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July 31, 2008

Follow a Book, Check Aeronautical Charts in Google Earth Plugin

A couple of new applications of the new Google Earth API plugin have caught my attention. The Google Earth plugin lets you run a special version of Google Earth in a browser, but works on Windows only at the moment and is supported on Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox browsers (see more details about it). Mac and Linux version will hopefully be released soon.

Here are the two new Earth plugin applications I found interesting:

1. Follow a Book - A new book by Clyde W. Ford called "Precious Cargo" is being promoted with online map information at his web site which point out locations described in the book. Clyde has developed a mapping interface, which he calls OnScene (note: Windows only, and you need to install both Virtual Earth and the GE API plugin if you haven't already), which lets you view the maps of the book in either Virtual Earth or the Google Earth plugin. The author chose to support both 3D plugins because in some locations one or the other maps has better imagery or 3D building data. Look for the "Location Index" on the right at the OnScene site. I found it a little annoying that after viewing a few of the placemarks, you are forced to register with his site if you want to continue. But, I have to admire the application of the technology, and the entrepreneurial intent to capitalize on a book, and add geospatial context to a story, in an innovative new way.

2. Check Aeronautical Charts - 'Forkboy2' (whose real name is Matt Fox) has posted a new Earth API application showing a super-overlay composite of aeronautical charts of the US . As you zoom in, the charts become clearer so you can see the details which pilots use to understand the terrain and navigational information related to flying. There are also options below for 3D airspace models and Terminal Aera charts. The same file is available as a KML for viewing in the normal Google Earth from Matt's web site Google Earth Library

See also the easy to use Earth API application called EarthSwoop which GearthHacks and GEB developed together. EarthSwoop lets you view and share places on the Earth. Check out the Beijing Olympics for example.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 30, 2008

Brand New Beijing Olympics Satellite Imagery in Google Earth

Google has quietly slipped in brand new satellite imagery taken by Geoeye which was taken on July 19th, 2008 showing the Beijing Olympics venues. I've been expecting Google to do some new imagery in anticipation for the Olympics - just like they did for the Torino Olympics two years ago. A GEB reader let me know the imagery had been updated within the last day (Thanks Stephen!). Keep a close watch on the area. I wouldn't be surprised if more 3D models of the new facilities and other photos started appearing at the 2008 venues. [UPDATE: GEB reader 'Pablenko' pointed out that Google has made lots of GE 3D models for the Olympics which you can see in the 3DWarehouse here.] Just enter "Beijing" in the "Fly to" search field in Google Earth, and search north about 10 km (6 miles) to see the new stadiums and other facilities. It's an amazing transformation compared to imagery showing the area before it was completed last fall. The Google Maps imagery is still showing the older imagery, look at it quick though as it may be updated soon is also now updated (August 1) with the new imagery.

You can get a tour of some of the key locations at the Beijing Olympic venues through EarthSwoop (if you're on Windows), which uses the Google Earth API plugin.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:13 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Headed to London, Three Year Anniversary

For the last three years, Google has brought together the dedicated folks who have been involved with moderating the Google Earth Community forums. Moderating the forums is a huge job as there are over 1 million registered members in the forums, and millions of anonymous readers of the posts. The moderators help make sure people post things in the right forums, do not violate the rules of the forums, and, most importantly, they help answer the many thousands of questions people ask about using Google Earth, the data, or anything at all that is related to content in Google Earth. The tradition has been set that each summer the meeting is held in a different location. Last year was Washington, DC. But, this year the meeting will be next week in London!

I've been invited to the meeting as well, and am looking forward to my first real visit to London (although I feel like I've already been there thanks to Google Earth). In fact, my wife and I are going out a few days early to see some sights. And, I was excited to find out that the Red Bull Air Race will be held this weekend, which I plan to watch on Sunday. Speaking of the air race, check out the 3D animation of Red Bull in London completely in Google Earth done by Joe Wade.

I'm also looking forward to meeting in person several long-time GEB readers while I'm in town. If you fall in that category, make sure you drop me an E-mail (or leave a comment here). Maybe we can set up a time. With a little help from Google Earth, I'm personally hoping to see a variety of sights (many written about in GEB) and visualized with Google Earth during the last three years. Google Earth Blog officially began posting on August 1st, 2005. And after over 1500 posts, I deserve a break. Time to go celebrate in London!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 29, 2008

Panoramio News: Contest, Look Around Applications

In my opinion, one of the best moves Google has made to enhance the Google Earth experience is the ability to visualize the contributions of photography taken around the world in geo-spatial context. The fastest way to start seeing photos in Google Earth is to turn on the Panoramio layer which is found under the Geographic Web layer folder. Here you will find millions of photos taken all over the world and viewable in Google Earth by simply clicking the photo icons. Click on the photos to visit Panoramio's site and click it again to see bigger versions of the photos. Google acquired Panoramio a year ago, and it has proved to be a real asset in my opinion.

Speaking of nice photos, Panoramio has been running contests for the best photos uploaded, and they have just announced the winners from the May contest. Click on the photos to see a map of where each photo was taken.

Recently, Panoramio began experimenting with generating "look around" views for popular spots with lots of photos. They use a computer algorithm to compare all the photos and figure out how each one fits together (sort of like a 3D jigsaw puzzle).

