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December 31, 2009
Santa Tracker was amazingly popular
In the past, we've told you about the popularity of the Santa Tracker on GEB. This year, NORAD has released the actual data from the noradsanta.org site and the numbers are amazing!
To go with the 1200 call center volunteers (who answered 74,000 phone calls and 3,500 emails), the website was visited by over 13 million people from 231 countries. I have to imagine that is by far their largest number ever, for a few reasons:
1 -- It's growing in popularity each year.
2 -- No KML file was available this year, so users had to visit the NoradSanta site.
All in all, it was an overwhelming success. My girls enjoyed it so much that I ended up leaving my netbook on the mantle so they could run in and check his position all evening.
Despite that, I have to think that Christmas 2010 will see even more great features and will be an even better experience!
Did you watch the tracker with your kids this year? What did you think of it?
Posted by mickmel at 8:25 AM | Comments (9)
December 23, 2009
Happy Holidays from Google Earth Blog
With Christmas just a few days away, we thought we'd share our annual holiday greeting card. You can download the KML file
to view it yourself, or check it out via the Google Earth Plug-in.
Santa's NORAD tracker will be going live tomorrow, so be sure to check back for that.
Happy holidays to all!
Posted by mickmel at 8:14 AM | Comments (1)
December 22, 2009
More cities get lifelike facades: Portland, Austin, Chicago and Philadelphia
Last month, Google unveiled detailed facades for five cities in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Franciso, Berkeley and Stockton). By mapping StreetView imagery onto the 3D models, they were able to give great detail to those downtown areas.
Today Google has added the facades to four more US cities -- Portland, Austin, Chicago and Philadelphia. Considering all of the cities out there that already have 3D buildings and StreetView imagery, I would expect this list to keep expanding in 2010.
Fly around and check them out for yourself, or watch the video below for a quick tour:
Posted by mickmel at 11:16 AM | Comments (1)
Vancouver Olympic venues in Google Earth
With the 2010 Winter Games getting closer every day, Google has just released 3D models for all nine venues in Vancouver. The city of Vancouver was given the 3D treatment earlier this year, but now the venues are in 3D as well.
The models are exceptional, and really give a great feel for each venue. They've even included smaller details like spectator bleachers, trees and the gondolas.
To see a tour of the venues, you can download this KML file, or watch the embedded tour on the Lat Long Blog.
Google will be making more improvements to the models before the Games begin, but they're already fun to look at. Which area is your favorite? I'm personally drawn to the Whistler Mountain ski area (KMZ file), as I enjoy skiing and I think the 3D models of the lifts are pretty slick. However, all of the models look great and it's been fun to explore them.
Posted by mickmel at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2009
Top 10 Google Earth Blog stories in 2009
It's been quite a year for Google Earth. Not only was there a major update to the software, but we also saw a ton of new imagery, 3D buildings, and StreetView locations. Based on what you looked at this year, here were the Top 10 most popular posts:
1. Using StreetView in Google Earth: With all of the great StreetView imagery added this year, many of you kept coming back to Frank's post that explains how StreetView works inside of Google Earth.
2. Fantastic Free Google Earth Game: Ships: A very impressive (and fun) game in Google Earth, using 3D modeled ships.
3. The New Google Mars: As part of Google Earth 5, they introduced "Google Mars". This post shows how it works and what some of the best features of it are.
4. Google Earth 5 Released: One of Google's big releases this year was the introduction of Google Earth 5. With it came Google Ocean, Historical Imagery, Tours and Google Mars. It's hard to believe we didn't have any of those features until this year.
5. Home Made StreetView: Not content to wait for StreetView to come to his town, an enterprising student at National Taiwan University made his own!
6. New Imagery - February 28: Google has released a lot of new imagery this year, and their release in late February was a big one. Not only did it include a ton of new aerial imagery, but they also updated some 3D terrain, some bathymetry, and the roads layer.
