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June 30, 2011
The largest Street View update we've seen so far
Google has just pushed out a major update to their Street View imagery, in what they're calling their biggest update yet.
This update has seen imagery updated/added to 13 countries that already had some degree of Street View imagery, including Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Romania, South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Part of that includes higher resolution images in parts of California (San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego), allowing you to see amazing images like this one of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Also included in this imagery are a few new islands: Jersey, off the coast of France, and Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea. Here is Peel Castle, located on Isle of Man (via Google Maps Mania):
Finally, don't forget that the Street View mode was greatly enhanced with the release of Google Earth 6, making it much easier to browse this kind of imagery from within Google Earth. To enter one of these areas, or any other Street View-enabled location, simply drag the "Peg Man" from the controls in the upper right corner onto the globe.
Posted by mickmel at 7:58 AM
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June 23, 2011
The Tallest Mountain to the Deepest Ocean Trench
Karl Tate over at OurAmazingPlanet has created an amazing infographic showing the highest heights and the deepest depths of our planet. You can see a thumbnail view of the graphic on the right, but I encourage you to view the full image on their site.
Of course, all of these amazing features on our planet look excellent in Google Earth! Here is a list of the places that are mentioned in the graphic so you can go see them for yourself.
• Mount Everest | KML 
• K2 | KMZ
• Aconcagua | KMZ
• Mount McKinley | KMZ
• Kilimanjaro | KMZ
• Mount Elbrus | KML
• Vinson Massif | KMZ
• Puncak Jaya | KMZ
• Lhasa | KMZ
• South Pole | KMZ
• Denver, Colorado | KMZ
• Burj Khalifa | KMZ
• CN Tower | KML
• Empire State Building | KML
• Great Pyramid of Giza | KMZ
• Statue of Liberty | KMZ
• Deepwater Horizon oil rig | KML
• Grand Canyon | KMZ
• Wreck of the RMS Titanic | KMZ
• Puerto Rico Trench | KMZ
• Mariana Trench | KMZ
We live on an amazing planet, and Google Earth is such a great way to explore it all. Thanks to Karl and OurAmazingPlanet for putting together that graphic.
Posted by mickmel at 10:28 AM
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June 22, 2011
Imagery from the Nabro Volcano eruption in Africa
10 days ago, the Nabro volcano in the northeast African nation of Eritrea erupted for the first time in recorded history following a series of earthquakes. The ash has since spread more than 60km over the Ethiopian border and the volcano has emitted the highest levels for sulfer dioxide gas ever detected from space.
NASA has been publishing a small stream of images from the volcano, including some stunning shots such as the one seen above. Even better, they happened to capture a photo of Nabro back in January of this year, providing a crystal clear shot of the volcano prior to the eruption.
You can view that image on NASA's site, or in Google Earth using this KML file.
The volcano has caused some minor disruption to air travel, but nothing on the scale of Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland last year. Even better, the level of ash coming out of the volcano has begun to diminish, as has the level of seismic activity in the region.
Be sure to check out the full gallery of images on the NASA Earth Observatory site to see all of the amazing imagery that they've captured so far.
Posted by mickmel at 8:18 AM
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June 21, 2011
Can't find your Google Earth icon?
This is a problem we've seen happening more and more often lately, so we thought we'd address it here. I'm not sure if the bug has become more widespread, or if Google Earth is simply reaching an increasingly wider audience.
In some configurations of Windows, the Google Earth icon will disappear from your system after you install a Google Earth software update. In many cases, the icon won't come back even after you reinstall, presumably because the software already thinks that it's there.
Fortunately, there are a few easy solutions.
A - Automatically restore the icon
Google has created a simple program called the Google Earth Icon Restorer that should take care of it for you with a few simple steps:
1 - Download the Google Earth Icon Restorer application.
2 - The application name "geicons.exe" will appear in your download bar. Select Save.
3 - Run the application by selecting Open, or double clicking "geicons.exe"
4 - Look at your desktop and find the newly created shortcut icon for Google Earth
5 - Delete the application by selecting "geicons.exe" in your download bar > [Open in Folder] > [Delete]
B - Manually restore the icon
If the automatically restore solution didn't work for you, or you'd rather simply do it yourself, you can follow the instructions for your system below.
Windows XP and Vista:
- Go to "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client" and find googleearth.exe
- Right click on googleearth.exe and choose "create shortcut"
- Move a copy of that shortcut to your desktop and a copy to "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Google Earth" folder
Windows 7:
- Go to "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth\client" and find googleearth.exe
- Right click on googleearth.exe and choose "create shortcut"
- Move a copy of that shortcut to your desktop and a copy to "C:\ProgramData\Start Menu\Programs\Google Earth" folder
64 bit versions of Windows:
- Go to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Earth\client\" and find googleearth.exe
- Right click on googleearth.exe and choose "create shortcut"
- Move a copy of that shortcut to your desktop and a copy to "C:\ProgramData\Start Menu\Programs\Google Earth" folder
Other installation issues
If you're having other problems getting Google Earth installed, this support article gives some great tips to help get things cleaned up.