Google has apparently been adding look around views as quickly as enough photos are available for a single location. For example, one of the founders of Panoramio, Eduardo Manchón recently took a bunch of photos from some popular sights in the Azores. And, already there are now Panoramio look around views available (see for example Vista do Rei on São Miguel island). What this means is that you can go to your favorite place, and take lots of photos (you don't have to use a tripod, and you can zoom in and out for your photos as well). Upload and geolocate your photos with Panoramio, and it will automatically create a "look around" view of that location. According to Eduardo, the more photos you upload, the better chance the algorithms will choose your site for "look around".

Once you can generate these look around views, it would seem to me Google could use the data to calculate the position and focal length of each photo and thereby generate Photo Overlays for Google Earth automatically. I guess someone would have to first generate (from a look around set) one photo's correct position in 3D space, then the rest of the positions could be generated algorithmically. Right now, it is hard to manually place photos in their exact 3D position.

Adding location to your photos is called "geotagging" and the coordinates are added directly to the image file's EXIF data (along with time of photo, shutter speed, focal length, etc.). There are many ways to geotag your photos, including using Google Earth and Picasa, or you can use many tools with Google Maps. Panoramio also lets you geotag photos if you upload them one by one. If your photos are already geotag, you can just upload the photos and Panoramio will pick up the positions from the EXIF data.

By the way, there are other really cool panoramic photos you can see in Google Earth like the Gigapxl layer, the Gigapan layer - both found under the Gallery layer folder. For other excellent panoramic photos (with options to view in Google Earth), check out 360Cities.net, or Worldwide Panoramas.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 28, 2008

More Add-ons for Google Earth Flight Simulator

Barry Hunter posted some fun stuff this past weekend for Google Earth's built-in flight simulator. (If you weren't aware Google Earth has a built-in flight simulator, then read this - you'll be amazed!) Barry started with a post at his Nearby blog implementing an ability to give a destination where you want to fly, and he returns a network link which shows a "GPS arrow" in the lower right guiding you while flying to that destination. Simply use his GPS arrow tool, and follow the instructions (you can enter airport designators instead of coordinates). Start flying the GE flight simulator and turn on or off the GPS arrow as you desire (Note: you can bring up the GE sidebar by typing CTRL-ALT-B). It's really handy for helping guide you to a destination. Naturally, I looked at it and wished for full chart plotting capability. So, I dropped Barry a comment, and a short while later he had come up with a solution! He used the Google Maps static API to show a new Maps view every five seconds as an overlay to show your current position. Brilliant! One little problem is that the Static API only allows a limited number of views per day. So, if a lot of people use this it's likely to reach the cap. But, maybe Google will think this is cool enough to make it a built-in feature to Google Earth's flight simulator. Barry also allows you to set different zoom levels for the map. Try Nearby's Google Earth flight simulator chart plotter here . A lot of people seem to get lost while flying the flight simulator, so maybe these tools will help.

Other useful add-ons/information for Google Earth's flight simulator:

• Google Earth Flight Simulator tips
• F-16 Cockpit Add-on
• SR22 Cockpit Add-on
• HUD/Instrument Indicator Guide
• Video demonstration of flying Google Earth flight simulator

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 28, 2008

Links: Talks, boat slips, Trails.com, Featured

• Talks - Last week the GeoWeb conference was held in Vancouver. I had wanted to go, but other summer trips conflicted. Looks like there were some good talks and exhibits. Michael Jones (Chief Technology Advocate at Google and one of the founders that developed Google Earth), gave another keynote this year (link to last year's talk). Spatial Sustain has a good summary of Michael's talk this year, and you can watch the first 10 minutes of the talk here. Also, I recommend watching Peter Batty's talk on the future of location based social networking. He shows some excellent time-based Google Earth visualizations from his whereyougonnabe social network. You can see excerpts from other talks from GeoWeb here.

• Boat slips - Since I'm into boating, I had to mention this one. Got an E-mail from the folks at DockMarket.net who have recently launched an online marketplace to do location-based adverts for boat slips. You can either look for boat slips, or post your own slip. There are only a few slips so far, but he's making good use of mapping. Not only can you search for slips with Google Maps, but there's also a Google Earth network link to check out the slips.

• Trails.com - This site has been around for quite some time for helping folks find and share good hiking trails. They have quite an archive of available trail information and in order to fully use it, you need a subscription. Trails.com has just announced they have added social networking elements to their site. And yes, they do make use of Google Earth - you just have to have a subscription (or join the 14 day trial) to see it.

• Featured - EarthSwoop is featured on the Google Earth API code page. And the Thematic Mapping Engine is the featured guest blogger at the Google Geo Developers Blog.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 27, 2008

Google Goes to the Amazon

Last month, a group of Geo Googlers went to visit an Amazon indian tribe, and to see for themselves areas of the Amazon forests protected by this tribe from deforestation for profit. Google Earth became involved in 2006 when a group of conservationists began teaching the indian tribe how to use GPS technology to map their sacred grounds to help gain Brazilian government protection for their forests. In 2007, the Chief of the Suiri tribe visited Google and met with Google Earth Outreach founder Rebecca Moore. Rebecca led last month's trip to help train members of the Suiri other ways they can use the Internet to help their cause. See her Google Blog post, or the post from another Googler about the trip, or read the summary of the trip (with photos) at the Outreach site.