7. Planes for Google Earth Flight Simulator: The Google Earth flight simulator is pretty neat, and 'Amir B' came up with a creative way to add more planes to it!
8. Titanic Wreck in 3D in Google Earth 5: When Google unveiled the new Ocean feature in Google Earth 5, people wanted to know if any famous shipwrecks could be found in there. Indeed they can.
9. Marijuana Field Found?: Early this year, there was a major marijuana bust in Switzerland. Using Google Earth, GEB reader 'dulk' apparently found it!
10. New View of Ocean Floor: Prior to Google Earth 5, the only view of the ocean floor was the imagery seen from the air. In January, Google enhanced the view of the oceans worldwide. It was certainly a great improvement, but it was blown away by the release of Google Earth in version 5.
So there you have it; our most popular stories of 2009. What was your favorite Google Earth story this year?
Posted by mickmel at 8:06 AM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2009
Links: GeoVation, Greenhouse gas world graph, Tiger Woods home
GeoVation: GeoVation, the Ordnance Survey-supported community aiming to promote innovative uses of geography, launched its competition in October by asking people to think of how mapping could help address some of the world's big challenges. Their January 4, 2010 deadline is fact approaching. If you have an idea on how to improve the economy, society or the environment, you're encouraged to enter your ideas. The four winning entries will receive cash prizes to help fund their ideas.
Greenhouse gas world graph: The Joint Research Center in Ispra, the main European science research center, will be publishing one of the largest pollution databases ever.
In a recent interview, one of the scientists revealed that they'll be publishing all of their data via Google Earth. They reportedly plan to launch in a few weeks, near the end of the COP15 meetings in Copenhagen.
You can read the English (auto-translated) transcript of the interview here, or view the original (Italian) version here.
Tiger Woods' Home in 3D: In keeping with the latest news, concept3D has generated a detailed 3D model of Tiger Woods' house on Faglaro Island, Sweden. I considering skipping this story (and concept3D admits "some reluctance"), but the model is quite impressive. It includes 7 buildings, a dock, and a variety of trees. You can see a video of it below, or play with the live tour on the concept3D site.
Posted by mickmel at 8:45 AM | Comments (1)
December 17, 2009
New 3D cities: Tucson, AZ, Cleveland, OH and Florence, Italy
Google has just released three more cities in 3D, along with thousands of new user-generated models. The three new cities are Tucson, AZ, Cleveland, OH and Florence, Italy.
You can read details about the US cities on the SketchUp blog. They mentioned Florence in a tweet, and it indeed had quite an update as well.
Google offers up some nice suggestions for places to visit, such as the University of Arizona in Tucson or The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Between the huge imagery update a few days ago and now this, there is a whole lot of new stuff to check out.
Are any of your favorite sights now in 3D? Tell us about it in the comments.
Posted by mickmel at 2:40 PM | Comments (5)
Stunning virtual cruise tours
The folks over at PlanetInAction.com have just released a stunning bit of work for CleanCruising.com.au.
Clean Cruising tasked them with finding an innovative way to show the itineraries for thousands of cruises -- nearly 6000 in all. Using Google Earth, combined with 3D models of each ship, PlanetInAction has done just that. They have hand-built models for dozens of cruise ships, all with amazing detail and accuracy.
Now that the ships are rendered and the technical challenges resolved, they've started building out some of the itineraries. To see them in action, check out the 42 night Cherry Blossom Cruise (seen below) or the 7 night Western Caribbean Cruise, or just watch the video below:
The actual Google Earth tours are not yet available, but they hope to release them soon. In the meantime, you can watch the high-res videos of the tours at the links above. Below is a tour of the "Oasis of the Seas", the largest cruise ship in the world. We covered her journey from Finland to Florida last month, and below is a video that walks you through the 3D model of the ship.
This is a very cool use of Google Earth, 3D models and the tour feature. I could see this (or something similar) becoming a default layer in Google Earth someday. For now, enjoy the HD videos they've released.
