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September 30, 2011
The busiest airports of 2011
Over the years, the folks at Google Sightseeing have continually produced excellent content. They tend to use Google Maps for their views, so we always like to see how their locations look in Google Earth as well. In the past year or so, we've shown you some of their items such as the set of "Wipeout" and exploring the deserts.
Their latest feature covers the Top 5 Busiest Airports of 2011. Living in Atlanta, home of the world's busiest airport, these kinds of stories always interest me. The numbers shown below are the total number of passengers from January-May, 2011. Let's get to the list.
5. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) -- 24,230,832 - KML
4. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) -- 25,986,415 - KML
3. London Heathrow Airport (LHR) -- 26,733,585 -- KML
2. Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) -- 31,080,482 -- KML
1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) -- 36,548,629 -- KML
Another neat image of the Atlanta Airport comes from the folks at Trendsmap. They captured all of the geo-located tweets in the Atlanta area over the course of a year, then plotted them against a dark background. The result is quite cool, as you can clearly see the various terminals of the airport, which are connected by underground tunnels. (details on Flickr)
For other interesting airports in Google Earth, check out the scariest airports in the Caribbean, or perhaps Peter Olsen's amazing recreation of the 1977 Tenerife Airport disaster.
What's your favorite airport in Google Earth?
Posted by mickmel at 7:12 AM
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September 23, 2011
Google Earth 6.1 adds a few KML features
Our post on Google Earth 6.1 covered all of the details that we could find about the newest release of Google Earth, but Google just unveiled a few more -- some nice KML changes for developers.
Line Labels
The first is a change to the way line labels are displayed. Labels are now turned off by default in Google Earth 6.1, but you can add them at the midpoint of regular lines by using the new <gx:labelVisibility> in a <LineStyle>. Here's an example KML, as well as a screenshot below.
Improved handling of Street View in Tours
Google Earth 6.1 added some nice improvements to the Street View feature, including a wider field-of-view to match the Google Maps Street View experience. Because Maps and Earth had a different field of view, Tours that used Street View elements would always stay consistent when viewed later. You can now use the <gx:horizFov> in your <Camera> and <LookAt> tags to remedy this. Below is a video showing this change, and here is the KML file to see it for yourself.
To learn more about these new features, you can read the full post over on the Google Geo Developers Blog.
Posted by mickmel at 7:14 AM
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September 22, 2011
New Google Earth Imagery - September 22
Hot on the heels of the release of Google Earth 6.1, Google has released new imagery for various areas all across the globe.
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 - 23-September, 8:32am EST]
- Germany: Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Schleswig-Holstein -- thanks 'Andreas' and 'hhgygy'
- Greece: Areopoli, Gravia, Lefktro, Milia, Pelasgia -- thanks 'Andreas'
- Russia: Kursk -- thanks 'Olede4'
- Spain: Berlanga de Duero, Lerma and other areas -- thanks 'Andreas' and 'Anton'
- Turkey: Konya -- thanks 'Andreas'
- United States: California (Mount Shasta, Palm Springs), Colorado (Grand Junction), Iowa (various), Ohio (Columbus), Wyoming (Sheridan) -- thanks 'Dino', 'GT', 'Munden' and 'Tony'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM
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September 21, 2011
Google Earth 6.1 released
Google Earth 6.1 has just been released, and it comes with a handful of very nice features. You can download the new version here.
Changes to "Places"
With our ever-growing collections of saved Places in Google Earth, they've added a few tools to help us keep them organized. If you have a folder full of places, you can now click on that folder and sort them all from A-Z. In addition, there is now a small search bow at the bottom of your "places" window that allows you to search within your saved places to find items.
Changes to Street View
Late last year, Google added some big improvements to the Street View mode in Google Earth 6. They've now refined it a bit further by allowing you to single click to move to a new location (instead of requiring a double-click) and they've improved the zoom feature. Now you're able to use the slider control on the right side of the screen to zoom in and out with much greater control. Street View in Google Earth also has a slightly wider field of view, similar to that found in Google Maps.
New lengths in ruler
We just showed you some great ways to use the Google Earth ruler a few weeks ago, and it had a minor change with this update. When using the "line" tool, instead of just telling you the length of the line, it will show you the "map length" along with the "ground length" of the line, which can vary slightly.
New fonts for street/place labels
It's hard to tell exactly what they've done, but it appears the fonts have been reduced in thickness (un-bolded, sort of), but also increased slightly in size. In any case, they're a bit easier to read.