Related:

• Google Earth Critical Tool in Fight Against Logging
• Crisis in Darfur
• New Global Awareness Layer
• UNEP Environmental Layer

Posted by FrankTaylor at 06:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 24, 2008

Video in Virtual Globes

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have spun off a company called Sentinel AVE which has developed some jaw-dropping technology (see below) suitable for future application to Google Earth. They have married video into their own virtual globe which they call Augmented Virtual Earth (no relation to Microsoft's product). Since Google Earth first came out, video has been a much wanted visualization add-on (see some early user-generated experiments). We've hoped for 3D videos in the Google Earth scene (like what you often see in Second Life). But, Google's rendering engine has not yet allowed it. When time animation was added to Google Earth version 4, one enterprising 3D modeler created a pseudo video capability by time animating frames of video into GE. Then, with GE 4.2, Google added the ability to add flash embeds into placemark descriptions, which allowed us to embed videos inside the placemarks. A step forward, but still not true video in the 3D world.

AVE goes a huge step further with video in a virtual globe. First, they've developed a capability to simultaneously play back multiple videos in a dynamic 3D world scene. And, even better, they can map videos into the 3D space so they give a true 3D feel to the video. A perfect application for security surveillance (which appears to be an area their business if focused on). Check out this short video clip (higher resolution videos available at their site):

Now, imagine that kind of video capability in Google Earth. This is another one of those technologies that could be used for some really cool visualizations, and could also raise concerns because of the possible applications which could compromise privacy. But, with every good technology, there are always the possibility of negative uses. Still, I can envision all kinds of positive uses to help add realism and enhanced experiences to the visualizations in Google Earth. Things like traffic web cams, weather checking, live events, sports, games, etc. could find application with this type of technology.

via OgleEarth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 23, 2008

Links: Walking, Havana, Eclipse, Oil, Follow the Boat

• Walking Directions in Google Earth - Google has announced you can get walking directions in Google Maps. This new capability is in beta since they don't have thorough enough maps on pedestrian paths and walkways to give the most optimum routes. They encourage you to use common sense especially when going to unfamiliar places. But, the routes might help you calculate distances, or get an idea of routes in unfamiliar places. You could also drag the routes to adjust them to go by a park or a particular site. You can also view walking routes in Google Earth. Assuming you may choose multiple destinations, I recommend using a tool from Nearby. First, set up your walking directions in Google Maps. Then select the "Link to this page" and copy the "Past link in E-mail". Then visit Nearby's Multi-destination routing in KML tool, and paste the link. Click the "Get it now" button and you will get a link to "Download Google Earth KML File".

• Havana Panoramas - 360 Cities has released a hundred high resolution geo-tagged panoramas for Havana, Cuba. You can view Havana at their web site, or you can view all their panoramas in GE - including Havana - using the PhotoOverlay tool. I recommend turning on the Geographic Web layer while sightseeing so you can compare ground photos of these sites to the panoramas from 360Cities.

• Eclipse - Michael Kosowsky, of HeyWhatsThat wrote to let me know he has created visualizations for the upcoming total solar eclipse on August 1st. The path of totality crosses in Asia and the arctic regions (see the earlier post on the path visible in Google Earth). Michael uses his excellent planisphere application to generate a KML which lets you use the time slider to watch the total eclipse as viewed from Siberia. If you live in that part of the world, you can check to see how your view will look using the same animation by generating your own planisphere (enter your location, then choose the "Animation of the August solar eclipse" option and hit Submit. OgleEarth posts the full details we got from Michael.

• Oil - Another oil consumption visualization from 'giasen' at the GEC. This one shows oil consumption per state in the US where the height is the number of barrels of oil consumed per square mile (100 meters for each barrel).

• Follow the Boat - EarthNC is showing off some their excellent navigation and mapping tools for boaters by following one of their customers as they deliver a boat from Chicago to Florida via the Mississippi river. The customer is Captain Bill Foster, and he is using a 3G phone to upload position and web cam photos as he goes along. EarthNC is showing a map along with nautical chart information, live position, and web cam photos in a slick KML for Google Earth . Being able to watch a multi-day trip live in Google Earth is pretty cool. Captain Bill will probably stop for the night in places along the way, and he won't always have good cell phone reception. By the way, yesterday he went through downtown Chicago. Here is a screenshot of the Chicago passage from within Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 22, 2008

600 Starbucks Closures in Google Earth

On July 1st, Starbucks announced they will close about 600 stores around the US. Since that time, many caffeine lovers in those areas have started petitions to keep their favorite location from losing its juice. And, the markets have had their reaction that this is yet another sign of a collapsing economy. But, even more interesting is that Starbucks released a list of all the locations in a PDF file. Last week, Keir Clarke at GoogleMapsMania took the PDF and scraped the locations into a spreadsheet. Then he used batch geocode and the Google spreadsheet mapper tool to quickly (30 minutes to do the whole ) create a Google Maps map of the closures. I was kind of disappointed Keir didn't take the step to add a line of code to make his map available in the Earth API as well.

Fortunately, someone else scraped the same PDF and put the Starbucks closures into Finder!. Finder! is an excellent free browser-based service which lets you find, organize and share geospatial data in common formats. Including Google Earth's KML format. So, here's the Google Earth view of the Starbucks closures.

If you zoom into the placemarks, you'll find it's not always easy to find the particular store based on its address. Geocoding from addresses is usually not accurate - and sometimes places you a block away (or even more).

Just for fun, you can get a quick look at the same KML file in the Google Earth API plugin. Read below the fold to see it.