Posted by mickmel at 9:39 AM | Comments (3)
December 16, 2009
Lots of holiday-themed 3D models
With Christmas just around the corner (Santa is coming soon) and Hanukkah in full swing, we thought it'd be a good time to showcase of the holiday-themed 3D models that are available in the Google 3D Warehouse.
The SketchUp Blog showed off a bunch of them a few days ago including Santa sitting down, a variety of reindeer, a menorah and a design your own gingerbread house. You can also check out Santa standing up, a candy cane log house, a wooden angel, a table decorated for Hanukkah or even a Festivus pole!
If you're looking for more, there are some lights and balloons in this collection, and 46 various holiday models in this one.
If you make anything cool with any of these objects, let us know in the comments and we may showcase it in a future post.
Posted by mickmel at 8:32 AM | Comments (1)
December 15, 2009
Imagery update in Google Earth
We've just received a few reports from readers about new imagery in Google Earth. I've verified the reports and an update indeed is in progress.
[UPDATE, 17-DEC: Google has now written their post about this update and released the KML file that shows the updated areas.]
With the previous update, there was a minor hiccup near Kirbyville, Texas, where some incorrect imagery was placed there. That has just been corrected, which seems to indicate that new imagery has been pushed out.
Some of the other updated areas include: [UPDATED 13:57 EST]
Albania: Southern part of Tirana (thanks 'Edi')
Belgium: Most major cities (thanks 'Martin' and 'Joris')
Canada: Toronto (thanks 'Shadow')
Hungary: Budapest (thanks 'twist3r')
India: Various cities (thanks 'Alok')
Lithuania: West of Kaunas and around Palanga (thanks 'LK')
Peru: Parts of Lima (thanks 'Jorge')
Poland: , Cieszyn, Krakow, Puck and Warsaw (thanks 'PaSKud', 'Dawud' and 'zbooy')
Romania: Bucharest and Timisoara (thanks 'dlhblog')
Russia: Parts of Saint Petersburg and Moscow (thanks 'RiderlLT')
Saudi Arabia: Various area (thanks 'Alsay')
UAE: Dubai (thanks 'Falko P.' and 'Edi')
United States: Large parts of Georgia (north, east), Michigan (Lansing), North Carolina (western) and South Carolina (south). (thanks 'Keith')
If you find other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 8:32 AM | Comments (69)
December 14, 2009
Take a virtual helicopter tour with the Google Earth Plug-in
This is a very creative and polished use of the Google Earth Plug-in. Visit this site and take a helicopter tour over Charmonix and Mont Blanc. (via Google Maps Mania)
They run everything through the Google Earth Plug-in, and they've done a great job with it. They have some controls in the lower-left corner to change your view, there's some instruments to help simulate the inside of a helicopter, and there's an embedded Google Map in the lower-right corner to show where you are (with a track of where you've been).
Check out the video below for a brief sample, then go try it yourself!
Posted by mickmel at 2:59 PM | Comments (2)
UK postcode data to be set free in 2010
A few years ago, we told you about the awesome looking Virtual London project. CASA (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) had built a massive 3.3 million 3D model collection of London, which was intended for Google Earth. All of the buildings were gray, but they were in the process of photo-texturing them for added realism.
However, the project came to an abrupt halt when the UK government refused to grant them a license to use the data in Google Earth. Here's a video they created a few years ago showing what they had built so far:
Now it seems the project may have a chance. According to an article on BBC News (thanks Will for the tip), the government is planning to make the postcode data free for use in April 2010. In particular, it says "...making Ordnance Survey mapping and postcode datasets available for free reuse from April 2010." (emphasis ours).
We'll find out for sure in April, but this seems to be a very positive development.
