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July 31, 2009

New 3D Perspective in Maps API for Flash

Google has released a new "3D" perspective "mode" for Google Maps applications based on Flash. This gives a 3D-like experience to the 2D Google Maps (without the 3D terrain or 3D models from the Google Earth API). You can tilt and rotate the map and "fly" around Google Maps. One advantage to this is that Flash is pretty ubiquitous in nearly every browser, and requires less memory and graphics overhead compared to the GE plugin. The interface for the new mode borrows from the GE plugin - so it should be familiar to anyone who uses the GE API applications. One thing I immediately missed for the Maps version is the middle-mouse button option to "tilt" your view. Anyway, in the post, Google lists several examples created by Maps API developers using the new 3D perspective. Here's one of the examples:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:58 AM | Comments (5)

Watch the LongPac Yacht Race

On Wednesday, the Singlehanded Sailing Society started a single and double-handed sailing race dubbed the "LongPac" - its a race of 400 miles from San Francisco Bay to anywhere on Longitude 126° 40"W and return. The race is over by August 4th. But, you can track the race in Google Earth (including the positions of all the boats) thanks to the efforts of Magnatrax.net (which has provided live sailboat race tracking for other races - like the Caribbean 1500).

LongPac sailboat race in Google Earth

As of this morning, some of the boats are just now reaching the half-way point. It wasn't until during the last decade that technologies (GPS, Internet, and communications) made it practical to track positions of sailboats on a long-distance race in real time. The link for the tracking interface also includes weather data overlays. You can also view the official race map (also provided by Magnatrax.net).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 6:51 AM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2009

Google Earth Videos

Since Google Earth is such a rich environment of 3D content, the application is a natural platform for video visualizations. Over the past 4 years, the Google Earth Blog (GEB) has made numerous videos to illustrate new capabilities of Google Earth. And, Google itself regularly produces videos when new Google Earth features are introduced. Hundreds of other people around the world have made videos on a variety of topics or tutorials about Google Earth. Some of the videos are spoofs played on or about Google Earth. Others just show cool places you can find in Google Earth. Today I thought I would start pulling together useful places where you can find GE videos.

Here is GEB's current compilation of Google Earth video resources:

One word of caution: as with any video collections, you may occasionally run across videos which are not appropriate for all ages or not safe for viewing in a work environment (yes, even Google Earth videos have this problem!).

And, to make this post complete, here's a fun Google Earth video by 'mkbarth' called "Out of Place":

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:34 AM | Comments (2)

July 29, 2009

GE Tweets: 3D Cities, 53 Stations, New Earth API Docs

Trying a new technique of rounding up links of GE stories. Using Twitter, @Geartblog will take note of GE-related stories and tweet (or RT) them. Occasionally I'll round up the best and possibly add a few notes and more related links on the blog. This way I can elaborate more than 140 characters on what is interesting about the tweets. Recent Tweets from Gearthblog:

  • 3D Cities - DigitalEarthBlog has posted a story about the University of Washington's research into using photogrammetry techniques to build 3D cities from user-contributed photos. They used Flickr as a basis. I'm betting Google has at least been experimenting with this technique using their own Panoramio. But, I think another cool by-product will be 3D Geotagged photos. Google is already kind of doing this with the Panoramio Lookaround (recently added to Street View too). I want to see auto-generated PhotoOverlays of Panoramio come out of this.

  • 53 Stations - A very thoroughly researched KML collection posted at the Google Earth Community about the 53 Stations of Tōkaidō (East Sea Road) in Japan has resulted in a TV documentary in Belgium. See sample at YouTube.

  • New Earth API Docs - Googler Mano Marks tweeted that they have re-vamped the developer documentation for the Google Earth API.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:05 AM | Comments (1)

July 28, 2009

Amazing Find Returns to Google Earth: Lancaster Bomber

Avro Lancaster Bomber caught in flight in Google Earth

Way back in December of 2005, a first-time poster to the Google Earth Community named 'SergioL' posted a placemark showing this amazing sight of a bomber in flight. It's a real Avro Lancaster Bomber in the UK - which happened to be flying almost directly over the poster's house (that's why he found it). The historic plane occasionally flies for memorial flights and it just happened to get caught in a satellite photo used by Google Earth.

This was a very popular find in Google Earth - and was shared with millions of people. Unfortunately, a Google Earth imagery update made it disappear in 2007 from Google Earth. I saved a screenshot and overlayed it in Google Earth as a replacement placemark. But, that wasn't very satisfying.

Now, thanks to the Historical Imagery mode in Google Earth, you can see the original satellite imagery that caught the bomber in flight once again in Google Earth. Two steps to make this work:

  • Step One - Turn on the Historical Imagery mode by either selecting the menu "View->Historical Imagery", or by click on the little clock icon in the upper center.

  • Step Two - Load this placemark which will show the location of the bomber and change the date to December 30, 2003 - when the original imagery was taken.

For some reason, Google only recently returned this image into the historical imagery archive. I have been asking them about it for some time. Hopefully other "missing" historical imagery has been retrieved as well.

It can be fun finding planes in flight in Google Earth. Now, with historical imagery, there are probably tens of thousands of planes in flight to be found. Here are some other amazing things found in flight in Google Earth:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:07 AM | Comments (1)

July 27, 2009

Amazing Lunar Lander Game Using Google Earth

Just a week ago, we had the introduction of the new Moon in Google Earth. A few days later we saw the release of the basic Lunar Rover game. And, now, an awesome lunar lander game by the same guy who brought you the fantastic ships simulator game back in May. Leveraging the tools he had developed for Ships, Paul van Dinther has created a fun lunar lander game which includes sounds and instruments, and lets you test your skills at landing the Apollo 11 Eagle lander. The game, called Apollo 11 Moon Lander , uses real audio clips from the Apollo missions, and has some nice touches when you run out of fuel, or land too hard. Moon Lander really shows off the power of the Google Earth API for games and simulators. Here's a short video demo showing a successful landing:

Tips: Use Space bar to fire the engine. Use left and right arrow keys to rotate the lander. Land with the arrow inside the green area for your vertical speed. To get some practice, click the Unlimited fuel checkbox below. Advanced users: try using the up and down arrow keys. Also, on my computer, Firefox runs considerably better than Chrome for the GE plugin. Your results may vary.