Here is the Earth API with the Startbucks Closures using Takitwithme's embedded Google Earth tool which lets you give it a KML file and it will generate an embed snippit you can stick on a web page to show the KML file in the Google Earth API plugin.

Starbucks Closures

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 21, 2008

Live Hurricane Hunter Missions in Google Earth

Hurricane reconnaissance is the most accurate way to get a read on the condition of a tropical storm or hurricane. Special aircraft, known as Hurricane Hunters, are equipped with weather instruments, and a brave complement of scientists and aviators, and they fly right through these huge storms to measure the winds, temperature, air pressure, etc. Weather forecasters use the data to get more accurate information on the strength and to better forecast the storms.

The folks at Tropical Atlantic, have put together Google Earth files letting you watch live hurricane recon missions, or see the results from recent missions. Right now, we have two tropical storms in the Atlantic: Tropical Storm Cristobal off Cape Hatteras, and Tropical Storm Dolly off the Yucatan peninsula. If you go to their special recon page, you can see links to their recon archive, or to the current live recon data for Google Earth. Once you open a recon file, you will see colored wind barbs which indicate the strength of the winds for the storm at that position as the plane flew through that part of the storm. A legend in the upper left gives you an indication to the strength of the winds based on the color. The wind barbs also indicate the strength by the number and shape of the barb for each position. And, finally, you can click on a wind barb with the left mouse button and get details on the reading for each position (which also includes, temperature, pressure, altitude of the plane, etc.).

This is a really cool way to get some insight on how weather forecasters gather their data for big storms. Tropical Atlantic also has a special Google Earth file which provides you with a wide range of weather data for Atlantic weather including satellite photos, sea surface temperatures, wind and wave analysis, and much more. That's why their collection is a part of the GEB storm tracking tools collection which gives you access to the best global storm tracking tools available for Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 18, 2008

Links: Mandela 90, F-Secure, Departure, Fish in Arizona, 3D Cities, Japan, Maps

Not only some interesting GE files, but also some news buried in today's link roundup. Also, I will be somewhat distracted during the next month due to some travel, my two daughters starting college next month, and a big project I'm working on (which I'll be posting about here soon - well, within a couple of months). I still expect to be posting, but I may not catch everything. Thankfully, Stefan at OgleEarth is posting again, so keep an eye on him if you find I'm not posting at the usual levels for the next few weeks.

• Mandela 90 - Nelson Mandela turns 90 today. Tinus of VirtualAfrica has posted a Google Earth file that shows important locations in Mandela's life. Most of the placemarks contain panoramic photos of each location.

• F-Secure - F-Secure analyzes and monitors viruses, spam, and hacking activity on the Internet. They use Google Earth to visualize the spread of the viral computer activity in real-time at their operations center. They have released a KML file that lets you see a sample of their data showing the location spamming servers, computers broadcasting various viruses, and other malicious activity. The file has the IP addresses and other identifying information stripped for security reasons. I recommend watching the video they've released which explains how the real-time Google Earth data is used, and what it means.

• Departure - One of the developers who joined Keyhole in 2003 and came over to Google when they bought Keyhole and built Google Earth has decided to leave Google. Apparently he felt Google has changed now that it is a much larger company. You can read his thoughts at his blog (along with some interesting tidbits about Keyhole/Google Earth), and here is a CNET story on his departure. I guess someone leaving from Google in today's economy is pretty big news.

• Fish in Arizona - The Arizona Game and Fish department has created maps documenting the best boating and fishing locations. You can also view each of the Maps in Google Earth (link above each map) and get a 3D perspective on the terrain. Plus, with GE you can turn on layers like the Geographic Web (use the Panoramio photos to see what each location looks like), Places of Interest and many others to become an expert on what's available before you go there.

• 3D Cities - Google's Cities in 3D program bears some more fruit this week. Google has published several new cities in Google Earth which participated in the program. Turn on the 3D Buildings layer and visit some of the new cities (well, some are towns): Amherst, MA; Greenville, SC; McMinville, TN; Nanaimo, British Columbia; Nashville, TN; Washington, DC; and Jamestown, NY (not yet in the layer). Also, Google published a post on their blog where the GIS folks in Washington explain why they chose to participate in the program.

• Japan - Last week, Google slipped in a new tourism layer for Japan. The layer is found under: Gallery->Travel and Tourism->Japan Tourism.

• Maps - In the online mapping technology - Where 2.0 - world there is a growing camp of folks who believe mapping data should be free. Since GPSes are becoming commonplace, and technologies for mapping are becoming easier to use, folks have been banding together and creating their own map data. The OpenStreetMap folks are the premiere example. Much of the mapping data in Google Earth has been licensed from commercial sources, but Google began over a year ago to collect and publish map data for places where no commercial source existed. At this point, Google is only allowing people to view that data for free on their mapping tools. Brady Forest of O'Reilly writes an excellent post summarizing the situation after talking to Google.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 17, 2008

Radiohead in Google Earth

On Monday the music group Radiohead released a new music video called "House of Cards". They teamed up with Google who helped them with the use of technology in the video, and through promotion on YouTube. The video uses a very creative use of LiDAR technology to show a live 3D scan of the face of the singer, Thom Yorke, and projects it in 3D while he sings. To further increase the promotion, Google created a web site to share a sample of the 3D data of RadioHead. You can view the data in a 3D viewer Google provides. And, they created a YouTube group for people to share videos of how they applied the data for other applications.

