Thanks for keeping some of us ahead of the curve (if only by a few hours)! Some fun new stuff to explore in this version. As for the new buildings, it looks like they might be using more than one source. When I was looking at Phoenix, a copyright notice was shown that said "Buildings Copyright 2008 Sanborn." Sanborn is apparently a "Total Solutions Geospatial" company. However, I checked Raleigh and didn't see any such copyright notice. Haven't looked around at other cities to see if any others show a similar copyright message. Just thought you might like to know!

One caution: make sure you have a copy of your prev. version of GE on hand in case this one fails.

I downloaded the update, but it won't log me in. It says my email addr. and license key don't match what they have for me.

I tried it several times, uninstall, install. When I installed the prev. version, 4.2.0205.5730 (the latest I have on disk), it works fine. I install this 4.3.7191.6508(beta) again, and again it won't let me in. BTW, I'm GE Plus, and my license is good until December.

When I cancel the login, I don't get the earth, but I can see help/about, and that shows the correct email/license.

I'm loathe to call GE support just yet. I expect they'll be getting a zillion calls.

Has anyone's print capability been disabled with the new version? I have GE Plus and print is grayed out.

I'm getting the same login error, and I have plus as well. Shows my License Key and username when I call up "about google earth", and asks me to enter the "correct" username when I try to login. Even if I cut and paste the username, it's no go!

I can't get the lighting of the sky to work. It darkens the imagery but the sky stays the same blue color. no nighttime or dawn. Help!

My atmosphere will not darken when using the sunlight feature. Anyone else having this problem?

Did you guys try dragging the time slider so it is night time where you are? Or is there no darkening on any side of the globe?

Also, are you using DirectX or OpenGL for your 3D Options setting?

Just wondering - which is better, OpenGl or DirectX? I have an nVidia 8800GTS and a reasonable fast computer. Also, what is the correct version number? I used the old method of getting it without the updater and it gave me the 4.3.7191.6508(beta)version. Is this the right one? Thanks.

frank, i tried it on OpenGL and DirectX. The terrain is getting dark and stuff, its just when i tilt the view down below the clouds, the sky is still blue but the ground is darkened.

Make the earth disappear - I suspect this is a bug related to the sunlight effect. However, when you first open GE if you click on "primary database" in layers (this now highlights it blue) and play with the transparency slider in Places...the base imagery can be made to disappear. (This stops working after you activate KML in Places)

As always, thanks for the updates and information! Sacramento, CA has 3D buildings now. The downtown is a mix of gray boxes and photorealistic images. Its SO nice to have flash videos working for the Mac version. Now I can finally ditch the Dell completely!

Looks really cool, but is crashing on my Ubuntu 7.10 with nVidia GeForce 7600GT :(

thanks for review for new Gearth
it was great video i will show Turkey

It seems that The shots are from a professional Nikon Camera.Good Going GOOGLE.Great Show...

Well, in my case the new atmosphere shows only in OpenGL mode, in DirectX shows the atmosphere that we can see in previous versions of Google Earth.
The new atmosphere slows down Google Earth and all the other programs I may be using, and sometimes restarts my computer, so I guess it can be used only by powerful computers. The new atmosphere is beautiful.

Anyone with missing sun shading, try updating your video drivers. Upgrading to Catalyst 8.3 fixed the issue for me.

Since I've updated to 4.3 GE will no longer open links with my browser. It doesn't matter if it's a Wikipedia link, community link, Panaramio, etc. ...when I click nothing happens. Very frustrating. I've shut down and re-opend my browser and GE several times, quadruple checked the setting in GE (it's fine) but I can't get it to work. It'll open them just fine inside not GE, but not outside.

Seems really VERY buggy to me. The indication that's streaming has gone and it doesn't seem to load more detailed textures when you zoom in. Also, I can't see any 3D buildings - even for the same locations shown in the screenshots above. I'm going to have to somehow reinstall the old one as 4.3 is unusable.

Nick - The streaming indicator is now that tiny circle in the bottom right corner of your screen. When it becomes solid light blue, you're at 100%.

Many thanks, Frank, for early news of GE 4.3 and for your very helpful intro and comments.

Welcome new features, especially navigation, but my side of the globe opens in the dark at the moment, daylight coming on the zoom in, even though it is 14.30 and broad daylight - is there a tip?

Snooping around the streets of US cities is fun, but when one US city gets to look like another, try the Gigapan layer for some European cities like Brussels - only a few place marks compared to street view, but it seems to use the same functionality.

Date of image is a great addition.

chris, about opening in the dark. There are three possibilities here: 1) you have adjusted the time slider from the current time - turn on/off the "show sunlight" button to get it to reset to the current time, or drag the slider. 2) you could be referring to the sky from the ground - if "View->Atmosphere" is turned off, the sky will remain black even if it's daylight. 3) You could have a graphics card problem. I would suggest trying changing between OpenGL/DirectX, or upgrading your graphics card driver (there have been reports of new drivers fixing problems like this).