Minor tweaks in the sidebar
Along with the changes to the "Places" section, they've revamped some of icons over there, and turned the (+) folder expansions into soft arrows, to make it look a bit less harsh.
New settings in "Tools --> Options"
You can now set the "Units of Measurement" to use your system default (rather than specifically choosing feet vs. meters)
"View --> Reset" menu option
This is still accomplished more easily with the keyboard, but you now have some options to reset your view with the menu. If you'd prefer to reset with the keyboard, you can press "n" to face north, "u" to reset to a top-down view, or "r" to reset both.
"Help --> Upgrade to Google Earth Pro..." menu option
A very minor addition; another bit of encouragement to upgrade to Google Earth Pro. Clicking this simply loads an informational page on what you'll get in Google Earth Pro.
Updates in Google Earth Pro
Speaking of GE Pro, 6.1 has brought some nice updates to that product on top of the updates listed above including enhancements to the printing layout, movie maker and better support for proxies and SSL certificates. They also tied the elevation profile into the ruler tool, saving a step when working with paths, as shown in the screenshot here. More details about the Google Earth Pro updates can be found on the Google Enterprise Blog.
All in all, it's a solid update. Nothing groundbreaking, but lots of little enhancements to make the Google Earth experience better for every user.
If you notice any other changes, please leave a comment and let us know.
(via Google Lat Long Blog)
Posted by mickmel at 7:18 AM
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September 20, 2011
Visualizing 50,000 power plants in Google Earth
Enipedia is a wiki-based source for energry and industrial information. They have quite a comprehensive site, and they've just added some Google Earth tools that are very impressive.
In particular, their Power Plants tool does some neat things. At the basic level, it produces a Google Earth KML file that allows you to view over 50,000 power plants across the globe.
The icons on the map represent the fuel types used at each power plant, and the size of the circle around each plant is a representation of their electrical power output (MWh). Much of the data has come from sources such as carma.org, eGRID and E-PRTR.
An especially interesting piece of this is that it's wiki-based, meaning anyone can edit it. As they mention in the Google Earth Community, they run a script that is continually updating the KML with the latest information. This is a great way to take crowd-sourced information and display it for all to see. The KML that you download is actually a network link file, so it can always be updated with the latest information.
As far as I know, this is the largest database of its kind in Google Earth. Nice work, Enipedia!
Posted by mickmel at 8:25 AM
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September 19, 2011
How to speed up Google Earth
Some of you out there are running brand new, amazingly fast machines that can handle anything you throw at it and Google Earth consistently runs well. For the rest of us, though, we need to balance features vs. speed in order to keep things running smoothly.
With that in mind, here are some tips to help Google Earth run more smoothly on your computer.
DirectX vs. OpenGL (Windows only)
On Windows computers, you have a choice to run Google Earth in "DirectX" or "OpenGL" mode. You can change the setting from inside of the [Tools] --> [Options] menu, or start them separately from your main Start menu. There may not be much of a difference, but play with them and see what happens.
Disable some layers/places
If you're running with a whole bunch of Layers and Places open, try turning a few off. I enjoy keeping the Blue Marble overlay on quite often, along with a handful of other layers (roads, borders, 3D buildings, etc). However, things speed up considerably if I turn all of that off.
3D buildings are one of the biggest performance hogs, simply because they generate a lot of data to be displayed, so turning them off will help quite a bit. On the other hand, if you're wanting to find ways to improve 3D building performance, then disabling as many other layers as possible is your best move.
Anisotropic Filtering
Anisotropic filtering is one of those cool features in Google Earth that most people don't understand. In short, it helps keep things sharp when you're viewing imagery from a low angle. Here is an image from the anisotropic filtering Wikipedia entry, comparing it turned off (on the left) and on (on the right):
You can see that it certainly helps make things look better, but it also costs a bit of performance. Turning it off can help speed things up.
Antialiasing
Anti-aliasing is a technique used to smooth the edges of features in an image. In Google Earth, this is particularly noticeable on 3D models. For example, here is part of the Georgia Aquarium with Google Earth's Antialiasing set to "medium" on the left and "off" on the right. You can clearly see how much it improves the appearance of the building, though turning it off will help things to run a bit more smoothly. You can turn it off in the main [Tools] --> [Options] menu.
Terrain Quality
The entire globe in Google Earth is covered with a 3D terrain mesh. But adjusting the quality of that mesh, you can improve performance. Simply go to [Tools] --> [Options] and move the Terrain Quality slider further to the left.