I'm not surprised to find out someone quickly took the data and imported it into 3D placemarks into Google Earth. There's no real reason to do this except that Google Earth is a great 3D visualization tool, and it's just a cool idea! The port to Google Earth was posted at the blog Swordpress. You can download it in Google Earth yourself, or you can watch this YouTube of it:

via OgleEarth.

[UPDATE July 30: Interview with Tim Sinnott of Swordpress about why he created his Google Earth file of Radiohead.]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 16, 2008

Best Google Earth Interface Videos

There have been many innovative new types of computer interfaces in the last few years, and Google Earth seems to be one of the most popular apps for trying them out. We've seen everything from ping pong balls to the latest Wii Fit board used to drive Google Earth. Below is the most comprehensive collection of different interfaces demoed with Google Earth (note: I've included links to more background where available). Note that some of these demos are done with built-in interfaces or with inexpensive items you can get, or make, yourself. Read the stories for more details.

Super Touch Screen - by Perceptive Pixel (see GEB story):

Keep reading below the fold for more videos:

Ping Pong Ball Interface (see GEB Story1 and story 2):

Wii Fit "Surfing" Google Earth:

Wii Remote Control of Google Earth:

Hologram Google Earth (see GEB Story):

Holographic Google Earth from Nicolas Loeillot on Vimeo.

Speech and Gesture Input to Google Earth (See GEB story):

SpaceNavigator Demo - 3D Mouse Available now for Google Earth (see GEB review):

Webcam and paper interface to Google Earth - See Google Earth Design story):

iPhone Earth (read GEB story):

Google Earth As a Flight Simulator (See GEB Flight Simulator Tips):
FlightSimulator tips/video:

(Note: You can also fly Google Earth's flight simulator with a flight yoke or joystick.)

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 15, 2008

GIS Data for Canary Islands in Google Earth

The Canary Islands Spatial Data Infrastructure (IDE in Spanish) has released Google Earth access to some of its geographic data. Right now you can get multiple zoom levels of detail for Topographic Maps 1:5.000, Streetmaps, Vegetation Map, Land Use Map and Protected Areas Map. And, they plan to add more maps in the coming months. The maps were posted at the Google Earth Community by Jorge Rosales. You can download the Canary Islands maps here . As you zoom in, more information will be queried from their server and then drawn as an overlay in Google Earth. The default map is the topographical map. You can look under the IDECanarias folder for other maps to view. Very nice data!

I'm a big fan of seeing GIS (Geographic Information System) data like this made available to the public. Many governments have either been reluctant, or have not had the funding, to make this type of data available to the public. The data has not always been easy to convert to new formats. Recently, the top GIS software manufacturer - ESRI - has made an update to their software which makes it easier to publish GIS data in KML. Hopefully we will see a wave of useful GIS data made public in the coming months.

According to Jorge, the Canary Islands KML "...uses a server side KML to WMS translator that maps user coordinates space in standard WMS requests. Main features are: continuous user view refresh (not only on view stop), works fine with high tilt camera angles (standard GE WMS support don’t work propertly), use Canary Islands SDI cache technology for fast response, multilanguage support (Spanish/English) and legend access (via standard WMS legend support)."

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 14, 2008

Urban Art Ultimate Goal: Google Earth

Dutch artist Henk Hofstra has done a couple of interesting large outdoor "urban art" projects. The first is a "Blue Road". He painted 1000 meters of road in bright blue in Drachten, The Netherlands - on top was the phrase "Water is Life" written in eight-metre-high letters. The road was painted (using 4000 liters of paint) in April of 2007, and Hofstra hoped it would show up in Google Earth - but, the imagery for Drachten in GE is still dated 2005 currently (no new aerial or satellite photo has been acquired by Google for the area). I did notice the artist had some aerial photos taken of the road. I've placed one of the photos in a Photo Overlay for Google Earth - load this file and double click on the placemark to be flown into the Photo Overlay where you can see how closely the photo of the Blue Road matches the road in Google Earth. Try the transparency slider to check the underlying imagery.

More recently, in May of 2008, Henk Hofstra has done another outdoor art project called "Art-Eggcident". In this case he has created 100 foot wide fried eggs in a large square in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Some of the eggs even have 3D yolks kids can crawl on (see more photos). Amazingly, the city is allowing the art project to stay in place for the next 6 months. We can hope a proper orthographic aerial photo (straight down), or a satellite photo will capture this cool looking art project so it can be seen in the Google Earth images. But, in the meantime, I have again taken one of the aerial photos and made a Photo Overlay so you can see a photo of the Art Eggcident in its actual location in Google Earth.

This is just a reminder that if you do some large outdoor project you want to be visible in Google Earth. You can always take your own aerial photo and place it with the Photo Overlay or Image Overlay tools in Google Earth. That way it is still "immortalized".

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 12, 2008

July 2008 Imagery Update for Google Earth

I've started getting reports of new imagery available in Google Earth today! The update is occurring as I write this because not everyone is seeing the new images yet, but it will probably be fully deployed within a few hours. Here are a few places I've confirmed (I will update this list as people tell me about other places - leave comments below please):

[UPDATED 1130, 1143, 1150, 1410, 2220 EDT - Thanks to all the input from GEB readers around the world!]

[UPDATED July 15: Wow, looks like GEB readers got it right. Check out the official details on this imagery update from Google (a pretty close match to our list - actually, ours is a little more informative).]