Posted by mickmel at 8:43 AM | Comments (3)
December 11, 2009
Detroit finally goes 3D, new imagery on Mars
Detroit in 3D: Having grown up in Michigan and attending a variety of sporting events in Detroit over the years, I was often disappointed to see the lack of 3D models in there. In an effort to try and help, I even did a good bit of work with the Building Maker tool in Detroit.
However, I am no longer disappointed -- Detroit is now in full 3D! The coverage doesn't seem quite as widespread as the Milan update last week, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. They have hundreds of buildings in there, including all of the skyscrapers, stadiums and landmarks.
I'm a bit sad that "The Fist" (info, KML, StreetView) didn't make it in 3D, but that's why Google gives us so many great tools. One of you need to create that sculpture in SketchUp and get it in there -- it's far beyond my skills. :)
Here's a brief video tour showing off some of the highlights of the new 3D city:
New imagery on Mars: Earlier this year, Google introduced us to Google Mars; a Google Earth-like interface for the red planet. They've just pushed out a major update to Mars, with lots of new imagery and updated terrain data.
To see the updated areas, you can use this KML file to see what's new. Along with the normal outlined areas showing new imagery, they've put a few arrows on the map to highlight spotlight areas of particular interest.
For more info, be sure to read the full post on the LatLong blog.
Posted by mickmel at 8:29 AM | Comments (1)
December 10, 2009
Links: Audi A8 with Google Earth, Liquid Galaxy, Deer Hunting, StreetView in the snow
Audi A8 with Google Earth: The new Audi A8 comes with a lot of neat toys, including integrated Google Earth! The car connects to the internet via 3G, which it uses for a variety of purposes. It pushes the 3G out via wifi for anyone in the car that needs it (similar to the Verizon MiFi), and it also streams Google Earth imagery to the navigation system.
Detailed information about the Google Earth integration is lacking, but you can see it in action for a just a few seconds in the video below (skip ahead to the 7:24 mark). It shows 3D buildings (some photorealistic, some gray), just like you'd see in Google Earth.
Liquid Galaxy: At Google I/O earlier this year, they showed off a cool thing they called the "Holodeck" -- a 360 degree booth that surrounds you with StreetView imagery. They've now renamed it "Liquid Galaxy" and integrated a special version of Google Earth to work with it. They've brought it to the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, and they'll be bringing it to other conferences in the future. I hope to maybe try it out at Where 2.0 this spring.
Deer Hunting with Google Earth: A man in Illinois shot a 25-point buck after studying Google Earth to determine probable routes that the deer would take. He staked out his position based on that information and was able to get his shot just before dusk. It turned out to be a lucky shot (deflected off a tree branch, pierced the deer's ear, which then fell down a bank into the creek and drowned), but it's interesting that he used Google Earth to find the best location.
StreetView in the snow: A few days ago, in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Google hit the slopes in Vancouver and captured some StreetView imagery using a snowmobile outfitted with their cameras.
I would have to guess that the development of the StreetView trikes helped make this possible, as it was likely a similar system.
No word on a release date for this imagery, but the Olympics begin on February 12, so I'm sure we'll see it sometime before then.
Posted by mickmel at 8:43 AM | Comments (3)
December 9, 2009
Place Pages arrive in Google Earth
A few months ago, Google added a new feature to Google Maps called Place Pages. Their description of them is a "webpage for every place in the world". They have these auto-generated pages for every location found in Google Maps -- restaurants, landmarks, cities, transit stations, etc. If you visit the page for a place you own, you have the ability to edit the page, add photos, etc. It's pretty neat.
Now you can see that information inside of Google Earth and it's very easy to do. When viewing a business or other POI in Google Earth, just click on the "View More Information" link and you'll see their page.
When viewing a page, you can expand many of the sections by clicking the appropriate "more" link within the page ("more photos", "more reviews", etc).
It's a very minor change to Google Earth, but opens up a ton of data for you to access while you're in there. This seems to be another step toward making all of the data from Google Maps available in Google Earth (and vice-versa), which will help make both programs more useful for everyone.