Atmosphere
When zoomed out, Google Earth has a cool blue/gray atmosphere surrounding the earth. You can disable it by clicking on [View] --> [Atmosphere].
Water Surface
When Google Earth 5 was released, one of the big new features was the 3D ocean. Part of that new feature includes a realistic looking surface on the ocean. To disable that surface, go to [View] --> [Water Surface].
Cache
Google Earth keeps imagery in two types of caches to help improve performance. The Memory Cache holds imagery in your RAM, and is cleared each time you boot up your computer. The Disk Cache holds imagery on your hard drive for easier access. Incresing those numbers can help your performance. However, if you have a low amount of RAM or are low on hard drive space, you may be better off to decrease them a bit to give your computer a little more to work with.
None of these tips will make a huge difference by themselves, aside from any massive "Place" that you may have enabled, but added up they can make quite a difference. Play with some of the settings and see what happens.
If you think of any tips that I've missed, leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 9:44 AM
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September 15, 2011
KMZmaps - global overlays for you to use
We've seen global overlay files before on Google Earth, including items such as the popular blue marble overlay. The folks at KMZmaps.com have created a variety of very high-quality overlays for use in Google Earth. They're not free, but they're reasonably priced and quite impressive. Here are few of them:
Natural Globe: A more realistic view of Google Earth, very similar to the blue marble overlay but of considerably higher quality.
Night Lights: Very similar to the NASA "Earth City Lights" layer.
Colored Edges: There are a variety of Photoshop-edited overlays in here as well; various blurs and effects. Here is one called "colored edges" that is pretty neat.
They also have a collection of solid color overlays. These overlays are completely solid, effectively hiding the base imagery so that roads, borders and other items are more well-defined. Here is the dark red version of that, with the "Borders and Labels" and "Roads" layers turned on.
Like most maps of this variety, it fades away as you zoom in closer to reveal the base imagery. This allows you to run your favorite overlay all the time, as it will automatically hide itself when you zoom in close enough to look at the details of a specific location. The exception is a special version of the "solid black earth", which is set to never turn off when you zoom in. They offer both versions, so the choice is up to you.
As I said at the beginning, the big drawback to these files is that they're not free. They cost roughly $6/each (some vary a bit), with the full collection available for $24.95. However, they also offer a demo map so you can get a feel for how it works. It's covered with "www.KMZmaps.com" text, but you can get a feel for the quality of the imagery and the way the "auto-hide on zoom" works. You can download the sample KMZ file here. To see more of what they have to offer, visit their site at www.kmzmaps.com.
If you know of other overlays like this, free or paid, leave a comment and let us know.
Posted by mickmel at 8:11 AM
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Google Earth Explorer: A fun way to fly through Google Earth
Paul van Dinther is at it again, with another great Google Earth script for us to play with. You'll remember Paul from fun projects he's built such as Ships, Helicopters, and Drive the A-Team Van.
He's now developed GExplorer, a fun way to fly through Google Earth. It's a physics based 3D view controller that allows precise and smooth control of the camera. It does this by combining keyboard and mouse input. Camera movement is in 6 degrees of freedom meaning you can look anywhere and go anywhere. It takes some getting used to, but works amazingly well.
It feels a bit like the controls in a first-person shooter, where you move around with the keyboard and control your view with the mouse. The feeling of smoothly gliding over the mountains as you fly around Google Earth is quite amazing.
Here's a video showing it in action:
You can try it for yourself over on his site. Google has recently purchased GExplorer from Paul for the express purpose of making it open source. If you'd like to integrate it with a project of yours, head over to Google's GExplorer project page to get more information.
Posted by mickmel at 7:19 AM
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September 14, 2011
A detailed topographic map of New Zealand
Matt Fox at Google Earth Library has just created a very impressive topographic map overlay for New Zealand. The imagery is lined up perfectly, and amazingly sharp.
Matt grabbed all 455 maps from the Land Information of New Zealand and converted them to a seamless overlay. As he mentions on the site, the images are a bit slow to load because they're so sharp. After you load the KMZ file, give it a minute or two to get everything loaded in.
Try try it for yourself, just grab the KML file and then fly down to New Zealand.
Matt's GE Library also has many other collections of large datasets for viewing in Google Earth. He also has topographical overlays for the entire US from the USGS.
Great work Matt!