• Catalonia/Spain - My story about 3D Roses is a popular story right now, and that's where people first started reporting the new imagery. The entire Catalonia area has new imagery mostly dated September 2006 by the Institut Cartográfic de Catalunya. Also, Murcia, Zaragoza, Toledo, Granada, Cuenca and Cáceres (see comment below). Also, Valencia. Also: Lleida, Tarragona, Barcelona
• Portugal - Looks like areas in Portugal have new imagery.
• Czech Republic - entire country has Spot Image (medium resolution 2.5 meter)
• Slovakia - entire country with Spot Image
• Hungary - entire country with Spot Image
• Croatia - Notheastern part
• Australia - All of western Australia has Spot Image as well! Also, some new low resolution imagery for the Great Barrier Reef area off North Eastern Australia (see dark colored imagery). Adelaide, Brisbane, Tasmania
• USA - Looks like all of New Mexico has high resolution now. Credits to NMR GIS dated July 2005.
• Mexico - Central Mexico has Spot Image imagery
• Italy - Rome, Naples
• Venezuela - Maracaibo (Thanks Gerardo!)
• Germany - center of Munich
• Canada - Quebec, Southern Ottawa
• California - Areas around San Francisco, San Diego, Benicia, Solano County, Monterey, Palo Alto, Los Angeles (unconfirmed)
• England - Bristol, Worcester, Evesham
• Cote d'lvoire - Bouaké

You can confirm whether the imagery is new by clicking on the "View in Google Maps" icon in GE - the imagery in Google Maps isn't showing the new data yet. If you find new areas not in my list above, please leave a comment and I'll update the list.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:54 AM | Comments (50) | TrackBack

July 11, 2008

New Google Earth 4.3 (beta) Available - Version 4.3.7284.3916

There's a new version of Google Earth 4.3 (beta) available. This release does not appear to introduce new features, but it does address a number of issues some of you have encountered with GE 4.3 which was released in April. Since Google has had a couple of months, I'm expecting this version to be a more stable version to use. I'm still waiting for an official report and release notes, and will add the details here when they are available. See the official release notes for this update below. There's a lot of fixes to a variety of problems - many that only applied to certain OSes, or system configurations. Head on over to the official Google Earth Download page to get the latest (the "Check for Update" currently won't find this new release.)

See the initial review of Google Earth 4.3 for reasons why you should get the new version if you are still running an older version of Google Earth. Or, check out the GEB video demo of GE 4.3:

Changes in Version 4.3.7284 (bug fix release) -----------------------------------------

- Fixed various crashes
- Earth should accept
- Ctrl+Shft+arrow up/down now mapped to zoom
- Show correct message after deactivating GE
- Plus/Pro/EC client stops streaming data after 90 min
- EC and Pro client should share same activation key.
- Drag-and-drop place into whitespace causes crash
- Named colors aren't rendered in balloons
- Intel 915 does not display Overview Map
- Some of the layers show empty space below the layer name
- Long URLs in internal browser break clients max width
- Web window expands to be way too wide and can't be resized
- Fail on GPX read if contains anything that should be entitized
- Clear search history doesn't clear the search history from the drop down list search
- can't import GIS files on Macintosh (Mac Tiger 10.4.11 & Mac Leopard 10.5.2)
- progress indicator is wrong
- Can not send more than one email per GE client session
- Black holes in imagery with atmosphere on
- Blurry display with 100% streamed on Vista SP1 and 4GB of memory
- "Display of placemarks in 4.3 "snapping to grid" rather than showing actual location"
- Able to zoom through the Earth below 0 ft
- Dragging KML/KMZ into client shows fetch error (linux)
- Disconnected client will not use cached data
- Save Image in Pro doesn't save screen overlays
- Upgrade dialog obscured by startup tips
- Activation problems with users with Plus and Pro keys
- Deactivate option not available if login fails (expired activation key)(EC ONLY)
- OS/X locks up for 3-5 minutes on exit
- "To here" "From here" link in balloon does not populate driving direction search box"
- Date/Time format in the time slider (ja)
- Startup tips do not show the correct pictures for any languages.
- Sunset and Sunrise get too dark too soon.
- Client Help menu prompts uninstall of SeaMonkey (mozilla) project
- unable to open CSV/TXT files
- "New Pro-trial users and Pro customers can't login = the application hangs on "Verifying your Google Earth license..."
- navigation from camera views (above horizon) is broken
- Terrain returns building data in 4.3 [Mac only]
- RTL clients renders ballon punctuation marks LTR

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:46 AM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

Links: Japan Tourism, GE Tutorial, GoogleSightseeing

• New Japan Tourism Layer - Google has released a new Japan Tourism layer for Google Earth. The layer can be found under Gallery->Travel and Tourism->Japan Tourism. Placemarks will appear as you zoom over Japan with information on popular tourism sites.

• GE Tutorial - Richard Treves, who writes the Google Earth Design blog, has released a new Google Earth tutorial (he's done others in the past). Richard produces content and educational tools related to Google Earth as part of the University of Southhampton - School of Geography.