If you still are having issues after all of that, please leave a comment below and we'll try our best to help you out.
Posted by mickmel at 7:20 AM
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June 20, 2011
Tracking the Hurtigruten along the coast of Norway
In what's becoming quite a popular event, the cruise liner Hurtigruten has been live broadcasting its position as it travels along the coast of Norway. The cruise line has been operating for well over 100 years, and this event has been apparently drawing large crowds at its stops, and is becoming quite the event in Norway.
The site itself is very well built. You can follow of a map of the journey, view various live cameras from the ship, and even view a live 3D model of the ship's location: just click on the 3D tab in the lower right, then click the resulting image to see the ship in 3D.
As pointed out by Google Maps Mania, you can click the red icons on the map to view a replay of that section of the journey. The scenery in Norway is stunning, and this is a great way to view it all.
There are also other elements that can be added to the map, such as Flickr photos, archived video, and the location of other boats in the area. Some of the photographs in there are simply amazing, as shown here:
To see it for yourself, simply head over to their site and you'll be streaming the live feed almost immediately.
(via GMM and Ogle Earth)
Posted by mickmel at 8:45 AM
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June 17, 2011
Use Junctions to view your social content on a map
Over the years we've seen a few services that help to put your social activities into Google Earth, but none that have done a very effective job of it. That's where Junctions (jnctns.com) comes in, with a very innovative iPhone app that can help build maps of your social actions.
The service automatically builds "exMaps" (experience maps), which are 3D interactive maps of your social activity. Real-world interactions are noted in exMaps as crossable intersections called "junctions". Users can dynamically browse all content based on location, time and/or people.
For now, the system requires that you use their iPhone app, but that will be changing in the future. Soon you'll be able to add tweets to it with the #exMap hashtag, and they have other plans in mind as well. Personally, I'd love to be able to just feed it my full Twitter and FourSquare accounts and let it just parse the data from them. It seems like this is the direction they're heading, so it'll be fun to watch them progress.
To try it for yourself you can visit their website, which includes a sample exMap that you can play with, and you can download their free iPhone app here.
For more, check out the video below:
Posted by mickmel at 7:47 AM
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June 16, 2011
Create your own Street View images without a tripod
If you've ever wanted to create your own Street View images, GEB reader 'Steven' has written an excellent how-to post that explains the entire process. You'll need a camera and a fish-eye lens, and that's about it!
You can read about the process on his blog, view the panoramas he created at the National Taiwan University campus, or watch the short instructional video below.
I've created a few panoramas over the years, but nothing to this extent. Have you ever tried building your own Street View-like panoramas?
Posted by mickmel at 8:05 AM
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June 15, 2011
Play Touristo and Skydiver; very impressive games using the Google Earth Plug-in
Jeff Katz, the founding CEO or Orbitz, has recently released Travel Game, an excellent series of games that use the Google Earth Plug-in to power them.
The first game in here is called Touristo, which allows you to navigate through exciting areas using helicopters to find specific goals. The mapping, graphics and controls are all top-notch.
The second game is called Skydiver. In this one, you ride up in a helicopter, jump, and then use the arrow keys to try to land on a target on the ground.
The games utilize quite a bit of social networking, allowing you to connect to Facebook friends, send them gifts, etc, and even use their photos inside of the games. The best part is that the games will have real, free travel rewards, which should help encourage more users to play.
Beyond all else, the games are simply fun to play and make excellent use of the Google Earth Plug-in. Head over to jktravelgame.com and try them for yourself!
(via Ad Age Digital)
Posted by mickmel at 8:55 AM
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New Building Maker cities in Argentina and Canada
It was just last month that Google added some new cities to building maker, and now they've done it again. This time they've added five new cities in Argentina (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mar Del Plata, Mendoza, Rosario) as well as Ottawa, Canada.
The new 3D buildings will be a welcome addition in these cities. For example, Buenos Aires has solid 3D coverage, but most of the buildings are gray; hopefully Building Maker users (like you!) will help to bring some color to the city.
Even better, they're offering a contest to encourage users to build models in these new cities, by offering prizes for the Best Model and Most Models between now and August 8. Top prize in each category is a Casio GPS enabled camera, so it's a pretty sweet prize.
Head out to the building maker site and try it for yourself. So far I have 17 models that have been accepted into Google Earth via Building Maker. How many have you done?
Posted by mickmel at 7:48 AM
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June 14, 2011
New Google Earth Imagery - June 14
Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader 'Jorge', we see that Google has just released some fresh imagery into Google Earth!
As is usually the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!