Google Earth Blog had a hand in testing and providing feature suggestions during Paul's development of the game. Paul is a talented developer and develops simulation software professionally. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to leave comments here. Paul will be checking for feedback. I think he's done a great job!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:24 AM | Comments (6)

July 25, 2009

Google Marries Panoramio Lookaround to Street View

Google has announced an update to Street View that further marries Panoramio features into the Street View experience. In June of last year, Google added a feature in Panoramio called "Look Around" - it includes an interface that lets you see outlines, in perspective of the angle they were taken, of other photos available of the same scene. In March of this year, Google added Panoramio user photos into the Street View interface. Now the look around feature has also been married into Street View. Here's a video showing what it looks like:

Here is a link to view Street View with the new interface for Big Ben - which Google refers to as "Photo Zoom". Note: if you click on the link of the title of each photo (in the upper left of Street View's interface), you can fly to that photo in Panoramio. Find the link to "Look Around" below the photo and you can use the Panoramio interface (which may make it easier to find even more photos).

Earlier this year, I discovered you can include the Panoramio Look Around interface into a Google Earth placemark. It works pretty well. But, the interface needs some tweaking to work properly within a placemark. (I suggested that to Panoramio, but it hasn't been changed yet.) It should be possible to make a network link to view Look Arounds for any popular location inside Google Earth. Unfortunately, you can't embed the Street View "photo zoom" interface at all apparently. Otherwise I would try putting that in a placemark.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:57 AM | Comments (4)

July 23, 2009

Links: Multiple Searches, More Moon Stuff, New Sightseer, 3D Cities

I know I've stayed focused on the moon all week (with good reasons) - and there's more moon stuff below - but, here's a round up of GE related stuff going on this week:

  • Multiple searches - Google has finally released an ability to see multiple search results on Google Maps at the same time. Just a reminder - you can also do multiple searches in Google Earth and simultaneously load other KML content as well. But, advances in both Maps and Earth are all good things!

  • More Moon Stuff - So, believe it or not, I haven't even reported everything going on with the new Moon in Google Earth this week. Here are a few other things:

    • Googlesightseeing did a great write-up about Apollo 11 places around the world (and links on moon stuff as well)

    • Moon in multiple languages - Gerardo pointed out that, as usual, Google released Moon in Google Earth in multiple languages. So, people could read the layers of content in their native languages (german, spanish, french, etc.). It's not easy to release a new application in multiple languages - kudos to Google for doing this!

    • Video of Moon in GE Launch Event - This video shows a <15 minute portion of the launch event for Moon in Google Earth presented by Googler Michael Weiss-Malik, product manager for Moon in GE.

    • First Moon Tour - Keir Clarke was the first I've found who created a GE Tour for the moon and shared it embedded in the GE Plugin.

    • Google Lunar X Prize Tour - The GLXP have released the first draft of a tour about the moon from the perspective of X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, and space tourist Richard Garriot (son of Skylab Astronaut Owen Garriot). Watch the tour here (make sure to switch to "Moon" mode in Google Earth).

    • Google Lunar Base Jobs - When the Maps version of Google Moon came out, Google put out this funny site advertising jobs on the moon.

  • New Sightseer - Google has released the July issue of the Google Earth Sightseer newsletter. They've got a new design this time.

  • 3D Cities - The SketchUp crew points out there are many cities building 3D building models which are viewable at the 3DWarehouse.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:38 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2009

Best Google Earth Tour To Date: Apollo 11

The Google Earth Tour created for the launch of Moon in Google Earth on Monday is the best Tour created since Google Earth 5 launched in February (IMHO). The tour (created by Sean Askay) describes the landing, moon walks, and the return to space of Apollo 11 with not only excellent visual aids, but also great narrations by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and Andrew Chaiken (noted author of Apollo 11 books). The tour uses animated 3D models of the lunar lander, command module, astronauts, and the flag; YouTube videos, picture overlays to illustrate various points, audio narration and sound effects, and much more. This truly demonstrates the versatility of Google Earth's tour capabilities (which I hope inspires other developers to create powerful visualizations using the Google Earth platform). Not only that, but Google has now shown that you can embed the tour in a Google Earth plugin and even embed that in a blog post. So, you can now watch the Apollo 11 tour right here :

Great work by Googler Sean Askay - who also created the amazing Map of the Fallen KML content released on Memorial Day.

Another note: The first Moon Tour embedded on a web page I believe was this one by Keir Clarke posted at GoogleMapsMania on Monday.

Related:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 1:53 PM | Comments (1)

Drive an Apollo Lunar Rover on the Moon! Fun Game!

This is soooo cool! You can now drive an Apollo Lunar Rover , just like the astronauts, on the moon right in your browser! I actually suggested this on Monday after seeing the launch of Moon in Google Earth (see the bottom of this post). It's a simple idea really - take the code from Monster Milktruck, replace the truck with an Apollo lander, and create a little GE API application web page. Here's what it looks like:

Lunar Rover simulator game in Google Earth

Run the Apollo Lunar Rover game right here .

I suggest trying the Apollo 17 landing site, or the Apollo 15 landing site for some really rugged terrain. It's also cool that you can see the tracks of each Apollo mission and re-drive the same paths.