Posted by mickmel at 8:49 AM | Comments (1)
December 8, 2009
Aerial perspective imagery
As some of you have pointed out in recent comments, much of the imagery used in the Building Maker tool seems to be angled aerial imagery, similar to the "Bird's Eye" imagery in Bing Maps. Google is now making that imagery available via the Maps API.
The imagery is currently only available in San Jose and San Diego, but I'd expect it will expand rather quickly. Over time, I'd expect this imagery to help expand the Building Maker areas, and ultimately help more 3D models find their way into Google Earth.
Google has already partnered with a few companies to integrate this new imagery into their sites. Orbitz is using it for hotel searches, and Redfin and Trulia are using it when they show off available real estate.
If you're interested in developing an application that uses this data, head over to the Google Geo Developers Blog to get more information about how to implement it on your site.
Posted by mickmel at 9:38 AM | Comments (3)
Connect with Google Earth Blog
Over the years, Google Earth Blog has introduced a handful of ways to connect with the site. We've always had our trusty RSS feed, and Frank added a Twitter account a few years ago.
In the last few weeks, I've added a few others. You can now join our Facebook Page, or go the basic route and simply get email updates of our recent posts.
Here's a bit more detail about those:
RSS Feed: I personally follow hundreds of feeds, as its a great way to keep up with sites that you enjoy. I use Google Reader to manage the feeds, as it's a pretty slick system. With more than 19,000 subscribers, our RSS feed is by far the most popular way that people use to keep up with our site. Here's a quick look at how Google Reader works:
Twitter: To keep up with us via Twitter, just follow @gearthblog. All of the new blog entries get posted there, along with a few other tidbits. In addition, I monitor that account very closely and will respond to any messages sent our way. You can also choose to follow me (@mickmel), Frank (@FrankTaylor), or Frank's Tahina account (@GoTahina) if you want. Plus, I have created a Geo list that summarizes the latest tweets from 27 different geo-related people.
Facebook: I had initially tried to combine this site with the already-active Google Earth Hacks Facebook page. It worked reasonably well, but felt a bit clunky so I created a separate page instead. Become a fan of our new page, and you'll get the latest info from GEB right in your main news feed.
Email: Last but not least, we have lowly old email. It seems so uncool compared to everything else, but honestly -- where do you spend most of your time? For a lot of you, that's in your inbox. We now allow you to sign up to get our latest posts sent to you via email if none of the other options appeal to you.
Is there some other way that you'd like to receive our info? We're always open to suggestions. If there's a new tool that you're using and you have no good way to get GEB content on there, let us know and we'll see what we can do.
Posted by mickmel at 8:41 AM | Comments (1)
December 7, 2009
Google Earth in 2010
As the year is drawing to a close, Stefan at Ogle Earth decided to take a look at three trends that he sees for Google Earth in 2010. Based on changes in the last few months, these all seem to be likely directions for Google Earth/Maps next year.
--1-- Imagery Freshness
Stefan has pointed out that new imagery being added to Google Earth is more fresh than it used to be. In the past, "new" imagery was often 6-12 months old. With recent updates, some imagery is only a matter of weeks old.
In addition to that, imagery updates are being pushed out more often. It used to be monthly, and lately we've been seeing them twice a month. I think both of these trends are likely to continue in 2010 and beyond.
--2-- Map and Imagery Correlation
In some parts of the world, such as Egypt and China, the map data and the imagery don't often line up very well. This poses problems when people add POI data (like a restaurant) in the map layer, and it shows up 500 meters away in the imagery. As the layers are corrected and reconciled, many POIs will be very inaccurately placed.
This is certainly something that Google is constantly working on, and should improve even further in 2010. It also seems likely that they'll expand their "Report a Problem" system to more countries to help improve map data even further.
