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October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween! Here's how to turn Google Earth into a giant pumpkin.
Five years ago, Frank Taylor made a cool pumpkin overlay for Google Earth. It's still a fun toy to play with, so we're showing it off again. To make it work, simply download the KML here 
and that's it!
For maximum benefit, turn off the atmosphere ("View -> Atmosphere") and the "Borders & Labels" (found in the "Layers" on the left side of your Google Earth window).
The pumpkin was created using a simple image overlay that he wrapped around the globe, then added a 3D model for the stem. You can read details on how that's done in this post of his from a few years ago.
If you want more, you can check out a bunch of Halloween goodness in the Google 3D Warehouse or maybe check out the "Pumpkin Man" in Google StreetView, found in the Disney Resort in Paris.
Happy Halloween!
Posted by mickmel at 6:26 AM
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October 25, 2011
The MLK National Memorial in 3D
Not long after recreating the Stone Mountain sculpture in 3D, Peter Olsen decided to tackle the brand new Martin Luther King National Memorial, located in the National Mall in Washington, D.C. As you can see below, his model is amazingly detailed. Not only is the figure of MLK curved and detailed, but the text on the side of the statue is very clear and readable.
However, just like his Stone Mountain model, he found that it was difficult to piece together because some things simply weren't adding up.
In his words:
When you read the literature on the "creation" of the monument, the sculpture consists of a "mountain" (The Mountain of Despair) from which a "stone" (the Stone of Hope) has been pushed. (See the write-up on the official web site) There is also an animation somewhere that I came across that shows the stone centre being pushed out from the middle of the mountain.
So based on that I built the central stone first, as per the above, and was then going to clone the central faces of the mountain from the sides of the stone. There is just one slight problem. Based on numerous photos if have studied, if you take the stone and push it back into the slot in the mountain it does not line up with the cutaway sides of the mountain.
The average person would never notice this anomaly. However, Peter takes great pride in building incredibly accurate models and little missteps like this can be frustrating.
In any case, he did an amazing job with the models. As you can see, he built all three sections of the memorial -- the mountain, the model of MLK, and the memorial wall.
To see it for yourself in Google Earth, simply fly there using this KML file.
As always, great work Peter!
Posted by mickmel at 6:38 AM
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October 24, 2011
Locations of some current events: Turkey earthquake and Gaddafi's death
Over the weekend, southeastern Turkey was shaken by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake (MSNBC, CNN), causing major damage and taking hundreds of lives.
While fresh imagery from the area hasn't been released yet, you can view the approximate location of the earthquake by uisng this KMZ file, generated by user 'Groovy23' in the Google Earth Community.
Another big news story last week was when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in the city of Sirte. 'Groovy23' has also posted a great KMZ file that shows some of the areas relevant to that story. He uses a simple overlay with arrows, locations, and even an embedded photo.
The current events forum in the Google Earth Community is a great way to see world news events in Google Earth. If a story breaks, check in there and you'll likely find a KMZ file that will help add some geographic context to it.
Posted by mickmel at 8:32 AM
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October 21, 2011
YoubeQ, a 3D social network in Google Earth
While we've seen various 3D social networks in the past, such as Second Life and Google Lively, YoubeQ is the first social network that exists inside of Google Earth (via the Google Earth Plug-in). We've see things like simple discussion forums and a simple MMORPG, but this is the first one I've seen that allows such live interactions inside of the Google Earth environment.
YoubeQ puts you on a Segway to drive around the globe, with the option to quickly teleport to any location that you wish to visit. You can click on other users to chat with them, collect stamps as you travel the globe, and it has a variety of other features (with many more coming). When you start the game, you're placed in front of some billboards in New York's Central Park that show you the basics of the game:
The game displays all 3D buildings and trees in Google Earth, making it fun to explore. Like the "Drive the A-Team Van" game, the buildings have collision detection on them which helps make things more realistic. However, I found a few cases where I teleported inside of a building (try going to "Atlanta, GA") and I couldn't get out.
I tried various Atlanta landmarks to teleport my way out ("Georgia Aquarium", "Turner Field"), but was stuck inside all of those as well! I finally escaped by teleporting to "Georgia Tech", which put me in a field near the campus.
Minor hiccups aside, it's a well-built game. It'll be interesting to see how it develops once it has more players scooting around in there. This info from the developers helps to explain some of the features a bit more clearly:
The users will have the possibility to connect to each other, to talk in a chat, move together exploring the cities in 3d and have access to a range of applications inside the platform.