See the announcement by Roman Nurik at the Google GeoDeveloper's Blog

Posted by FrankTaylor at 1:26 PM | Comments (0)

Space 1999 - Moonbase Alpha in 3D

Moon choice for Google EarthGEB's spanish translator, and 3D modeler, Gerardo Paz has produced his first 3D creation for the new Moon in Google Earth. Gerardo found some 3D models from the Sci Fi TV Show "Space 1999" which was set on "Moonbase Alpha", and placed them on Google's moon. To get started, you should start Google Earth and switch to Moon mode. Then load Gerardo's Moonbase Alpha in 3D . Gerardo has created a tour of the base - just double click on the tour. You will see he has also has included nice 3D models of Alpha's Eagle spacecraft.

Moonbase Alpha in Google Earth

Developer note: Google's KML hint attribute currently works only for "target=sky". An update to GE will be required to add "target=moon" and I've heard "target=mars" will also work. So, users currently have to switch to "Moon" manually to view KML content on the moon.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:40 AM | Comments (1)

July 21, 2009

Moon in Google Earth - Reflections and Easter Eggs

I'm on my way back from Washington, DC after attending the launch of Moon in Google Earth. Last night, I was able to attend NASA's celebration of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 - which was held at the National Air & Space Museum. This was a big affair with hundreds of NASA employees and contractors, friends of NASA, and many astronauts including most of the Apollo astronauts. Google was there with a booth showing the new Moon in Google Earth. And, I got to see Neil Armstrong in person for the first time - he gave an inspiring speech. It has been great seeing all the enthusiasm in the last week in the media, on the Internet, and here in Washington for the Apollo missions. Especially for an old space enthusiast like myself.

Another great thing about yesterday was seeing all the enthusiasm on the part of the many Googlers who came here for the launch of Moon in Google Earth. It seemed most (if not all) of the team who worked on the project were able to be here. I saw over 20 Googlers at the event. They had obviously worked hard on the project - most on their 20% time. You could see how much they wanted the event to be a success. They were also eager for feedback on the GE moon and were quick to consider any ideas anyone suggested during the day. Obviously, there will be many more updates to moon in the future. The biggest updates will be in new imagery and terrain once the data gets back from the new Japanese and American missions. It's a testament to the team that they were able to get so many NASA/space dignitaries to show up for the event. Watch a slideshow of photos I took during the two events:


View fullscreen

One thing I learned about yesterday - there are a couple of easter eggs in yesterday's release. If you look closely, the icon for the "Gallery" layer is a piece of cheese. :-)

Moon cheese

And, if you play the Apollo 17 Tour to the point where Jack Schmidt talks about the Earth hanging over the moon - they placed the Earth in the Tour as a textured polygon. If you pause the Tour there. and fly yourself to the other side of the Earth polygon, you'll see a funny moon cartoon:

Moon cartoon in Google Earth

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:47 AM | Comments (9)

July 20, 2009

More on Moon in Google Earth

Ok, I'm still at the Newseum after the Google announcement of Moon in Google Earth today. Managed to find a quiet place with Internet, so here are some more things to share about the new toys.

Google put on a really slick media event here today. Having Buzz Aldrin, Andrew Chaiken, and Anousheh Ansari help promote the new Moon features was awesome. And the decorations for the event were really cool. They had carpet that showed satellite views of the lunar surface, and lunar rocks as props around the stage. There was a HUGE screen showing video feeds for the talks. Afterwards, Google had booths set up around the museum allowing people to see the new moon application with Googlers available to explain the features.

Google announcement of Moon in Google Earth at the Newseum
Photo by Mike Pegg

I've picked up some more information since the announcement about Moon in Google Earth, but first - here are some more screenshots:

Screenshots of Moon in Google Earth
Notes on Moon in Google Earth:
  • The 3d terrain is of limited resolution on the moon. I was surprised to find it is not very high resolution. I found out from some of the team who worked on it that there is surprisingly little data readily available. Things will improve as the recent missions from Japan and US start making data available. Google has processed some areas (like the Apollo landing sites) with better quality terrain data.
  • There are a few shots from the new Lunar Reconnaissance Observer (LRO) already available in GE. Look for the orange square placemarks to load them.
  • There are lots of Apollo mission YouTube videos available at each of the Apollo sites (look for the YouTube placemarks). The videos include the recently enhanced Apollo 11 videos everyone has been talking about. Most of the videos are available in HD format too - that doesn't mean the resolution is improved necessarily though).
  • You can find 3D models of the Lunar Modules, Lunar Rovers, Surveyors, and many (if not all) the other landers on the moon.
  • In Google Maps, Google has changed put "peg man" today into a lunar space suit in honor of the announcement and the anniversary of Apollo 11.
  • I live "micro-blogged" the event today in Twitter on @gearthblog. As did Googler Mike Pegg on @googleearth.
  • The new moon database is also available in the Google Earth plugin. I hope to see apps created in the coming days having to do with the moon!
  • Discussed an idea of converting "Monster Milktruck" into a Lunar Rover and sticking it on the moon. It has the added plus that the way the rover would fly would look more realistic on the moon with its 1/6th Earth gravity. Anyone want to create that?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 3:19 PM | Comments (5)

Look at the Moon in Google Earth - Available Now!

Moon choice for Google EarthAs mentioned by GEB on July 9th, Google is making a big announcement today in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. If you re-start Google Earth right now, you can see the Moon in 3D! Look for the little planet icon in the upper middle of Google Earth and you'll see a new option "Moon". The new moon in Google Earth changes the virtual globe into a 3D rendition of the moon. The terrain of the moon is in 3D and there are layers telling you more about the moon.