Posted by mickmel at 6:46 AM
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September 13, 2011
Burning Man 2011
As they did last year, GeoEye again captured a high-res image of the Burning Man event in northern Nevada. The image was posted at geeked.info, and we took it and turned into a KML image overlay.
The image is remarkably sharp, but it's over 12MB in size so it'll take a few seconds for it to load in Google Earth.
As part of the environmentally-friendly policies that Burning Man institutes, such as "Leave No Trace", they move the exact location around a little bit to help minimize the impact on the area. To illustrate that, here are outlines of Burning Man 2003, 2009 and 2011, and you can see the gradual shift.
To view those overlays in Google Earth, simply load this KML file.
Posted by mickmel at 7:00 AM
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September 12, 2011
Explosion at French nuclear site; use historical imagery to see it in Google Earth
There was an explosion at a French nuclear plant this morning that took the life of one worker and injured a few others. Fortunately, no leak has been reported and things seem to be under control.
I went to view the site in Google Earth (found via this KML file), but the view of the area is obscured in Google Earth.
However, a quick click of the historical imagery button reveals the full plant in high resolution, dated back to 2002.
The plant first went operational in 1956, and while things may have changed slightly in the last 9 years, the aerial imagery from 2002 seems to closely resemble the shots being shown on sites like Yahoo news.
So what's the purpose of blurring the imagery if it's that easy to obtain clear shots? Here are a few thoughts/ideas:
1 -- Google itself doesn't blur imagery; only their providers do. With that in mind, it seems unlikely that Google would ever go back and blur historical imagery if it was provided to them in an un-blurred state at some point. Another potential complication is that the most recent imagery was provided by GeoEye, while the older (clear) imagery was provided by DigitalGlobe.
2 -- Perhaps some construction at the site has been under way and things are different now than they were in 2002, or perhaps they are simply blurring the plant going forward to hide any changes that take place in the future.
3 -- The imagery in Bing Maps is only slightly blurred; it's still easy to see where the various buildings are located, though Bing doesn't provide a precise date on their imagery.
Any other thoughts? Is obscuring imagery becoming futile with so many imagery and mapping providers out there now?
Posted by mickmel at 9:30 AM
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Imagery from the wildfires in Texas
GeoEye and Google have teamed up to release some sharp new imagery from the wildfires in Texas. Here's a quick look at some of this amazing new imagery:
You can browse the fresh imagery using this KML file. Storyful has a nice write-up about the imagery, including a lot of before-and-after shots for various parts of the state.
A fun side-note of this story is that we can see that "LUECKE" still exists. Frank first mentioned LUECKE back in 2008 when he flew over it in his plane. The area of the carved out letters, formed by clusters of trees, is nearly 2.5 miles long. As you can see below, the new imagery from GeoEye includes the bottom strip of the letters, showing that it's still quite well-defined.
You can fly down to check out LUECKE by simply loading this KMZ file.
Posted by mickmel at 6:51 AM
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September 9, 2011
Remember 9/11 with Google Earth, Part 3: The future
We've shown you the past and the present of the World Trade Center area, and now it's time for a look at the future.
Modeled by Patrick Griffin, and found in the Google 3D Warehouse, this model is an excellent look at what the future holds. As with the original WTC buildings, these are best viewed if you right-click and "hide" some of the matching buildings that are currently under construction. You can browse these buildings in Google Earth by downloading this KMZ file.
Also of note is the stunning "Transportation Hub", which will be build on the east side of the plaza. While there isn't a model that I could find for Google Earth, you can preview a model of it that was created by user "Fish" in the 3D Warehouse.
Posted by mickmel at 6:41 AM
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September 8, 2011
Remember 9/11 with Google Earth, Part 2: The present
Yesterday we showed you some ways to view the World Trade Center as it existed prior to 9/11/01. Today we'll take a look at where things currently stand.
One of the best ways to get a feel for the current state of the area is to simply visit it in Google Earth (here is a KML file to fly you to it). Be sure to have the [3D Buildings] layer turned on and you'll see various buildings under construction, including cranes on top of them, and the 9/11 memorial nearly complete.
Last year, we showed you how to could view the completed 9/11 memorial in Google Earth, and it's an amazing piece of work (both in real life and in Google Earth). You can view the memorial in Google Earth with this KMZ file, get more information about it in the Google 3D Warehouse, or watch the video below for a brief fly-through:
Be sure to check back tomorrow for part three of our series, where we take a look at the future of the WTC area.
Posted by mickmel at 7:03 AM
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September 7, 2011
New Google Earth Imagery - September 7
A Google Earth imagery update is underway! Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader 'Falko P.' for letting us know about it.