--3-- Cloud Power
The final area that Stefan thinks will see rapid expansion in 2010 is having more of your user-data synced to Google. As it stands right now, there is still a lot of local file management required to really use Google Earth -- uploading/downloading KML files, etc.
For example, your "My Places" layer could be easily synced to Google so you can have the same set of places on all of your computers. Expanding from there, it'd be fairly easy to share places with other users from within Google Earth, rather than having to save a file, upload/email it, and then have the other user load it into their copy of the program. Not only is a that cumbersome, but it creates two distinct copies of the file that aren't kept in sync -- changes to one of them are not reflected in the other.
The recent release of Google Earth 2.0 for the iPhone effectively makes it a more connected product than Google Earth on your computer. You can have it sync directly to your My Maps data, which is something you can't do yet on the full version of Google Earth. The iPhone version certainly has many shortcomings (no image overlays, no 3D models, etc), but this aspect of its functionality is likely a sign of what's to come.
Those are the items that Stefan thought were worth mentioning. Some others that I think we'll see more of in 2010:
-- 3D Buildings --
Google has been pushing out 3D buildings much more rapidly as the year has progressed. Not only are they continuing to put out huge auto-generated 3D cities, but the expanding Building Maker coverage area could really be the key. I've built a few dozen models in Building Maker, but I'd really like to make models I care about -- my house, my church, favorite restaurants, etc. As the coverage area expands, more people will find that they can build their locations in 3D, and it'll continue to accelerate.
-- StreetView --
This is another area where Google has been pushing hard lately. They've been adding data at a torrid pace (such as a few days ago) and that seems likely to continue. I said a few years ago that I thought StreetView might simply be a temporary solution, as 3D modeled worlds would eventually be more useful. I still think that's true, but it'll be quite a while until we reach that degree of realism in Google Earth.
In addition, for 3D models to be truly useful at that scale, they'll need excellent imagery to map onto the models. They've already started using StreetView imagery for that and showed us how great it can be, and I'd expect we'll see more of it.
So that's what I think. What do you think will be the direction of Google Earth next year?
Posted by mickmel at 9:36 AM | Comments (12)
December 4, 2009
Milan, Italy now in 3D
To go along with the cities they've recently added to Building Maker, Google has just released 3D buildings for Milan, Italy.
As with all of their recent 3D releases, the number of buildings in Milan is staggering. They have very solid coverage for an area of more than 20 square miles in the heart of the city. This video from Google shows some of the highlights:
Milan appears to be the only new 3D city for this week, though I assume that more of your Building Maker models have found their way into Google Earth. If you notice that any have, please let us know in the comments.
Posted by mickmel at 8:13 AM | Comments (1)
December 3, 2009
New imagery in Google Earth
For the last couple months, Google has been pushing out new imagery twice a month. It's that time again and it's another nice update from Google.
Some of the updated areas include the United States (in Texas and Arkansas), a little bit in Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay, much of northern Algeria, much of southern Myanmar, and various other places around the world.
As has been the case lately, they've released a KML showing all of the updated areas. You can download the KML file, view the updates in Google Maps, or see the updated areas in the plugin below:
If you find any neat new locations, you can Tweet them out using the #GEarthIMG hash tag on Twitter, submit them to the database at Google Earth Hacks, or simply leave a comment below and tell us about it.
Posted by mickmel at 6:39 PM | Comments (14)
Six more cities added to Building Maker
In their continuing work to expand the popular Building Maker tool, Google has just added six more cities to the list, bringing the total number of cities up to 64:
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Hiroshima, Japan
- Saitama, Japan
- Miami Beach, FL USA
- Orlando, FL USA
As far as I can tell, none of the existing cities have yet been expanded to cover a wider area. They're still all quite small, though I expect them to be gradually expanded over time. If you know of any that have already expanded, please let us know.