Overnight, the GE folks replied to my email question regarding inability to log in. They said that they "updated my account" and I can now "log in without further issues". I was able to get into the prev. version just fine, so I think there was a glitch on their end. Also, the email mentioned a fix for my printing problem, but I didn't report a printing problem. I think they're busy squashing bugs and responding to a flood of help tickets.

I was just on the GE list and saw that the "email" route is what you need if you're having trouble. The problem is, finding that route is difficult.

In order to contact GE support via "email", you first must be using GE Plus. The free version does not allow you to use this feature.

Then, you have to know where to go. You don't email them. You go to a web page and fill out a message form, which then gets submitted. They will email you with their reply. When you fill out the form, you're asked for the license key of your Plus account.

Finding that on-line form to fill out is impossible. I've spent a long time trying to navigate my way to it. No luck. You have to know the address (URL). Here it is:

http://earth.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=problem_plus

One thing I noticed was that the buildings from the Best of 3D Warehouse layer are now clickable. I wonder if they'll make that feature available for models you add yourself. In my case this would mean I could have an interior model of my building with different machines I can click to pop up an html description. This would be so much better than putting in placemarks near the models, which is what I've had to do.

I am now able to log in as well, thanks to an "updated account" from the google folks. Sent my message to them late last night, and had a response early this morning. Right off, one thing I've noticed is that switching between Earth and Sky is much quicker now!

DROKK! When I installed GE (basic version) on Ubuntu it worked perfectly (well, almost: after returning from the sky view I noticed several of the layers had become unselected). After restarting the program only the starfield was visible i.e. connection to the server was not available. When trying to reconnect, nothing happens.

Frank - thanks for the suggestions about the globe opening in the dark, but I should have said that there is a daylight crescent to the west = perhaps midnight over Europe - on the opening view. The time slider is correct and darkness advances correctly with 'sunlight' on, atmosphere is on, and the graphics card seems OK in all other respects. But it's no great problem, just a mystery.

Is anybody else having problems with links not opening in your browser? I've uninstalled and re-installed GE 3 times, making sure to delete all traces of GE, and I still can't it to open any links in my browser (Maxthon). It always worked with 4.2 but no longer worls with 4.3. I guess I'll be tracking down a copy of 4.2 to re-install. :(

Sure enough, I re-installed 4.2.0205.5730 and links once again open just fine in my browser.

Hello,

Anyone else not seeing the "Clouds" layer? Not loading for me.

I have error notification on and it says that it can't find the NetworkLink for the Clouds.kml url.

I have the sam problem with the atmosphere.
I installed google earth on my computer and on my laptop. It seems if you install it on the laptop the atmosphere doesn't darken but if you have google earth on the computer the atmosphere darken's

Brent, I've asked beta testers, and there is a bug registered that links won't open with the Maxthon browser with this beta version. Hopefully the problem will be fixed before Google releases the final version of 4.3.

Frank, thank you for the information, it's appreciated. I was ready to pull my hair out yesterday trying to get 4.3 to work. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one experiencing the problem and that's it's known about so it will hopefully be fixed soon. If it helps I'm using version 1.6.3 (build 80) Unicode.

Great article Frank. Have you tried out any sundials yet?

When I go to the download page
http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html
and click on "Agree and Download," nothing happens. In IE7 I get an "Error on page" message in the status bar. In Firefox, I get nothing. No response and no download from either browser.

GE free on Ubuntu 7.10 I can't login. I have uninstalled , reinstalled, deleted the cache all to no avail. I can login to GE and it works fine if I sudo googlearth.
I've reinstalled 4.2 and it works fine as a normal user

GE 4.3 might be fun and cool in windows but unusable in linux they used 144 point font size in the menus so nothing else shows up but the menus.
screen shot:
www.jonbriggs.dyndns.org/ge43.jpg

I've been searching since I downloaded 4.3.7191.6508 (beta) but I cant seem to find the "traffic layer". It used to be there but now its gone.

I thought it might only show up where traffic was reported so i went to Google maps, found a city reporting traffic (Miami), went back to Google Earth and still no Traffic layer.

Its even in the picture on the preview page so i know it supposed to be there!!!!

One of the first things that I noticed was the way that 4.3 can not handle alpha transparency with PNG textures. I realy hope that this is sorted for the final version as some of the best models use PNG. Also some of the compression on models has mashed the geometry to a new level of odness. Models are the future please take care Google.

I just downloaded version 4.3 beta and was wondering if anyone else has had problems with photo placement. For me it seems to zoom to other places on the world as I try to change the field of view at a tilted angle.

Google Earth 4.3 (beta) is a great pre-release in one sense and in another it has gone compression happy to get a ‘sometimes’ better overall experience. The main area of concern for me personally is the 3D layer.

First off there seems to be a current lack of support for transparency within model textures. This includes the edges of PNG textures in addition to transparency applied to textures from within SketchUp. I am getting the effect inside 4.3 that any model with a transparency applied will appear to be totally transparent right through the building, thus exposing the background landscape. Seeing that PNG texturing is a way for artists to reduce polygon counts with detailed geometry within a model and therefore load the model quicker I really hope this is sorted properly.