Here's my first screenshot of the new 3D moon in Google Earth - showing the Apollo 11 landing site:

Moon in 3D in Google Earth - Apollo 11

The first thing you should check out in the new Google Earth moon mode is the awesome Apollo 11 tour found in the layers under: Moon Gallery->Guided Tours->Apollo 11. This tour is narrated by Andrew Chaiken and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and is one of the best illustrations of the Apollo 11 mission I've seen to date!

The official announcement doesn't start until 11 AM. I'll be tweeting the event at http://twitter.com/gearthblog Expect more in posts later today. But, right now, re-load Google Earth and look for the moon!

Here is a YouTube video introduction of Moon in Google Earth by Google:


View in HD resolution

Continue reading more notes on the new Moon in Google Earth...

[UPDATE: Here is Google's official announcement of Moon in Google Earth]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:56 AM | Comments (5)

July 18, 2009

Favorite Places of Famous People in Google Earth

A few days ago, Google announced they had mapped the favorite places of famous people which you could view in Google Maps. I was a bit disappointed because there was no real Google Earth angle to the news - even though it was obvious to me you could put the placemarks into Google Earth pretty easily. I even thought about doing it myself. Thankfully, Googler Roman Nurik took care of it and did a much better job than just copying the placemarks. Instead, he created a GE visualization you can view in your browser which uses the GE 5 Tour mode in a very slick fashion letting you fly between each favorite location of a famous person. Check out the favorite places using Google Earth here . Select a person, and a tour of their favorite places begins. When it stops at a placemark, you can check the location out - then select the "Continue the tour" (or click the play button). Great work Roman!

Favorite Places in Google Earth

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:47 AM | Comments (1)

What if the Eagle Landed on Earth?

Monday is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. The day the "Eagle" landed. In order to help people understand the scale of exploration for each Apollo landing, NewScientist created a series of Google Earth maps to illustrate how far each Apollo mission went from the Lunar Module (lander). They then placed each of those maps overlayed on a familiar place on the Earth. You can view the Apollo missions overlayed in London , New York , Los Angeles , Boston , and Sydney . Apollo 11, for example, barely covered half a block of Time Square in exploration range. By the time Apollo 17 finished, (using the Lunar rover) they were exploring a distance as far as Jersey City from Times Square.

What if Eagle Landed in London

This week will be very interesting with the many retrospectives about the Apollo 11 landing. But, I'm most excited about the Google Earth "special announcement" on Monday with Buzz Aldrin speaking. Expect a big post about this on Monday when I expect Google will announce a 3D moon mode for Google Earth. In the meantime, check out Google's current 2D Google Moon, which lets you explore the moon and Apollo landing sites.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary,NASA has a number of cool interactive sites about Apollo 11. They are even re-creating a simulated re-creation of the Apollo 11 mission 40 years later. We're currently 55 hours from the "re-"landing of Eagle. You can even follow the "re-"landing on Twitter! For example, follow the communications from the Apollo 11 spacecraft. Or, you can watch an interactive site about the Apollo 11 landing.

There has also been attempts to clean up the video archives of Apollo 11 landing (the original tapes were accidentally erased). This segment shows Buzz Aldrin stepping on the moon in the original and then enhanced versions:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:55 AM | Comments (1)

July 17, 2009

Links: Google Moon Monday, Tax Evasion, Panoramio Winners, Canada Wins

  • Google Moon Monday - As reported here on GEB a week ago, Google sent out invitations for a "Special Announcement" on July 20th (the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing), with Buzz Aldrin speaking. Google will almost certainly be introducing a 3D moon for Google Earth (just like the 3D Mars already available). Google has now invited anyone to come to the Newseum in Washington, DC to see the event. Read the details. GEB's Frank Taylor will be there reporting.

  • Tax Evasion - Google Earth has been used again to help investigate a tax evasion case. This time, reports of a evader having sold a house in a posh neighborhood in Porto Rotondo, Italy was the first clue. Next, it was heard the house had a "phallic"-shaped pool. Italy Mag reported on the case and speculates on which house it could have been. But, apparently there are a number of pools that might be a candidate. The article makes for an interesting read as it turns out the evader amassed tax omissions totalling 7 million Euros.

  • Panoramioa winners - The May winners of the monthly Panoramio photo contest have been announced.

  • GeoClusters - Barry Hunter has been experimenting with clustering and regionating placemarks for Geograph (a database of millions of photos of the UK). His techniques are definitely of interest if you are interested in developing geo-clustered data. Barry has released the source code. Read more about Geograph. [UPDATE: See review of this at Google Earth Design blog.

  • Canada Wins National Geographic Contest - In the world championship of National Geographic's geography contest, Canada came in first place. US was 2nd place, and Poland 3rd.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:30 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2009

Music Video with Google SketchUp - Awesome!

The musician of the one-man band Roche Limit, Dave Righton, was storyboarding ideas for a music video using Google SketchUp. Funds were short for the video production, and he then hit upon a brilliant idea: Use SketchUp to make the video. The result is fabulous! See it here:


Watch HD version

Now I'd like to see a music video done with Google Earth!

Also, here's a video of Dave being interviewed about making the video.

via SketchUp Blog

Footnote: This post actually was written this morning, but I just realized I forgot to publish it!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2009

360 Degrees Longitude Book Using Google Earth

360 Degrees Longitude in Google EarthA book called "360 Degrees Longitude" is about a family of four who decided to spend a year traveling around the world. The book documents their journey - but, I'm especially intrigued by their use of the Internet, maps, and Google Earth to help people follow the places they went, and view the pictures they took.

The book was released last month, and is available from Amazon. But, the maps and Google Earth file are available from their web site. The Google Earth file shows their somewhat convoluted route, and contains lots of placemarks with snippets of information about each location and photos. It's actually quite entertaining to read about the trip with Google Earth, but the book adds a lot of detail to their experiences. The book's web site has a lot of other supporting content including Google Maps mashups.