If you're not yet familiar with the Building Maker tool, this short video will give you a nice overview of it:
Posted by mickmel at 3:29 PM | Comments (5)
Climate change with Gov. Schwarzenegger
Google has been doing a lot of great things with Google Earth to help raise awareness of climate change. Back in September they released their first batch of tours and videos, then they added a few more in October. Today they've unveiled a new video tour that is narrated by California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California Natural Resources Agency have teamed up to create CalAdapt, which is a tool that uses Google Earth to educate Californians about climate change.
They tour they've created is very well-done. You can watch a short version of it below (2:26), watch a longer version here (7:15), or download the tour KML to view it in Google Earth for yourself.
Posted by mickmel at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 2, 2009
New StreetView imagery in Singapore, Canada and others
Today has seen another large release of StreetView imagery from Google. The updated areas include:
Singapore: For the first time, Singapore has StreetView imagery. Quite a large portion of the nation has been added.
Canada: StreetView arrived in Canada a few months ago, but today that coverage has been greatly expanded. They've added Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Saskatoon, St. John's, Sudbury, Winnipeg and Victoria.
France and Japan: Various areas.
Special Locations: The first release of imagery taken by the StreetView trikes have appeared in places like Sea World San Diego, Sea World Orlando, Sea World San Antonio, Aquatica, Discovery Cove, Hersheypark (Pennsylvania) and Boston University (which is already featured in high-quality 3D).
Also covered by the trike are Pompei, the Palace of Versailles, Millennium Stadium, Angel of the North, Eden Project, Warwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Stonehenge.
The Google LatLong Blog and Google Maps Mania have additional coverage and photos of the updated areas.
Posted by mickmel at 2:43 PM | Comments (11)
NORAD will track Santa once again
Just like they did last year, NORAD will once again be tracking the flight of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.
They've just launched the site for this year at NoradSanta.com (where's it been for a few years now). The actual tracker will go live at 6am EST on December 24. The site currently shows a countdown to the launch, though they have a few games you can play.
On Christmas Eve you'll be able to track Santa in Google Earth, Google Maps, using the Google Earth plugin and on most mobile phones by using the NoradSanta site. You can also follow them on Twitter (@noradsanta) to get updates on his latest position.
Here are highlights from last year's journey:
Posted by mickmel at 8:29 AM | Comments (1)
December 1, 2009
Model Your Town
Google has just announced their first-ever "Model Your Town" Competition.
The goal is to get smaller cities to work on building their town in 3D. While every town will likely see their models in Google Earth, the winning town will win $10,000 for its schools, a Google-sponsored party, a video profile of the winning team and some other goodies.
It sounds similar to the "Build Your Campus in 3D" competition they held a few years ago, which was quite successful, and the "Cities in 3D" project they launched last year.
With some work, Google could have a bunch of small towns looking as great as McMinnville, TN, a small town that did a superb job modeling their town (KML).
You can read more about it on the Google SketchUp Blog, or watch the video below:
Posted by mickmel at 4:20 PM | Comments (1)
StreetView inside buildings?
A company called urbanimmersive has developed a neat technology that would make a lot of sense if combined with Google's StreetView. They capture imagery inside of buildings, and allow you to walk around inside them using a similar technique to the way StreetView lets you walk around outside.
If Google was to add something like this onto their StreetView, the user interface could be pretty simple; an icon of some sort on buildings that support this, and you just fly inside! However, capturing the data would be much more difficult.
Not only would it be much more time-consuming to capture, but we're talking about private property and most buildings would be off-limits. That being said, this could be very useful for buildings that are trying to showcase their interior, such as homes for sale, or places where it'd be useful to see the inside of buildings before you go, such as churches, schools and stadiums.
If you want to try walking around one of their models, head to this page and just wait for it to load. You can use the mouse or your keyboard to navigate.
I expect we'll see something like this find its way into Google Earth eventually. It may end up being 3D models of interiors, or maybe it'll end up being StreetView style like this. Time will tell.
Posted by mickmel at 8:27 AM | Comments (3)
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