• GoogleSightseeing Adds Languages - The excellent GoogleSightseeing.com site, which shares unique locations visible in Google Earth/Maps and adds some creative interpretation or amusing perspectives. They have added new versions of their site in 3 additional languages bringing the total to 6 (English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, and French).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 10, 2008

More Bad News on Coral Reefs - NOAA's Google Earth Data

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released an important report of the state of coral reefs in US waters. The report was released at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale this week. And, the news is bad: "Almost half the coral reef ecosystems in United States territory are in poor or fair condition, mostly because of rising ocean temperatures." says the report. Timothy Keeney, NOAA's deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere, presented the results and said: "If we lose the reefs, you lose a very significant and important habitat." Twenty-five percent of all marine species need coral reefs to live and grow, while 40 percent of the fish caught commercially use reefs to breed. via CNN. And, here is an AP video report on the news:

These are serious issues. As a scuba diver, fisherman, and sailor, I've been very concerned about the state of coral reefs for many years. I've mentioned previously that NOAA has a web site called Coral Reef Watch dedicated to the issues of coral reefs. The site contains a coral reef network link which provides updated NOAA information on reefs in US waters and important data such as sea surface temperature for the world's oceans. They updated the network link earlier this year.

Another useful coral reef dataset is maintained at ReefBase.org. They have a huge database and maps showing the conditions of reefs world-wide. GEB reported two years ago how someone had converted the data for viewing coral reefs in Google Earth. But, the data is now out of date. I'm surprised Reefbase hasn't converted to Google Earth for themselves - after all, many more people would be likely to see it if they released it for Google Earth and Maps. (The new Finder! service might be a good place to copy over the Reefbase data so it can be viewed in more popular mapping tools.) There is also an organization dedicated to collecting data on coral reefs by helping train anyone who goes near reefs to help monitor the health of the reefs: ReefCheck.org.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Roses First 3D City in Spain for Google Earth

(En Español)

Roses is the first city in Spain to get their entire city in 3D for Google Earth. The models are currently the basic gray buildings without textures. But, they are part of the Google Earth 3D Buildings layer. Just search for "Roses, Spain" to see for yourself. Google has a program called Cities in 3D (read more) to help city planners provide Google with data so their cities can be included in the layer. The program was just expanded to several European countries (including Spain) in early June. According to GEB reader Albert Garcia, they are also working to add SketchUp models with photo-textures for Roses.

Google has dozens of cities now where a large percentage of the urban area is modeled in 3D (more in the US than any other country at the moment). Here is a list of some cities in Europe where most of the city is in 3D: Zurich, Munich, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Westport in Ireland. Berlin also has a huge 3D collection they created themselves, but it's not part of the built-in GE layer. Similarly, Dresden in Germany also did their own layer which is not yet part of the built-in layer. And, let's not forget, probably the most 3D data available for any country is in Japan. Nearly every structure for several major cities is rendered if you turn on the 3D Buildings layer and visit cities in Japan.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:40 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

July 09, 2008

Winners of Model Your Campus Contest in Google Earth

Google has announced the winners of the Google 2008 International Model Your Campus Competition. They named 9 campus winners this year (last year's contest had 7 campus winners - see video). The winning campuses are listed below - but, download this file to fly to each campus and see the 3D buildings):

• Johns Hopkins University (Student Technology Services & Digital Media Center; United States)

• Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (China)

• University of Wisconsin-Madison (Department of Engineering; United States)

• Missouri University of Science and Technology >(Department of Physical Facilities; United States)

• Nicolas Copernicus University (Department of Biology and Earth Sciences; Poland)

• Stockholm University and KTH (Department of Computer and Systems Sciences; Sweden)

• Cardiff University (Department of Information Services; United Kingdom)

• Bournemouth University (The Business School; United Kingdom)

• Peking University (School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science; China)

NOTE: at some point, I'm sure Google will include most of the models in the 3D Buildings layer. But, they aren't there yet. Load the file above to see the models.

Google doesn't say how many entries there were for the contest, but the 3D Warehouse collection shows 95 different collections of partial or completed works. Congratulations to all the winners! Those of you who started and didn't finish should just wait for another contest. I'm sure Google will do something again next year.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

New WebCams Layer for Google Earth

Back on the 1st of June, I mentioned and shared a new KMLd collection by Webcams.travel showing 4500 web cams around the world as placemarks in Google Earth. This morning, I noticed the layer has been incorporated into Google Earth. You'll see it in the Geographic Web->Preview layer. Or, you can look for it under Gallery->Webcams.travel. Open up the oval-shaped placemarks to see the current webcam view for that location. See the example in the screenshot of the beach at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Webcams.travel collection is certainly the largest collection of webcams I've seen in Google Earth. However, be aware that the placemarks are user-generated. Many of the webcam placements are inaccurate (e.g. I found two placemarks of Guadaloupe that are actually webcams for St. Barts, and several other wrong labels or placements in other Caribbean islands).

There have been many other smaller placemark collections showing webcams. Here are a few written about here at GEB:

• Cruise ship positions and webcams - one of my favorites because the webcams move around

• Everything you wanted to know about Thailand

• Hurricane Tracker - This automatic tracker shows all the current storms globally, and also shows placemarks to nearby webcams to each storm.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Introduces Lively Virtual World

Yesterday, Google let loose their newest beta product: Lively. Lively is a 3D virtual world social networking site similar in some ways to Second Life. This was first rumored to be in the works last September (see some of my thoughts on the rumor). With Lively you have to install a plugin and a separate 3D application (currently only on Windows - and it supports only IE and Firefox). It doesn't surprise me the application is not based on Google Earth. Lively is intended to allow you to enter fantasy worlds. Google Earth is intended to mirror the real world. Lively has a more cartoon-like feel which is intended to be fun and unreal - and Lively is intended to allow you to interact socially with other people over the Internet. Here's their introductory video:

On the surface, the biggest difference compared to Second Life is that instead of a single connected virtual world, you instead get a multitude of small "rooms" which anyone can set up themselves. You can create your own avatars, and dress them up with different outfits. You can also make your own rooms and add objects to them. You have controls for moving your avatar around and lots of animated actions (complete with sounds) letting you "clap", "bow", "sit", "dance", "kick", "hug", "kiss", etc. And, of course you can chat with other people in the room. This is a new application, so they haven't yet introduced APIs and scripts so you can create your own clothing and animations. But, you can expect that to happen as it evolves.