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 - 7-September, 2:50pm EST]
- Germany: Ehningen, Flensburg, Hattingen and Thuringia -- thanks 'Armin', 'Falko', 'marek' and 'Michael'
- Serbia: Lebane -- thanks 'Edi'
- United States: Iowa (Cedar Falls, Waterloo), Minnesota (Rochester), Wisconsin (La Crosse) -- thanks 'Munden', 2011 EAA Airventure at Oshkosh -- Thanks Matt!
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know.
Posted by mickmel at 1:18 PM
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Remember 9/11 with Google Earth, Part 1: The past
With the 10 year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks coming up in a few days, we thought we'd look at some ways to use Google Earth to remember those lost in the attacks along with ways to look toward the future.
While Google Earth wasn't released until nearly four years after the towers fell, a handful of models were built to show the towers as they stood prior to 9/11/01. By loading this KML file (via GEH), you can see all of the towers that made up the original set of buildings, including the famous WTC 1 and WTC 2 buildings.
You'll notice that some of the new WTC buildings, still under construction, are already visible in Google Earth. For the purposes of showing the area in a pre-9/11 state, you can right-click those buildings and Hide them. They'll automatically re-appear next time you start Google Earth.
A more realistic-looking model was created by Patrick Griffin and can be found in the Google 3D Warehouse. His model, seen below, can be viewed by downloading this KML file.
You can also use Google Earth's Historical Imagery to view images of the twin towers by going back to 1997. The imagery isn't in color and isn't very sharp, but clearly shows the towers. You can also view imagery from 9/11/01, and see the smoke and dust as it floats out across the water.
There are also a variety of models that somewhat show how the attack unfolded, but none were particularly compelling. If you search the 3D Warehouse for something like "world trade center attack" you can find a few.
Check back tomorrow for part two, where we discuss the present state of the WTC site, and on Friday will look at the what the future holds for that historic site.
Posted by mickmel at 10:04 AM
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A few great new ways to get more out of Google SketchUp
A few great new items have been released to help make SketchUp an even more powerful product to use.
The first is the release of Shaderlight v2. We showed you Shaderlight earlier this year, as it's a great plugin that helps make your SketchUp models look amazingly realistic. With Shaderlight v2, it's even better.
You can read more about it on the Shadelight blog, or check out some videos of the new features on their YouTube channel.
The other interesting release is the PCB Converter plugin from RS Components. This plug-in can convert 2D circuit board designs from IDF to COLLADA, which SketchUp can then read and write.
For more about how this tool works, you can check out the Google SketchUp Blog or watch the short video below:
Posted by mickmel at 7:07 AM
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September 6, 2011
Running Google Earth offline from a portable server
One of the neat snippets in Google's recent blog post about training environmental journalists was that they're now using the Google Earth Portable Server in real-world environments, though still in a closed trial.
Google has always been very responsive when disasters strike, and the Portable Server could allow them to assist to an even larger degree. The Portable Server allows you to pre-load data from selected areas so that you're still able to access that data even if you enter an area with no internet connection, as is common after a disaster of any kind (flood, hurricane, tornado, etc).
Google explains it in further detail on this site, but their basic information states:
With the Google Earth Enterprise Portable solution your users can select and download portions of your private globe which they can serve and access locally from their laptop. Whether fighting fires or taking off in a plane, the Google Earth Enterprise portable gives your users the Google Earth experience when they are not connected to the Internet.
The portable solution consists of:
• A simple user interface to the Google Earth Enterprise system enabling users to extract portions of a globe based on a user-defined area of interest.
•A light-weight, cross-platform server that serves the extract globe on an end users machine.
For more information about Portable Earth Enterprise, visit the Google Earth Enterprise site or watch the short video below.
Posted by mickmel at 8:26 AM
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September 5, 2011
Tracking hurricane wind speeds in Google Earth
Back in 2006, we showed you a tool from Jeremy Cothran at the University of South Carolina that provided a ton of near real-time weather data from various sensors around the southeastern United States.
Jeremy has now taken that vast amount of data, and simplified it to highlight significant events among those sensors. In particular, it highlights wind gusts over 30 mph or wave heights over five feet. The result, when combined with other tools such as Google's built-in satellite overlay, can be quite useful.
The more significant events are shown using larger icons, making it easier to see where the heart of the action is. You can view it yourself by loading this KMZ file into Google Earth. You can also view the data using Google Maps, but it loses the label styling and time slider functionality.