You will be able to recreate reality or create a new one over the world we know. You are going to communicate and share information in a revolutionary system, at the same time you create your own profile and promote yourself.
To chat with other users you just click on their avatars. It is possible to find users by name or e-mail, and start to chat immediately with them. The user can also teleport himself wherever he wants, for instance, where a friend of his might be that moment.
As mentioned above youbeQ users will have the possibility to create a profile. However, an important part of their profile will depend of their interaction with the world and other users. We developed a concept called stamps on the passport, which is a testimony that another user liked you and your kind of interaction. Other relevant detail is that the Platform keeps a record about your last location, the travel log, you restart in the same place where you abandoned it.
There will be several games and virtual worlds to explore, everybody has access to try it, but for regular use you have to have high levels of popularity (a lot stamps). The purpose is to boost interaction and leverage the use of the youbeQ.
[UPDATE, October 24, 2011 -- New registration code below]
While the game itself is still in beta, it has a ton of potential. The beta is currently closed, but we have an invitation code to allow 200 of you to sign-up today! Head to youbeq.com and use the code youbeq4GLJR7610J to sign up instantly.
Posted by mickmel at 6:31 AM
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October 20, 2011
Tweaking the Google Earth Flight Simulator
It's been more than four years since Google first added the flight simulator to Google Earth, and it remains one of the most popular features in Google Earth. As the quality of Google Earth's imagery, terrain and 3D buildings have improved over the years, it's helped make the flight simulator experience even better.
However, that wasn't enough for user 'that1anonymousdude'. He's created a file that will modify your flight sim and let you turn the speed up really high. Using his mod, you can fly up to around 100,000 knots, while keeping solid control, and even fly up into space. It's quite cool. Here's a video of it in action:
His program modifies the flight sim config files to allow you to reach these crazy speeds (it doesn't actually modify the actual Google Earth software). He's released the source code so you can see how it works, and I've scanned it to verify there are no viruses or anything in it. However, always use caution when loading a third-party executable file on your computer.
To learn more about it and to try it for yourself, visit this thread in the Google Earth Hacks forums.
Posted by mickmel at 7:23 AM
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October 19, 2011
New Google Earth Imagery - October 19
Google Earth has just rolled out some fresh imagery for us! Thanks to GEB reader 'Sean' for being the first to let us know about it.
As is almost always 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 -- 19-October, 4:29pm EST]
- China: Jinan (Shandong Province) -- thanks 'yuanhang'
- United States: Indiana (Terre Haute), Iowa (Davenport, Newton), Kansas (Emporia, Lawrence), Minnesota (Benidji), Missouri (St. Louis), Montana (Wolf Point), North Dakota (Williston), Oregon (Klamath Falls, Portland), Washington (Redmond, Seattle, Tacoma), Wyoming (Lovell) -- thanks 'jamesf', 'JJ', 'Munden' and 'Sean'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 9:39 AM
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Street View captures a commercial shoot in progress
Sometimes the timing of the Google Street View car is pretty cool. Take the following story from user "Highground3" in the Google Earth Community:
This is where a 2011 Lipitor commercial was filmed (the one where a cyclist starts off by watching cyclists zoom past him down a steep hill, and he remembers how when he was young that he didn't where a helmet)...what makes it most amazing is that the Google Street View crew were driving by on the very day of that shoot! Please view the Street Scene yourself...AMAZING...What are the odds? The two subsequent scenes were filmed just up the street and the final scene was filmed at the Knotts Berry Farm Boomerang rollercoaster.
When viewing the commercial on television for the first time, the thought was simply, "Nice location...Wonder where that commercial was filmed?"...clearly it was somewhere in sunny southern California. Next thought?...See if it is possible to find it by using Google Earth.
The location was found by quickly perusing Google Earth along the southern California coast until a likely match was made(primarily by correlating the pacific coastline shape and the circular water tanks in the background behind the cyclist as he talks to the camera). To make certain that it was indeed the correct location, the next step was to drop down to ground level with Street View to make verify the same view as in the commercial. To this browser's complete surprise, not only was this the correct location, but Street View cameras actually caught the commercial in the very act of being filmed!
That's a great find, Highground3!
Below is a screenshot of the Street View, and you can view it for yourself in Google Earth by using this KMZ file to find the location, then diving into Street View mode.