I actually wrote about this file when they first promoted it back in March - but, they had a different name for the book then (the old name probably had some marketing problems).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:26 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2009

Google Releases Details on July Imagery Update in KML

Google has for a long time only released a written summary of a portion of the updates for their imagery updates. Here is their text details for this update. But, for the first time, after who knows how many people have asked for it, Google has released a KML file that outlines (in red) the areas of new imagery for the July release! Now you can tell just how much of the globe was covered by this update. After four years of following Google Earth imagery updates closely, I can tell you this kind of coverage to the imagery updates is probably typical in their monthly updates.

July Google Earth imagery update

Hopefully now everyone can better appreciate the gift of data Google is presenting to us all with these amazing imagery updates. You also can get a better sense of just how big the planet is by just trying to look at a portion of just the updated areas. I hope Google will continue to release their updates with a KML file like this!

By the way, GEB readers discovered many of the regions in this update over the weekend. Read the details we discovered, and some of the issues found with some of the changes.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:18 PM | Comments (5)

Google Earth Time Animations

Google Earth has so many features that its hard to keep track of all its capabilities. Some of the features are almost hidden (like the built-in flight simulator) and others require some developer skills to implement. One of the latter examples are Google Earth's time animations - which first came out with GE version 4.0. Using time animation KML, you can make Google Earth visualizations that animate something over time - animations of 3D objects, image overlays, or other data (e.g. placemarks, lines, polygons). There really are some very cool things you can do with GE time animations.

London Eye animation with Google Earth

One caveat to Google Earth's time animations is that they can be a little tricky to use. Some important options for time animation even disappeared with GE 5. Hopefully a future version of Google Earth will help eliminate some of the problems and make them more functional. But, even with the drawbacks, the time animations are worth exploring.

Below I list several cool examples of time animations done so far with Google Earth. Once you load an example, hit the "PLAY" button in the time slider in the upper left to start. I recommend you delete the folder containing each loaded time animation after viewing. This will help avoid confusion and save system memory. Also, it may take several runs through an animation before all images/data load. So, give the animation a chance to load before judging how well it works. The following are some of my favorite time animation examples - follow the "blog entry" link for each to read more information and tips:

  1. Hurricane Katrina - By Brian Flood - blog entry

  2. Blue Marble Time Animation - By Frank Taylor and Barry Hunter - blog entry

  3. Clouds of Jupiter - By 'barnabu' - blog entry

  4. London Eye (with shadows) by 'barnabu' - blog entry

  5. Paleogeographic Animation - By Valery Hrosunov - blog entry

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:11 AM | Comments (2)

July 13, 2009

View Details on July 22 Total Solar Eclipse in Google Earth

HeyWhatsThat is a site which has many tools for viewing things from your position on the Earth including things like nearby mountain peaks, or night sky objects, or even solar eclipses. On July 22nd, a total eclipse of the sun will occur in the asia pacific region. The path of totality crosses some highly populated areas in China - like Shanghai. The author of HeyWhatsThat, Michael Kosowsky, wrote to let me know of several tools he has which can help people visualize the event. But, the one that's most cool is the simulation of the event you can watch in the Google Earth plugin. Check out the time animation simulation of the solar eclipse here . Here's a screenshot:

Solar Eclipse Simulation in Google Earth

HeyWhatsThat has also provided a map to view the path of the solar eclipse which will show you whether you can see the eclipse. A way to see the sky view of the event (from your location) with Google Maps using the Cosmic Visibility site. And, you can use his planisphere mode to see the eclipse which uses the Sky mode of Google Earth.

You can also use this excellent eclipse calculator site by Xavier Jubier to view more details on the solar eclipse in Google Earth . In addition to showing the July 22nd path of totality and partial eclipse, you can move your view to any location and, after a brief pause, get a placemark which will show you how long the eclipse will be available for that location (and other details). Xavier also has a version for Google Maps.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:38 AM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2009

New Google Earth Imagery - July 2009 - Good and Bad Part 2

Google has made yet another weekend update to the Google Earth imagery. I'm expecting a lot of GEB readers will start reporting new imagery they find during the weekend. Please leave a comment here if you find new imagery - which you can confirm by clicking on the "View in Google Maps" for a close-zoomed level, since Google Maps imagery does not yet have the update [UPDATE: Google Maps now has the new imagery, so you can't confirm now.]. For this update, there are some significant changes which I immediately noticed - some really good news, and some bad. Comments on the significant changes will appear below the list of new imagery noticed. By the way, I immediately noticed the new Spot Image imagery for Oman and Yemen.

New and updated imagery:

  • Oman - Medium resolution Spot Image.

  • Yemen - Medium resolution Spot Image.

  • Guadaloupe - Not sure if this is new this month, but Isle des Saintes in Guadaloupe now has 3D terrain (previously the islands were flat).

  • Romania - Constanţa (Thanks 'twist3r')

  • Sri Lanka - Kataragama Peak (Thanks Martin)

  • France - Largentiere (Ardeche) (Thanks Maarten), Departments of Aisne, Ardennes, Eure, Eure-et-Loire, Lot-et-Garonne, Ariege, Haute-Garonne, Ardeche, Alpes-Maritime, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Ain, Rhone, Allier, Doubs (Thanks Andreas)

  • Bulgaria - Entire country - Medium resolution Spot Image (Thanks Thilo)

  • Greece - "Lots of areas" have new high res (Thanks 'psx') - confirmed in Larissa, Kythira, Kamari

  • Niger - Dirkou (thanks 'ACarvalho')

  • Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia - new medium Spot Image (Thanks Neli)

  • Poland - Ciechanów (southern part), Kołobrzeg, Łask (winter photo) - Thanks 'm_k'

  • India - Bina, Madhya Pradesh - (Thanks 'Alok P.')