I do see a need to map locations for rooms to help people understand the locality of people who might be in the room. Some of the rooms have context of location, and then there's the issue of people speaking different languages in a room. In fact, Keir Clark at GoogleMapsMania has already produced a Google Maps mashup called Lively Map with placemarks of a few rooms. With Google Maps you can actually open a Lively room inside the placemark windows. Unfortunately, the Lively embed feature requires an <iframe> which means you can't open one in a Google Earth placemark. [UPDATE: Actually, it's probably a good thing as you shouldn't keep Google Earth open at the same time you're running Lively since they both require lots of memory (both OS and Graphics memory).] I've created a couple of Google Earth placemarks where you can at least see the locations of Lively rooms and enter them.

If you are into 3D virtual worlds, you should definitely give Lively a try. You have to have a Google account to set it up and use it. But, you can change your "name" in the worlds to whatever you want. I was surprised to find someone had already taken "Gearthblog" when I went to use it. Identity theft already? There's also a lot of kissing, kicking and hitting going on. But, hey, that's nothing new.

I wonder if Lively would support SketchUp files?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:32 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 07, 2008

Links: Earth API Explained, Tour of 3D, Geography Lesson Plan, How NIN KML Was Done

• Earth API Explained - During the Google I/O Conference last month, Google introduced the new Earth API and plugin. First, there was a talk by Michael Jones - see video - during the last half he introduced the new Earth API and plugin. There was another very important talk at Google I/O by Paul Rademacher - the guy who hacked the first Google Maps mashup called Housing Maps, and now works at Google. Paul is the guy who led the development effort for the Earth API. During his talk, he describe the thinking behind the API and how to use it. Thanks to a tip from Mike Pegg, I can now share Paul's talk (1 hour):

• Tour of 3D - An interesting addition at the Google 3D Warehouse. Google now has an Earth API version of their dynamic map showing the most recent, popular and highly rated 3D models at the Warehouse. It's sort of a Twittervision for geo-located 3D models. Thanks to GEB reader Jan Wesbuer for the tip! By the way, they should also offer a version that lets you zoom in and see buildings added to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth.
  

• Geography Lesson Plan - Richard Treves of the University of Southampton School of Geography has published a lesson plan which makes use of Google Earth to illustrate its points. You can download the PDF instructions of the plan, but I encourage you to read his post first which also includes links to KML files. Richard's Google Earth Design blog is intended to help people think about the best ways to design KML and Google Earth presentations. Definitely worth reading if you are thinking about using Google Earth for educational lessons.
  

• How NIN KML Was Done - The guys who developed the Nine Inch Nails visualization I wrote about last week, also got to do a guest post on Google's new Geo Developer Blog talking about how they developed their new creation.
  

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 04, 2008

Nice Range Map for Important Animals in Google Earth

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation has developed a nice set of KML files which illustrate the range for a variety of both land and marine animals who are of "conservation concern". Check out the file in GE here . I really like the way they have used the folders in the KML file to select different species and the colored polygons to represent the ranges of each species. And, the same file is also available in Spanish and French .

Here's a brief description from their file:

The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) developed this map layer to provide range maps and basic information about the North American Species of Common Conservation Concern. These terrestrial and marine species depend on regional action in Canada, Mexico, and the United States for their continued survival and success. Maps for terrestrial species are based on range maps compiled by NatureServe.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an international organization created by Canada, Mexico and the United States under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation to address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental law. The Agreement complements the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Thanks to a tip from GEB reader Tommy.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 03, 2008

Storm Tracking With Google Earth

[NOTE: Here is a video showing the storm tracking tools in action]

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

Right now the collection includes: two global hurricane tracking tools, global cloud maps, current global lightning strikes animation (from GuiWeather.com, zoomable GOES weather satellite imagery, severe weather warning data and radar data from NOAA for the US, a large collection of weather image overlays from TropicalAtlantic, weather observations for the US from WeatherBonk, a real-time day/night viewing tool, and the global annual lightning flash rate map from NASA.

Turn on the first layer Hurricanes - Live Positions link to see the latest storms around the world. You will see the storms' tracks, forecasted paths, current positions, and the red dots are nearby web cams. The position of the storms, when a hurricane, will show it's storm strength (level 1, 2, etc.). You can also turn on Google Earth's built-in Weather->Clouds layer which is the best tool for viewing the current positions of clouds around the world.

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

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

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

Posted by FrankTaylor at 03:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 02, 2008

Google Releases Street View for Tour de France in Google Earth/Maps

Google has just released new Street View imagery for the first time in another country other than the US. What better place than France in July? Just in time for the Tour de France. One of my early favorite KML file collections depicted the routes of the Tour de France. It's amazing to tilt your view and see the difficult climbs and distances the racers have to endure. This year, I already pointed to a collection showing the