Posted by mickmel at 8:50 AM
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October 18, 2011
Responding to the Thailand Floods
As Google often does during disasters (such as the Gulf Oil Spill and the Japan Earthquake, Google has set up a Crisis Response page to help provide information for those trying to assist with the flooding in Thailand.
The flooding has become quite devastating and more widespread than most people realize. From Google's page:
Thailand is currently facing its worst flooding in 50 years. Flood waters have swamped more than two-thirds of the country, submerging rice fields and shutting down hundreds of factories while over 900,000 families and businesses have been impacted and hundreds of lives have been tragically lost. National relief efforts are now focused on providing essential food, clean water and shelter to displaced people and restoring damaged infrastructure to the Kingdom of Smiles.
You can use the map on their page, or download various elements as KML files to be able to browse them in Google Earth. For example, here is the "Flood affected areas across Thailand" map (KML), which gives you a quick glance at the hardest hit areas.
For fresh satellite imagery of the area, you can use the imagery released by the NASA Earth Observatory a few days ago. You can view the image on their site, or see it in Google Earth with this KML image overlay.
(via Google Maps Mania)
Posted by mickmel at 7:50 AM
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October 17, 2011
A round-up of the great (American) Football resources in Google Earth
With NFL and NCAA football both in high gear, we thought we'd take a look at various football-related resources in Google Earth.
A few years back, Google showed off all of the 245 NCAA football stadiums, many of which are in 3D. You can explore them yourself using this KML file.
Another way to see them is by viewing some of the stadium collections on EarthSwoop, which allow you to fly from stadium to stadium via the Google Earth Plug-in: ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 10, SEC and the entire NFL.
Speaking of the NFL, it's worth checking out Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. It hosted the Super Bowl earlier this year, and it's an amazing model. Read more about it, check it out with this KML file, or watch the video that Google produced to help you explore it:
If you're looking to play some football, you can check out the Google Earth-based football game that I created a few years ago. I'm sure it could be done better with the Google Earth Plug-in now, but it's still pretty fun.
Are there any other great football-related resources that should be added to the list?
Posted by mickmel at 8:39 AM
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October 14, 2011
Google Maps moves a bit closer to Google Earth with WebGL
Google has just introduced a test mode on Google Maps that enables WebGL to help draw the maps, and the results have moved it a step closer to Google Earth. If you're using a WebGL-enabled browser, such as a recent version of Google Chrome or the new Firefox beta, you'll see a note in the lower left corner of Google Maps inviting you to try it out.
The result is a much smoother experience; lots of animations to ease the transitions when zooming in, rotating 45 degree imagery, or switching into Street View. It also enables the transparent 3D buildings like you'll see in the Android version of Google Maps.
All in all, it feels very similar to the Android version of Maps, with a few exceptions:
1 -- You can't angle your view or rotate the map, with the exception of the 45 degree imagery. On Android, you can angle and rotate freely on the street maps.
2 -- The new transparent 3D buildings in Google Maps now cast shadows, which is a nice effect not seen in the Android version. Even better, as +Nick Altmann pointed out, the shadows are time-of-day (and likely day-of-year) accurate! Very cool. Here's a screenshot of Los Angeles, taken around 3:45pm local time:
It's certainly no where near the depth of Google Earth (or the Google Earth Plug-in, also available inside of Google Maps), but it's another step in that direction. It's possible that the products could one day merge, but it seems that we're still quite a distance from that.
For more about these upgrades, check out the Google Lat Long Blog, view their video below, or try it for yourself on Google Maps.
Posted by mickmel at 10:00 AM
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October 13, 2011
A tribute to Steve Jobs in Google Earth
Steve Jobs undoubtedly had an effect on almost all of the technology that we use today. While he had relatively little impact on products like Google Earth (because Apple never created competing technology to help push things forward), his impact reached all of us.
That said, geospatial technologies can be used to help honor people in a unique way, such as the timeline of Louis Zamperini's life.
Similarly, Google Maps Mania recently posted a timeline of Steve Jobs' life. Steven Ho, who recently built the Trip View Bowl visualization, has built a nice tribute to Jobs in Google Earth. It turns Earth into a giant apple, with a silhouette of Jobs' face on the side.
It's easily one of the largest 3D models we've seen, similar to the pumpkin or the giant mustached smiley face we show you for movember each year. The giant apple is part of a short tour that he created, which also includes music and a quote about Steve.