  • Republic of Congo - Loubomo (Thanks ACarvalho)

  • Spain - Ferrol, Monte Coya (Thanks Vranton)

  • USA - Southwestern States colorization removed (see below); Contra Costa County, CA has new high res (Thanks Munden); Niagara Falls has been ruined with low resolution imagery! (Thanks Munden);

  • Chile - Castro and Chilo´e; Island hi-res (Thanks JP)

  • Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq - these countries has been color processed to look consistent (Thanks Munden, Steven)

  • Libya - Some new Geoeye (May) just south of Sert (Thanks Munden)

  • Saudi Arabia - Riyadh got some GeoEye (Thanks Munden)

  • Canary Islands - Grand Canaria - new high res (thanks Ben)

  • Faroe Islands - New high res terrain (thanks Frank)

  • Maldives - Kudahuvadhoo (thanks Alsay)

  • Ghana - Tumu (Thanks Trevor)

  • Philippines - El Nido (thanks Eugene)

  • Mexico - Acapulco (thanks Mcmaster_de)

  • Egypt - Alexandria (thanks Mcmaster_de)

First, I'm very pleased because Google has removed some of the bad coloration they introduced to the southwestern US imagery back in early June. Many people complained (see the comments) about the way the new colorization process actually destroyed color information and made places in the southwest (which are normally desert brown), have a green cast on them. Thank you Google for listening!

Second, Google has introduced a new "coastline-cutting" tool to make the edges of the imagery conform to the shape of the coastlines. This is a pretty significant move as it effects imagery all over the planet. And, I have mixed feelings about this decision. On the one hand, it does make the land verses sea/bathymetry distinction more clear and pleasing to the eye. I'm impressed with how accurately the "cutting" has been done (so far, I haven't checked everywhere yet :-) ). The previous technique has always showed aerial or satellite imagery rectangles as a patchwork of irregular shapes along the coastlines. Which did in fact make it a bit harder to distinguish land from water.

However, imagery of the areas of ports, bays, harbors, shallow waters (especially in the Bahamas), etc. have now been cut out in favor of the bathymetry. The base level imagery of Google Earth (and Google Maps after this update migrates there), will now have lost some very valuable information. The former technique formerly showed ships, aircraft flying in the area, water conditions, sub-sea surface conditions (shipwrecks, coral reefs, sea life, oil rigs, buoys, dive sites, and (very importantly to the boating world) anchorage sites. The new technique has in one fell swoop reduced availability of a great deal of valuable information to the boating world, marine biologists, economists, shipping industry, oil industry, coast guards, and more. (Oh, I should mention those of us who look for planes in flight have also lost many planes found over water). In Google Earth, you can still turn to the historical imagery mode and see imagery without the coastline cutting. So, all is not lost. But, you can't turn on historical imagery (currently) with Google Maps. And, many people won't realize the historical imagery will show the "missing" information. Let's just hope Google doesn't start cutting the imagery they get before they put it in the historical imagery database! [Update Oops, I've already found evidence of coastline cutting happening in the historical imagery!]

Another footnote: In most cases, anchorages are near the shore - so hopefully the new coastline cutting will not eliminate most anchorages from the imagery. But, passages across bays and harbors between anchorages may now only show the bathymetry instead of the imagery. A sense of ship traffic, and what the water looks like will only be available (maybe) in the historical imagery. UPDATE: Another positive note - the coast cutting does not appear to cut out the imagery for the lagoons for atolls I found in the Tuamotus. Just the outside of the coasts. That's good!

What I can't understand is why Google is trying so hard to balance making the planet look good in the "base" imagery layer of Google Earth at the risk of losing valuable information. While at the same time, they have built-in features that could easily give the users the best of both worlds. There's a feature in KML that lets you fade-in/out different overlays of imagery based on zoom levels. So, with Google Earth it is possible to present a very nice looking earth while at the same time presenting as much imagery as possible. In Google Maps, they already present a different view until you zoom in close. Plus Google can easily add options to load a different tile-set just like they already do between say "Satellite" vs. adding "Labels". How about "Full imagery", or "Historical Imagery", or "Uncut Coastline" options for Google Maps?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:38 AM | Comments (57)

July 10, 2009

Links: New GE Enterprise, My Location, Fossett Crash Report, Bridge Winners

  • New Google Earth Enterprise - Google has updated the Enterprise version of Google Earth to support version 5.0 features (the version designed for internal use where you can run your own custom data for the globe). The GE Enterprise version is called version 3.2. Follow the link for more details.

  • My Location - Those of you with an iPhone know how useful it is to push the "blue dot" in the Maps application to find your current location. Now, if you are using the latest browsers (Firefox 3.5, or Google Chrome - which support Gears), Google Maps will have a new "dot" gadget near the zoom controls which will give you a blue dot showing your position. You have to agree to "Share Location" with Google Maps (to give it permission to search for you). My first thought was this ought to appear in Google Earth as well. It should be trivial to implement with the GE Plugin (UPDATE - Googler Roman Nurik made this GE Plugin Location example). Geo hacker Barry Hunter wrote a quick little proof of concept app where he used the browser, and Google Maps API, to generate a link to a placemark to show your position in GE using the location feature. I also suggested to Google they ought to create a feature for making it work in Google Earth (they probably had already thought of it).

  • Fossett Crash Report - The NTSB has released its report on Steve Fossett's crash. As expected, the cause is believed to be air turbulence (downdrafts) which caused the plane to be unable to avoid hitting a mountain. Air turbulence in mountain areas can be sudden, and treacherous. Read the story about the location of the crash and view the terrain in the area using Google Earth.