Secondly, many of the ‘Best Of The 3D Warehouse’ models have had polygons removed by Google’s compression algorithms to such a level as to mash up faces of the buildings to a completely unrecognisable degree. Why Google doesn’t allow modellers to build special versions of their models purposely for the 3D layer, while maintaining the higher definition models inside the 3D Warehouse I will never know.

Have you figured out how they are doing those 3D buildings yet, such as Charlotte? There are under-construction skyscrapers that are showing up. Such as here: 35.223864,-80.848485. That building will be about 48 stories tall, is currently about 15 stories tall, in the Google Earth rendering is about 4 stories tall, and in the aerial imagery it is just a hole in the ground. The aerial is from March of 2007. The Google Earth building rendering is from about November of 2007 as seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rodney.gardner/WachoviaTowers/photo#5132306690792546306 .

How did they do it?!?!!

I have downloaded GE 4.3.7191 and when I click on any KML link in my application, it is saying 'Unknown File Type' and does not open it in GE.
I'm using 'application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml' as MIME-TYPE.
Even when I explicitly double click on any KML file in my folder, it does not open up.
It works only when I open the KML file through File - Open (Menu of the GE).
Is this a known bug in GE 4.3.7191 BETA version?
This all used to work fine with GE 4.2.0205

Has anyone had trouble adding or editing an old link. When I try drawing a link an error window appears and crashes. Old version didnt do this so assuming sometings happed when installing new version. Have tried re-installing but still has problem. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

I really hate the new navigation interface, its gone from the really useful tilt control to some sort of automatic feature, which never does what I want or expect. Great step backwards, I wish you had left this alone.

A noticeable improvement with this version, thanks!

The only thing that bugs me is the Sun Lighting. I tried it on mountain scenes. It doesn't look natural. You could improve a lot this useful feature and get a more realistic effect by making these corrections or additions:

1. Adjustable shadow opacity with default value around 30%. That way we would not loose details in the shadow. At the moment it is all black except on edges.
2. More precise and marked (not so feathered or "flou") edges. In reality diffraction radius of light passing by the edge of large objects ("obstacles") is not quite so broad, especially at short to medium distances from obstacle. Just look how mountains shadows are projected on the ground in original aerial photos! In the shadow region that lies close to the edges of an obstacle (mountain ridges for inst.) the feathering should be almost null if the relief transition is sharp. Perhaps the perceptual discomfort and lack of “realisticism” is due in parts to lack of resolution in the data of some regions (like the French Alps alas!) because i see slightly better results when visiting the Swiss Alps.
3. A process to dim the existing shadows from the original aerial photos because they visually interfere (unless we are in the same timeframe as when the aerials were shot), but that's another challenge for artificial intelligence... unless, knowing when they were shot we could recalculate the original shadow and somehow subtract it from the ground image. That doesn't seem so far-fetched finally.
3. Date of the year adjustment, in addition to the time of the day. I want to look at my favorite places not just today, but as it will be at every hour in the next seasons!
4. Cast the shadow over the Image Overlays, not just over the base ground image. This can be offered as an option to users, yet i believe shadow over Overlay should be the default. I wish this effect would be on top of everything, like a filter, so as to affect also the photo-patches i have overlaid. This filter may also solve the inconvenient described in the next indentation.
5. Prevent the disturbing checkered effect in which the shadow shows a different intensity when passing from one tile to the next (better smoothness of shadow across terrain tiles). I understand this is caused by a contrast increase in the shadow effect but perhaps contrast could be reduced together with suggestion in 1.
6. Visibility of the solar disc and simulation of air layer impurities making it turn to orange or red at sunrise/set. Otherwise dusk color cast (orange light and purple shade) on landscape is quite good but it would be appreciated to have (yet) another control to raise light intensity and contrast to compensate for dimness, just the way the human eye compensates.

Mountaineers, landscape photographers like me, and others, will appreciate. In any case i really congratulate you for working on this much needed visual and informative feature and for paying attention to facts like the changing sunlight color temperature.

A few other suggestions for more practicability:

+ Floating and resizable palettes for Toolbar and Sidebar and ability to nudge them, even on a second monitor. Even better, divide Sidebar into 3 such floating palettes for Search, Places and Layers.
+ View Size / Computer Playback for 1024x800, 1200x1000 (approx)
+ change language on the fly

All the best to Google Earth and its user community!

François Villebrod, Valais, Switzerland

Agreed!
The new zoom system is really weird!!!
If they add that as and option it is ok, but pleaseeee, the experiments never by default!!!

I just upgraded to 4.3 and now I cannot see the earth, just a blank screen and tiny stars, how can I fix this or where can I find the old version to reinstall it?
Thanks,

Major drawback. The new navigation system is awful

I am new to this so here I go. I recently uploaded GE onto my office workstation. The upload and install seemed normal but my display window is now in Octal (No 8's or 9's or letters or punctuation of any sort) very confusing. I uploaded GE onto my home computer that same night and it works perfeclty. My question is this, Are there any system requirements that GE needs when it is installed onto a LAN computer?

I just updated my free version and I can't see street names. Checking the box for the "roads" layer has no effect. I agree with those who say the changes to the interface are confusing and non-intuitive.