To see it for yourself, you can view it with the Google Earth Plug-in, via this KMZ file, or by watching the short video from Steven below:
Posted by mickmel at 6:34 AM
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October 12, 2011
Sea Ice Extent Animation updated for 2011
As they've done for the past few years (here is 2010), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has produced their annual Sea Ice Extent data
While 2011 wasn't a record year for ice loss, it came close, ending just slightly above the mark set in 2007. You can view the data for yourself by loading this KMZ file.
Here are the details for this year:
Average ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles), 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. This was 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) above the average for September 2007, the lowest monthly extent in the satellite record. Ice extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average everywhere except in the East Greenland Sea, where conditions were near average.
As in recent years, northern shipping routes opened up this summer. The Northern Sea Route opened by mid August and still appeared to be open as of the end of September. The southern "Amundsen Route" of the Northwest Passage, through the straits of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, opened for the fifth year in a row. Overall, sea ice in the wider and deeper northern route through Parry Channel reached a record low, according to Stephen Howell of Environment Canada, based on Canadian Ice Service analysis. Parry Channel had a narrow strip of ice that blocked a short section of the channel, but it did appear to open briefly in early September.
You can read more about this year's data on the NSIDC site or by watching the video below, which shows all of the data from 1979-2011:
Posted by mickmel at 8:22 AM
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October 11, 2011
Ed Lee uses Google Earth to show his plan for San Francisco job growth
I don't know the details of Ed Lee's political agenda, and that information is irrelevant for this post, but he's recently used Google Earth in a very creative way. In one of his recent TV ads, Ed made great use of Google Earth to help show off his plan for creating new jobs across the San Francisco area.
Details on how the video was created aren't available, but it appears that they simply took some carefully-planned Google Earth footage and then added all of the labels and highlights in a video editing suite like Final Cut Pro. As such, no KML or tour are available.
Interestingly, they apparently chose to shoot the footage with the 3D Tree layer turned off, or else they created the video prior to last November when 3D trees were unveiled in San Francisco. For example, the park shown at the 0:20 mark of the video looks much better with the tree layer enabled:
That said, it's an excellent way to show off this kind of information in a quick commercial. The high altitude between stops helps to show users where they are, and the solid 3D coverage in the San Francisco area really helps it come to life.
(via Politico)
Posted by mickmel at 8:47 AM
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October 10, 2011
Animated flooding in London
Earlier this year, we showed you the creative method that Richard Treves developed to simulate a 100m rise in sea level in London.
He's back now with an updated file that generates some slick animations to fly you to London and to animate the rising water. You can read about it on his blog, and try it yourself with this KMZ file.
Making it even better is all of the additional 3D buildings that have been added to London this year, making things look much more realistic and helping to show the depth of the water (the 3D trees don't hurt either).
Be sure to check out Google Earth Design for details on how this file works. Great job, Rich!
Posted by mickmel at 8:17 AM
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October 7, 2011
Google Earth used to prove illegal mining in Goa, India
As far back as 2006, we've seen Google Earth used to help protect land from illegal mining and tree cutting. Now comes a story out of India that helped prove that politician Dinar Tarcar had been extracting far more ore than allowed from the Tembocheo Dongor mine. By using historical imagery from 2003, they were able to show the progress of the mine to prove how quickly it had expanded.
[UPDATE: Ogle Earth has a full story about this, including the likely location of the mine.]
"The Google pictures of the year 2003 clearly show that the area was virgin land and it is not possible to agree with any fallacious contention that several million tonne of ore dump accumulated has been done on account of earlier dumps," the report says pointing out to illegal activities in a mine operated at Tembocheo Dongor by Dinar Tarcar, in survey number 59/51.
That mine at Tembocheo Dongor had extracted ore in excess of the 3-lakh tonne limit set by the environmental clearance. The report has blamed the mines department, headed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat for the last 12 years, for ignoring this violation.
You can read more about it on the Daily Pioneer. However, we've been unable to find the exact location of Tembocheo Dongor. If you're able to track it down, leave a comment so we can all take a look at it. Here's a KML file to fly you to Goa to get started.
(via @OgleEarth)
Posted by mickmel at 8:28 AM
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October 6, 2011
More than one billion downloads for Google Earth
Google Earth has just hit a major milestone -- one billion downloads. Wow!
In celebration of that, Google has created a great video highlighting some of the things you can do with Google Earth:
To show some of the ways that people have used Google Earth over the past six years, Google has compiled some of their stories and put them up on OneWorldManyStories.com for you to explore.
In addition, they built a great infographic showing off many of the features that you'll find in Google Earth.