  • 3D Bridge Winners - Google has announced the winners of their build a 3D bridge contest. Watch an HD Video of the winning bridges.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:04 AM | Comments (1)

July 9, 2009

Google Earth Event on July 20th in DC - Expect the Moon

Google sent out invitations last night to the media for an event to be held in Washington DC on July 20th - the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. The event is about the "...newest addition to Google Earth". Given the list of speakers (Buzz Aldrin - Apollo 11 astronaut, NASA dignitaries, Anousheh Ansari - first private female space explorer, and Andrew Chaiken - author of "A Man on the Moon"), there can be little doubt what this is about. And, GEB definitely plans to attend the event!

In the summer of 2007, Google released an updated Google Moon - the 2D version for Google Maps. At the same time, Google announced the $30 Million Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP). When the new Google Moon released, GEB immediately speculated on how soon Google Earth would have a 3D version of the moon (see the last part of this article on the GLXP announcement). So, I'm pretty confident we'll be seeing the release of a 3D Moon mode for Google Earth. Google released a 3D Mars mode for Google Earth earlier this year. So, the moon is naturally going to be next. And, for the record, NASA has their own virtual globe application called WorldWind which has had a 3D moon mode available for several years now.

Google will surely make use of NASA Apollo mission imagery (panoramas, video, and stills - like in the 2D Google Moon), and hopefully HD video of the moon from the Japanese JAXA SELENE mission. More importantly, I'm sure we'll see some nice 3D terrain for the moon. I think it may be too early to expect imagery from the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - which just started being operational two weeks ago (but, I'd be glad to be surprised).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:30 PM | Comments (3)

Beastie Boys Create Google Earth Driving Game

The Beastie Boys have released a little game to help promote an album on their web site. The game lets you drive around a police car like a mad man using the Google Earth plugin. You can start up some Beastie Boys music in the upper right while playing the game. Use the cursor keys to drive around. Find some hills to jump in the air. (Unfortunately, at the moment the game isn't working. The developer didn't properly register his API key, so the application is temporarily disabled.) You can see what the game looks like in this video clip:

Actually, it's pretty simple to create your own game like this. The game is based on a sample application by Google called Monster Milktruck . The only difference with the Beastie Boys version is the use of the police car 3D model, and the fact you can play some of their music along with the game.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)

July 8, 2009

PhotoSketch Released - Make 3D Buildings from Photos

Back at the end of April, I mentioned the impending release of a plugin for Google SketchUp that would allow you to quickly create 3D models from photos. Yesterday I received an E-mail from Brainstorm LLC, the makers of PhotoSketch, that their plugin is now available (Windows only for now, Mac version in the works). The plugin is available as a 30-day free trial (see pricing). PhotoSketch works by letting you use a succession of overlapping photos of buildings and, using PhotoSketch and SketchUp, you can easily use the photos to derive 3D models from them. Watch this video tutorial to see how it is done:

Now, where would you get a succession of photos in a drive-by or fly-by situation I wonder? Could you perhaps use photos from Google Street View to create 3D models? Or, how about YouTube videos in a drive-by scenario? It will be interesting to see if modelers, who are avid 3D building creators at the 3D Warehouse, latch on to PhotoSketch to create buildings faster. [UPDATE: Brainstorm tells me that Street View imagery is "generally not sharp enough, nor does it necessarily have the amount of overlap and coverage *around* the building to make it useful. Another problem is that we cannot calibrate their camera because we don't have access to it. Therefore, it is not possible to correct for radial lens distortion." So, apparently you need more accurate photo data to use PhotoSketch properly.]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:02 AM | Comments (5)

July 7, 2009

Snoovel - Google Earth Tour Creation and Hosting Site

Recently I was contacted by the makers of snoovel.com, a site dedicated to making available guided tours using Google Earth. snoovel has some really cool features allowing people to create and share guided tours. You can watch them on their site, or embed the tours on other web sites. See for example a snoovel tour of the ill-fated Air France Flight 447 .

Screenshot of snoovel using Google Earth Tour

Allowing you to accompany a Tour playback with multimedia content on the side has some advantages to showing the content in a placemark bubble. But, what I'm really impressed by is the tour creation tool snoovel has created. They call it "Tour Director". Tour Director is a web-based application which lets you produce a Tour using an interface familiar to anyone who has created movies using movie producing software. With snoovel, you can produce a tour by creating cameras, scenes, and adding multi-media content (including text, hyperlinks, photos, 3D models, and music). I haven't tried using it, but they have a video demonstration that looks very impressive. This is the kind of Tour creation tool a lot of people have been hoping for I think. Here is a screenshot:

Screenshot of snoovel Tour Director

I really like the idea of a graphical timeline to plan out a tour with screenshots of each scene. They also say you can save scenes and use them as components for future tours. You have the ability to control durations for each segment of the tour which makes it much easier to get the desired flow. One thing I found lacking in the playback interface is the ability of the user to control speed of playback. One of the features I like about Google Earth's Tour playback is the ability to speed up the playback. But, at this point snoovel doesn't let you do this. snoovel was developed in Germany, but they have an English translated version of the site. The site still has some rough edges, but shows a lot of potential.

This isn't the first site to offer geo-spatial tours like this using Google Earth. In fact, Magnalox had a touring capability back in 2005 using Google Earth or Maps. But, Magnalox hasn't yet supported the new Tours functionality. And, EarthSwoop (created by GEB and Google Earth Hacks) also let you do limited tours using the GE plugin with annotated text. And, just a couple weeks ago we saw the introduction of Places, which lets you record Tours and play them back using some fancy camera action.

