn on the roads layer.

• Business Listings - Six additional countries now have business listings: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. Business listings are a powerful feature in Google Earth which are now found under the layer folder called "Place of Interest". Here you find things like Dining, Lodging, Bars/Clubs, Coffee Shops, Shopping Malls, and more. After turning the layers on, zoom in to a city and you'll see lots of icons appear (if the country you're looking at has the listings). When you click on the placemarks, you usually get an address, phone number, description, and sometimes pictures and reviews. You can also click on a link to "Write a review" yourself.

• Transportation Layer Update - The transportation layer is also found under the "Places of Interest" layer folder. This layer has information on a variety of different transportation systems: Airports, Rail, Subway, Tram, Bus, Waterway, and Mountain Rail. The layer now has enhanced graphics with better colors and lines to differentiate the different forms of travel. Google last enhanced this layer in July 2006. Some cities even have detailed public transportation information including schedules and route information which come from the Google Transit project. Google added the transit layer information in June of this year.

See pictures at the Google Lat Long post, or just go check these new layer updates in Google Earth yourself.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 12:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 05, 2007

Population Maps for Google Earth

The Encyclopedia of Earth has an article with information about scientific research on anthropogenic biomes which are defined as:

Anthropogenic biomes describe globally-significant ecological patterns within the terrestrial biosphere caused by sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems, including agriculture, urbanization, forestry and other land uses. ...humans have fundamentally altered global patterns of ecosystem form, process, and biodiversity, anthropogenic biomes provide a contemporary view of the terrestrial biosphere in its human-altered form.

More importantly, the article shares a anthropogenic biomes world map showing the interaction of human population with the natural systems around them. The map is best viewed in Google Earh here . It uses super overlays so you can see more detail as you zoom in closer (down to about 600 miles). The map is colored by biome types explained in the legend. The map is also available in Google Maps and Virtual Earth. This is a really interesting map! Thanks to GEB reader Salinga, who forwarded this map and a link to an article about it at Spiegel online (German).

Another interesting population density map overlay was created and posted at the GEC by Gerardo64 two years ago.

Both of these maps are excellent ways to get a better understanding of how humans are spread around the planet. I've seen the numbers for India and China, but these maps really illustrate just how far population growth there has gone.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 04, 2007

Governor of Alabama Unveils Google Earth Application

The Governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, unveiled a collection of tools and databases last week developed by the state's Department of Homeland Security. The department worked with Google to use Google Earth technology as its primary means of visualizing an operational picture around the state. The same tool will be used by first responders, county planners, and other officials to get detailed geographic views overlayed with critical information. The department can use the tools to build 3D models of schools, bridges, and other critical structures; can model hazardous explosions and environmental factors; and can overlay this information with GIS information showing the location of fire hydrants, gas pipelines, and other important information to help emergency workers. Google's Chief Technologist of Google Earth, Michael Jones, was present when the Governor unveiled the new tools. Story via Government Technology news.

[UPDATE - Google has posted a description of the Virtual Alabama project at the Google Earth Enterprise site.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 03, 2007

Links: Tracking Santa, Netherland Statistics, Boat Parades, OpenAerialMap

• Tracking Santa - As mentioned earlier, Google has officially teamed up with Norad to track Santa on Christmas Eve using Google Earth. Google has used data from Norad during the last two years, but Google Earth is the official Santa tracking software from Norad this year. The tracking doesn't begin until Christmas Eve, but while you're waiting you can visit the NoradSanta.org web site and each day they will either have a game or a tutorial on how to use Google Earth features. See Google's announcement.

• Netherland Statistics - Received an E-mail from GEB reader Edwin, that the web site Statistics Netherlands has published Google Earth content showing statistics about neighborhoods in their country. The Google Earth file (English version , Dutch version ), is well done. As you zoom into neighborhoods in the Netherlands you see the outlines of the neighborhood properties and placemarks with statistical information. Details like population, gender, salaries, ages, etc. The kinds of information you would get from a census, but at the neighborhood level.

• Boat Parades - EarthNC has published a collection of placemarks and information on Christmas boat parades. These are great to watch as the boats are dressed up in pretty lights and parade down a waterway at night.

• OpenAerialMap - This new site has been set up to collect and host freely available aerial imagery. Imagery from unmanned aerial aircraft, kites, or other sources may be submitted. The idea is to make the imagery openly available for anyone to use. There are restrictions on imagery found in Google Earth and other sources for commercial applications. My friends at Pict'Earth are already uploading some of their content. I plan to upload some of my photos. via Pict'Earth and O'Reilly Radar.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 01, 2007

Constellation Borders for Sky

James Stafford, aka Barnabu, has posted a nice add-on for Sky which shows the constellation borders for reference purposes. Turn on the Constellation layer in the lower left to see the stick figures of the constellations. Google should add a borders layer like this as a sub layer to the constellation (maybe in a future release). You can store this useful add-on in your Places pane. Simply drag it from your Temporary Places to it's new location. I would recommend a Sky Add-ons folder, and also look at some of these other useful add-ons for Sky (several made by James):

• Horizon Add-on (third in a list of add-ons to consider)

• Constellation pictures (instead of stick figures)

• Planet Orbits

• Real-sized Planets, and position animation

Posted by FrankTaylor at 03:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Earth Blog Copyright © 2005-2008 Frank Taylor. All Rights Reserved.