Included in the graphic:
• Explore the 80M 3D trees of Earth's forests (introduced with Google Earth 6)
• Get lost in dozens of 3D rendered cities around the planet, as well as monuments such as Christ the Redeemer, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Pyramids of Giza
• Travel through time with Historical Imagery
• Swim among 1,288 shipwrecks, including the Titanic in 3D.
• Dive to half of the known oceans in high resolution
• Create virtual tours
• Walk in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong
• Soar through 100M stars and 200M galaxies
• Follow the Mars Exploration Rovers' paths (Google Mars
One other fun post comes from Google's Mike Pegg, who posted a list of his favorite things about Google Earth. Some of it is duplicated above, but he mentions some other useful tools like the 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator.
With all of the amazing features in Google Earth, which is your favorite?
Posted by mickmel at 8:02 AM
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October 5, 2011
New Google Earth Imagery - October 5
It's been quite a day for Google Earth. First they announced their one billionth download (which we'll discuss more tomorrow), and now it seems that they've released a fairly substantial imagery update. Thanks to GEB reader 'Andreas' for being the first to let 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 - 5-October, 3:03pm EST]
- Germany: Kiel -- thanks 'Munden'
- Greece: Vrontamas -- thanks 'Andreas'
- Spain: Castellar de Santiago, Villanueva de los Infantes -- thanks 'Andreas'
- United States: Colorado (Durango), Iowa (Mason City), Kansas (Salina), Montana (Great Falls), Oregon (Burns, Eugene, Warm Springs), Texas (Dumas), Utah (Logan), Washington (Walla Walla), Wyoming (Gillette) -- thanks 'Andreas'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 1:09 PM
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New 3D trees in Portland, Oregon
Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader 'Donovan', it appears that Google has just released thousands of 3D trees in Portland, Oregon (and possibly some other cities).
[Update: Because the "Drive the A-Team Van" is set in Portland, it looks awesome with the new trees. Go try it out!]
When Google Earth 6 was released, they included 3D trees in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Athens, Tokyo and Berlin. In March they added trees to London in preparation for the royal wedding. In June, they added trees to Philadelphia, Boston, London and a few other cities in the California Bay Area. They followed that up in September with trees in Boulder, Denver and Los Angeles. Now we have Portland.
The tree releases have been fairly spread out, but this update comes barely a month after the previous release, so hopefully they'll be rolling these updates out at a more rapid pace.
Google hasn't officially announced this release, so there could be additional cities in there as well. Leave a comment and let us know if you find any others.
Posted by mickmel at 8:15 AM
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October 4, 2011
Searching the Earth for Art
We've seen sites in the past the collect various placemarks to view in Google Earth, giving you quick access to interesting sites around the world. Searthing.com is similar to some of those, but with a focus specifically on artist-looking imagery.
Searthing was created by Mack Lazarus and Tim Schmauch, who are behind the similar EarthArtWorld.com site. The two site both focus on artistic-looking imagery, but Searthing is designed in a blog format to show off much more of it.
With that in mind, here are some of the great places that they've uncovered:
Blue Phoenix (details)
Masterful Peace (details)
The images are stunning, but there's a minor problem -- most have no context to go with them. No maps, no KML, just an image. Fortunately, they're working on adding that kind of functionality to the site, and some are already complete. Here are a few examples of items that are shown using the Google Earth Plug-in:
• New Ruins
• Sea Cliffs
• Mystic Eye
• Sand Still
Ultimately, it might be best to do a hybrid of those ideas. Show users a static image so that it loads quickly, but then offer them a view via the plug-in and/or a downloadable KML file so they can explore further.
In any case, these are some great images, most of which I hadn't seen before. Check out more at Searthing.com. Nice work!
Posted by mickmel at 7:49 AM
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October 3, 2011
Tracking Bluefin Tuna across the Atlantic
Tracking the patterns of Bluefin Tuna in the Atlantic Ocean might not sound too exciting, but the use of Google Earth in showing their patterns makes it quite interesting.
Eduardo Garcia-Milagros with Encyclopedia of Life, who we've shown you before with a great quiz that they created in Google Earth, has put together some great information about these Tuna.
In particular, they've put together an excellent KMZ tour that shows what they're tracking, why they're tracking it, and the results of what they've discovered so far. The tour lasts around four minutes, and can be viewed with this KML file or by watching the video below:
You can learn more at the eol's Atlantic Bluefin Tuna podcast. Great work, Eduardo!
Posted by mickmel at 8:45 AM
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