In both cases, the data shown is from the past 24 hours, and is updated hourly with new information. Nice work, Jeremy!
Posted by mickmel at 8:15 AM
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The Red Rock Fire in Google Earth
Discovered on August 20, the Red Rock fire in the Gros Ventre Wilderness in western Wyoming had burned nearly 3,000 acres by August 23 when NASA's Earth Observatory Landsat Program captured the image below.
To see it for yourself in Google Earth, you can using this KML file. You can also download a high-res (5 MB) jpg of the imagery here.
As with most of the images that we see from the Earth Observatory, this one is a stunning capture of an amazing natural event.
(via NASA Earth Observatory)
Posted by mickmel at 7:36 AM
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September 2, 2011
Measuring distances with the Google Earth Ruler
The "ruler" tool in Google Earth has always been useful, and it has seen a number of improvements over the years. To get started with it, simply go to [Tools] --> [Ruler] in Google Earth and it'll open up for you in a small window.
Here are a few things you can do with it:
Measure the length of a field
To measure the length of a field (or driveway, or any other straight line), simply use the "line" feature in the ruler. Choose your unit of measure (inches, meters, miles, etc) and then click the two points on the ground you'd like to measure. That's it -- it's very easy!
Measure a running/biking route
I have a GPS-enabled watch that can track how far I run, which is quite cool. However, I usually want to know how far my route is before I head out, and the Ruler's "path" tool is great for that. By choosing the path, and then clicking various points along my route, I can see how far it'll be. As long as you plot your points carefully, it will be remarkably accurate. I also change the setting to "miles" for this one, since that's how I typically measure my runs. This would also work well for biking, hiking, or just walking. You could potentially use it to measure driving distance, though the standard "directions" feature would work better in most of those cases.
Save and edit your path
Once you've created your path, you might want to save it for future reference. Simply click the "save" button in the Ruler's window and it will save the path to your "Temporary Places" folder. You can edit the path in the future by right-clicking on the item from within your "places" panel and choosing "properties".
Get an elevation profile
One of the great new features unveiled in Google Earth 5.2 last year was "Elevation Profiles". This allows you to quickly see the elevation changes over a particular area. If you save your path in Google Earth, you can view the elevation profile for it very easily. Right-click on the item you saved in your "places" panel and choose "Show Elevation Profile".
In this example, we'll hike up Kennesaw mountain, and then follow the service road to get back down. You can see that the elevation profile shows the steep ascent, followed by the more gradual descent on the way back down.
The Ruler tool in Google Earth can be quite useful, so head into [Tools] --> [Ruler] to try it for yourself!
Posted by mickmel at 7:08 AM
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September 1, 2011
More 3D trees added to Google Earth; Boulder, Denver and Los Angeles
The addition of trees to Google Earth 6 was an awesome enhancement that made some big cities in Google Earth look remarkably more realistic. While they're rolling out at a fairly slow pace, it's nice to see Google continue to push it out to a few more cities.
The newest cities to get the trees are Boulder and Denver, Colorado and Los Angeles, California.
The new trees in Denver are of particular interest to me. I wrote a post on Digital Earth Blog more than three years ago comparing Denver in Google Earth and Microsoft's (then-titled) Virtual Earth. At the time, Virtual Earth looked far better than Google Earth thanks to the trees. However, Google Earth has blown way past the look of Virtual Earth thanks to the improvements in satellite imagery and 3D buildings in the past few years.
First, here's a look at the Colorado State Captiol building in Google Earth circa 2007. There are a few modeled buildings, a handful of gray buildings, and certainly no 3D trees:
Next, here's a shot from Virtual Earth, also in 2007. There are quite a few more 3D rendered buildings, but the textures on them aren't very sharp. The trees are a nice touch, though:
Finally, here's a look at the same view in Google Earth, as seen today. The buildings are amazingly sharp, and the trees look far more realistic than what we saw in Virtual Earth in the past:
This comparison helps to show why Google is taking so long between cities with the addition of 3D trees -- they're doing it right. Rather than clumps of virtually identical trees like you saw in Virtual Earth, they're taking the time to get the right species and height of each tree. The results speak for themselves.
To see these new trees, simply search for Boulder, Denver or Los Angeles in your Google Earth search window and make sure you have [Trees] enabled in the [3D Buildings] layer.
(via Google Lat Long Blog)
Posted by mickmel at 7:57 AM
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