[UPDATED - 14-June, 11:35am EST]
- Cambodia: Various areas -- thanks 'Rob'
- North Korea: Pyonyang -- thanks 'junjun'
- Peru: Lima -- thanks 'Jorge'
- Romania: Small area near Sfantu Gheorghe -- thanks 'Popescu'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 7:28 AM
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June 13, 2011
Google finally drops more 3D trees into Google Earth
When Google Earth 6 was released late last year, it brought with it the oft-requested feature of 3D trees. However, since that time, Google has only added a few additional sets of trees to Google Earth. The most notable was the substantial addition in London in preparation for the Royal Wedding.
Now Google has added trees in quite a few more cities including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, London and various cities in the California Bay Area. New York and London already had 3D tree coverage, so we can assume their coverage areas have been expanded with this latest release.
3D tree coverage makes an enormous difference in the realism of a particular area. As we said when they first unveiled this feature, it's something we've been waiting a long time for and we're glad they did such a fine job of building it. Now if we can just get some more trees added (Atlanta, please?), things will be even better!
To see them for yourself, simply open up Google Earth and fly to one of the cities listed above. Be sure that the "Trees" layer is checked under "3D Buildings" in the main "Layers" section on the left side of your Google Earth window.
Here's a short video that Google created to show off some of the new trees:
Posted by mickmel at 7:21 AM
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June 10, 2011
An amazing tour of the new U.S. Green Building Council headquarters
The United States Green Building Council recently renovated their 75,000 square foot headquarters, located in Washington, D.C. The building is loaded with the latest energy efficient features and has earned a LEED Platinum rating.
The building offers live tours, but not many of us are able to travel there for a tour. To help show off the building to the rest of us, they've created an incredible 3D tour of the building using the Google Earth Plug-in.
The tour gives a brief look at the outside of the building, but spends most of the time inside, where the level of detail is quite remarkable -- staircases, meeting rooms, and even bathroom sinks!
An audio tour guides you through the building, and you can click on a variety of items for more detail, photos and video clips. During your tour, you can also choose to download products from the building for use in your own SketchUp designs.
For more info, check out the Google SketchUp Blog, the USGBC Virtual Tour site, or just head there and try it for yourself!
Posted by mickmel at 9:09 AM
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Aerial imagery of the Wallow Fire in Arizona
Started on May 29, the Wallow Fire, located near the Arizona and New Mexico border, had already burned 389,000 acres when Landsat captured a stunning aerial image of it on June 7.
Smoke from the fire has affected air quality as far north as Wyoming and as far east as Georgia. The U.S. Geological Survey and NASA cooperate closely in managing the Landsat program and we have them to thank for images such as this.
To view it yourself in Google Earth, simply download this KML file. I created that image overlay using this Landsat image that was provided by the USGS.
Posted by mickmel at 7:34 AM
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June 9, 2011
Disney's Worldwide Conservation Fund
Since being established on Earth Day in 1995, Disney's Worldwide Conservation Fund has contributed more than $15 million to non-profit organizations around the world in a wide range of environmental conservation efforts. Visitors to Disney parks are able to contribute to this fund in a variety of ways, including opportunities to contribute while visiting "Animal Kingdom" and purchasing reusable shopping bags while on board the Disney Cruise Line.
Teaming up with Concept3D, Disney has just unveiled a Google Earth Plugin-based visualization that allows you to fly around the world to see the places where DWCF is working to protect wildlife.
When you click on an item, as seen above, you get a wealth of information including a text summary, photos, videos and links to other sites. They also include various "like" buttons to share items of interest with your friends on Facebook.
On Earth Day this year, Disney produced a short video that explains a bit more about their conservation efforts:
You can read more about their new Google Earth feature on the Disney Parks Blog, or try it yourself on their Google Earth Plugin-powered site.
Posted by mickmel at 9:15 AM
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June 8, 2011
View new high-resolution underwater terrain to celebrate World Oceans Day
In celebration of World Oceans Day, Google has released a significant amount of brand new high-resolution ocean floor imagery, amounting to an area larger than North America!
Captured from nearly 500 ship cruises and 12 different institutions, the data was curated by the Lamont-Dohery Earth Observatory. The image below shows the areas that have been udpated:
To explore more of the new features, Google has created a "Seafloor Updates layer" to show off the highlights, seen here:
The deepest volcanic eruption ever recorded was at the West Mata volcano near Fiji, photos of which can be seen in the Deep Sea Vents Ridge 2000 tour. Coincidentally, Frank is celebrating World Oceans Day by spending a full day diving in the ocean in Fiji. You can read about that experience on the Tahina Expedition blog.
All of this data is fun to look at, but there are some important scientific benefits as well. In particular, a more detailed ocean map can help us understand how tsunamis will spread around the globe. At this point, we know more about the surface of Mars and the Moon than we do about the ocean floor, so advances like these are becoming more critical.