But, snoovel has the most complete touring functionality I've seen so far with support for multi-media and a more sophisticated tour creation tool. Time will tell whether this tool evolves into a popular way to create guided tours. I definitely recommend having a look at snoovel if you're looking to create more sophisticated GE Tours and don't have programming skills to develop one by hand.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:13 AM | Comments (1)

July 6, 2009

Help Google Earth with Survey, and other GE-related News

  • Help Google Earth with Survey - Google is conducting a short survey on Google Earth. Here's your chance to help improve the product. You can leave comments and suggestions at the bottom.

  • 1 Million Followers - @ Google is the first Google twitter id to reach 1 million followers.

  • Featured Modeler - Google has announced another featured 3D modeler at their SketchUp blog. This time the lucky guy is John of Dursley, England whose main objective is to model his home town. John is a retired architect, so he brings a more educated perspective to his 3D models.

  • Panoramio April Photo Contest Winners - Check out the winners of the April photo contest from Panoramio. The winners get prizes of photo geotagging tools from the sponsor ATP.

  • Google Earth for travel - Nice article about using Google Earth to share your travels.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:33 AM | Comments (2)

EarthURL Released

Roman Nurik is a Googler who develops tools to help developers create Google Earth applications. Recently he announced on Twitter the release of an application he's developed using the GE API which lets you easily pass a URL as a placemark. An app like this is handy for twitter which is all about passing short URLs to help add context to a message. Roman calls the app EarthURL.org. You simply use the GE Plugin to fly to a place you want to share, position the view you want (including 3D view angle), and then copy and paste the URL. Here, for example, is the Sphynx in Egypt .

Sphynx and pyramids in Egypt in Google Earth

EarthURL isn't the first easy GE URL targeted for Twitter (see EarthTwit), and going way back to shortly after Google Earth was released in 2005 there was the introduction of Tagzania. Tagzania allows you to mark placemarks in a concept they call "tags", and their URLs are short and easy to understand. See for example the location of the Eiffel Tower on their site, or with Google Earth . Tagzania also lets you embed their tagged locations on a web page.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:53 AM | Comments (1)

July 2, 2009

North Shore City, New Zealand in Google Earth

In response to yesterday's post on 3D terrain a GEB reader in New Zealand, Paul van Dinther, forwarded me an article in a local paper which describes how North Shore City shared high resolution imagery and 3D terrain data with Google for Google Earth. The data was released back in April, and is quite impressive. I spent some time this morning flying around this nice looking suburb area north of Auckland. The aerial imagery is clear and sharp at about 6cm resolution, and the terrain is very well done. You can see shoreline cliffs, roads, and even footpaths in the sides of hills in the terrain.

I've made a brief GE 5 tour of the North Shore City area showing some of the high resolution aerial imagery, 3D terrain, the navy base, and views of Auckland. Here's a screenshot from North Head (a park on a hill) with an impressive view of Auckland and Mount Victoria on the right:

View from North Head of Auckland area in Google Earth

Many cities around the world have started promoting themselves by giving more accurate imagery, terrain, 3D models and other data to Google for use in their mapping tools. This is an excellent example of how Google Earth is getting better in a way that is mutually beneficial to users of Google Earth, and providing economic benefit to those living there.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:01 AM | Comments (5)

July 1, 2009

NASA/Japan Release Terrain Data - Google Earth's is Better

One of the top stories yesterday was how NASA and Japan have released the data from their ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) satellite on the Internet - for free. What is significant about this is that the data covers 99% of the entire Earth's landmass terrain - verses 80% from the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) - which was the best previously available free public terrain data. ASTER's data is also higher resolution than SRTM which had a base resolution of 90m and at best 30m. ASTER's resolution has a base resolution of 30m, and can be higher under certain conditions (up to 7-10m - see documentation). The data released comes from over 1.3 million photos taken by the Aster satellite.

So, will Google Earth make use of this new ASTER data? The answer is: only a portion of the data. Google Earth already has terrain data in many areas that has higher resolution than the data provided by Aster (see below). However, ASTER provides data for remote locations (particularly high latitude regions) which previously wasn't readily available in these resolutions. And, Google Earth still has regions (such as remote pacific islands) which are using SRTM data (90m resolution). So, I'm sure Google will consider using the new data to improve the resolution in some regions. IF, they don't already have another source with better resolution. By the way, I asked Google about ASTER, and got the standard reply that they don't have anything to announce at this time (i.e. "no comment").

As far back as the February 2007, Google started introducing significantly higher resolution terrain. At that time they introduced 10m resolution terrain for the Swiss Alps, followed a few months later by 10m resolution terrain for the US and Canary Islands (read GEB review). In the more than two years since, Google has added millions of square kilometers of higher resolution terrain. Some of the terrain is much higher resolution. For example, the state of West Virginia has 3m resolution. Back in April of 2008, the city of Bergen, Norway got very high resolution data - which appeared to be based on LiDAR. Recently, Oslo, Norway also got very high resolution terrain data (also seemingly LiDAR) as well as 3D Buildings.

In recent months, Google has been regularly adding cities and countries with higher resolution terrain with nearly every imagery update (see for example the May 2009 update - new terrain is listed at the bottom). Google is no longer releasing details on the resolution of the data. Probably because the terrain resolution varies for each city. One drawback to higher resolution terrain is the data starts capturing things like buildings - not just the land - and it gets to be harder to tell the difference between good data and noise. But, the ability to see the terrain more accurately is well worth this risk in my opinion.

An important tip if you're interested in Google Earth's terrain data: Under the Google Earth Options is a slider called "Terrain Quality". If you push that slider to the right, you can see higher resolution terrain. A word of caution: higher quality terrain means more 3D data - which can slow down your update speeds in Google Earth. After viewing higher resolution terrain, I recommend putting the slider back to closer to the middle for every day use. If you have a faster computer with a powerful video card, you might be able to get away with a higher setting. (Read more tips about optimizing GE performance).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:55 AM | Comments (8)

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