For more about this, you can read the World Oceans Day blog post on the Google Lat Long blog, or visit WorldOceansDay.org.
Posted by mickmel at 2:55 PM
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The Living Oceans Society
The Living Oceans Society is focused on protecting Canada's Pacific coast from risks such as oil spills, salmon aquaculture and other industrial activity. As part of that, they've recently created an interactive map using the Google Earth Plug-in that focus on the oil risk for the coast.
Enbridge, operator of the world's longest crude oil and liquids pipeline, is planning the "Northern Gateway Pipelines Project", which would create two pipelines between Alberta's tar sands and a marine terminal in Kitimat, B.C. Once complete, roughly 220 supertankers would sail the area waters each year.
The Living Oceans map is an attempt to show a massive amount of data expressing the risk to the North Coast if the project goes through.
Visitors can view photos and facts about ecological features like salmon streams and eelgrass beds, critical orca habitat and sea lion haulouts. Other layers show the human presence on the coast, such as areas important for sport fishing and log harvesting and the locations of past marine accidents. Also available are layers showing local opposition to the proposed tankers, including the proposed tanker ban area. Through it all run Enbridge's proposed tanker routes.
Regardless which side you support in a fight like this, Living Oceans Society has done a great job of using Google Earth to support their side.
Posted by mickmel at 8:56 AM
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June 7, 2011
A space station on mars?
While this can almost certainly be chalked up to photographic noise or perhaps some strange colored rocks, an armchair astronomer has found an interesting structure while using Mars mode in Google Earth.
David Martines was randomly flying around Mars in Google Earth when he noticed the structure on the planet. He then created a YouTube video showing it off, and the video has racked up over 700,000 views!
[UPDATE: The video has been removed from YouTube, though we don't know why.]
Of course, none of this would even be possible if it wasn't for the excellent Mars feature that Google added as part of Google Earth 5.
To access Mars mode in Google Earth, simply click the planet icon at the top of the screen, and choose "Mars" from the dropdown, as shown here:
To view the "space station" on Mars, simply download this KML file and it will take you there.
What do you think the object could be?
Posted by mickmel at 8:14 AM
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June 6, 2011
Some tips on building useful tours in Google Earth
Many of us create tours in Google Earth, but have you ever thought about the usability of those tours for your users? Richard Treves tackled that exact question, and came out with a handful of great tips. In particular, he studied whether users could find the locations that were shown in the tour on a map, and what parameters affected that.
Speed didn't matter much. You can fly users into placemarks surprisingly fast without affecting their ability to find the location later.
Overview was important. If the tour pulled out to a high altitude to show the previous and next locations at once, the user was much more likely to be able to recall the locations of the placemarks.
Distance vs Direction was a problem. In most cases, users couldn't accurately estimate the distance between placemarks. Providing some kind of scale would likely help with this.
Richard gets into more detail in his write-up, so it's certainly worth checking out if you ever build tours in Google Earth.
Posted by mickmel at 8:01 AM
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June 3, 2011
3D model of Joplin tornado debris
Not long ago, we showed you some fresh imagery from Joplin, MO, after they were hit by that devastating tornado.
Steve Ansari from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) recently sent us an amazing file that shows debris from the tornado in a 3D model!
You can view it yourself using this KMZ file.
A report was recently released from NCDC which gives a summary on the Joplin event and includes a flash movie showing the visualization in Google Earth.
The software used to create the KMZ file is the NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit, which is developed at NCDC.
Here is a bit more about how this works, in Steve's words:
The Radar site conducts conical sweeps at increasing elevations off the ground and measures the 'reflectivity' of particles in the atmosphere. Large rain drops, hail, and in this case debris are represented as high reflectivity values and it is 'reflectivity' which we are most accustomed to seeing on television and internet weather maps. Each sweep is represented as a COLLADA model with the semi-transparent Reflectivity image draped on the model. In addition, several isosurfaces are created from the 3D reflectivity volume and represented as polygons in the KML. A tour is also included in the KMZ.
Posted by mickmel at 8:30 AM
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June 2, 2011
Brussels is now in amazing 3D
Google has just added thousands of new 3D buildings to Brussels, Belgium, and the city looks great!
They've included models from all across the city, including famous landmarks such as the Royal Palace, Cinquantenaire Jubilee Park and the Atomium. All of those have been included in a nice Google Earth tour that shows you the highlights of the city. The tour can be viewed from your browser or from inside of Google Earth with this KMZ file.
If you'd prefer, you can watch the tour in the video below:
It's an amazing collection of buildings, and it's largely thanks to your contributions. Don't forget that you can model buildings using Google's simple Building Maker tool, and hopefully you'll find some of your work in Google Earth in the near future.
Posted by mickmel at 8:22 AM
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