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January 31, 2012
Geocaching with Google Earth
We took our daughters (ages 5 and 8) on their first geocaching adventure this weekend and it was great! We used the very popular Geocaching.com website, which had quite a few Google Earth tools to make our adventure easier to plan.
In particular, they have a Geocache Google Earth Viewer that you can download and use. It's essentially a network link that shows all of their geocache locations in Google Earth -- over 1.6 million of them!
It was quite handy to fly around in Google Earth, find local caches, then click to see if they were worth checking out. We eventually stumbled upon a local "challenge" (10 locations to find, including this one) and had a good time.
While the icons are clickable, I would like to see them have a bit more info. In particular, the "last found" date would be helpful, so you could quickly see if a cache was likely to still be in place.
They also integrate Google Earth by allowing you to create "routes" that are generated by uploading KML files.
For all of you geocachers out there, what is your favorite way to search for new caches to find?
Posted by mickmel at 8:03 AM
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January 25, 2012
Google Earth 6 now required for Street View
When Google Earth 6.0 was released, it completely changed the way that Street View worked. However, Google kept the older layer active for previous versions of Google Earth so that those users could continue to use Street View. Not anymore.
Sometime in the past few weeks, Google has turned off that old layer. If you're wanting to use Street View in Google Earth, you're now required to be using version 6.0 or higher.
Here's a quick look at how to use Street View in Google Earth 6:
In addition to that video, I've built a few other Google Earth tutorials to help explain some features, including how to use historical imagery, elevation profiles and a few more.
Beyond that, Google has just released Street View imagery in South Korea, primarily in Seoul and Busan. As you can see from the screen shot below, the imagery in those is very sharp.
You can read more about the new South Korean Street View imagery on the Google Lat Long Blog.
If you still need to upgrade to Google Earth 6 to get the new Street View features, you can always download it (for free!) from earth.google.com.
Posted by mickmel at 8:28 AM
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January 24, 2012
100 years since the Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica
100 years ago saw two very ill-fated attempts to explore Antarctica; Robert Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole and Sir Douglas Mawson's 1912 Eastern Expedition.
In honor of those events, Peter Olsen has built a handful of 3D models in Antarctica and they look amazing. You may remember Peter from his excellent models of the MLK National Memorial and Stone Mountain, among many others.
Here is a look at Robert Scott's hut at Cape Evans on Ross Island in Antarctica:
Peter has a a total of nine models available in his 3D Warehouse collection, with more on the way.
To learn more about these expeditions, you can check out this Wikipedia entry about Robert's Scotts "Terra Nova" Expedition or visit MawsonsHuts.aq for the story of Sir Douglas Mawson and his crew.
Great work, Peter!
Posted by mickmel at 7:57 AM
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January 23, 2012
Many improvements to Breadcrumbs
We first told you about Breadcrumbs in late 2010. They're a GPS track management site that offers a lot of great features through a nice interface. They've just gone through a major redesign and are now an even more compelling option to consider using.
In addition to the redesign, there are a handful of other great things that Breadcrumbs has done since we last mentioned them:
50,000 Tracks: Over 50,000 tracks are now in their database, including quite a few from GEB readers.
Integration with mobile apps: Breadcrumbs now can integrate with mobile apps on Garmin devices, Android, iPhone, Nokia and others.
WordPress plugin: They now have an official WordPress plugin to easily embed your tracks onto your WordPress-powered site.
Other new features: The redesign includes a handful of other features that you can read about on their blog.
All in all, it's quite a nice update. If you gather GPS tracks from anything (exercise, travel, etc), what product do you prefer to use to store and view them?
Posted by mickmel at 8:10 AM
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January 20, 2012
Traffic congestion visualization in Google Earth
We all know that Google Earth is great for visualizing an amazing array of information. However, sometimes it won't support a need that you have and a creative solution must be found. Such is the case today with Skycomp and their "traffic flow visualization" tool. It's no surprise to us that Paul van Dinther from PlanetInAction.com is the guy that made it happen -- he's built some amazing applications over the years, including the focus of yesterday's post on the cruise ship Costa Concordia. His solution to help Skycomp is quite innovative.
There are two main components that come together to make this happen.
First you have Skycomp, who have found a cost effective way to collect aerial footage of the same location over a sustained period. This involves maintaining an accurate position of the helicopter and complex image alignment and correction.
Secondly you have the Google Earth component. The imagery produced by Skycomp typically is taken at a 1 or 2 second interval and turned into a video. Unfortunately, Google Earth is not equipped to render video on the ground. So instead, Paul uses a sequence of ground overlays and individually turns them on and off using javascript and the Google Earth API. The application is designed to play back several minutes of footage of a busy intersection so a traffic flow analysis can be done. In order to produce a smooth looking playback the application actually fades the next image on top of the previous image. The amount of cross-fade can be reduced for more detailed frame by frame analysis. It's quite an impressive result.
You can try it for yourself by visiting www.planetinaction.com/skycomp/.
If you'd prefer, here's a video that shows off how the system works:
For more info, check out the latest edition of the Skycomp newsletter.
The next stage of the application will introduce the capability to export the animation as a KMZ file for playback on Google Earth Desktop using the tour mechanism, which would be quite impressive and very useful for people in this field.
Posted by mickmel at 8:56 AM
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January 19, 2012
Satellite imagery and 3D model of the cruise ship Costa Concordia
By now you've likely heard all about the wreck of the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner crashed off the Tuscan coast last Friday, killing at least 11 passengers.
DigitalGlobe has since captured aerial imagery of the site of the wreck, which can be found in their gallery or viewed below.
I've added that image to Google Earth as an image overlay, which you can view by downloading this KML file.
Another great way to view the ship is thanks to Paul van Dinther from PlanetInAction.com. A few years ago we showed you the amazing collection of cruise ships that Paul created for CleanCruising.com.au. One of the ships that Paul created for that project happened to be the Costa Concordia.
Since he had a 3D model of the ship and the skills to make some great tours, Paul put together this short video showing a bit about what happened.
Thanks to the generosity of the folks at CleanCruising.com.au, they've allowed Paul and PlanetInAction.com to release a full KMZ file of the stricken ship, which you can download in this KMZ file. Paul's model is amazingly accurate, and he includes various notes in the file to show the path of the ship.
Great work, Paul!
Posted by mickmel at 8:05 AM
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January 18, 2012
3D Android statues at Google headquarters
As you may have noticed over the years, we're big fans of Google Android. Google Earth is phenomenal on recent devices (3D buildings on the tablets and on the Galaxy Nexus). Each release of Android is given the name of a tasty treat -- Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. As each version is released, Google erects a statue in front of their headquarters of the most recent treat.
GEB reader 'Arek' felt that those statues deserved to be shown in Google Earth, so he modeled all of them and they've just been accepted into the main [3D Buildings] layer in Google Earth. They look great!
To see them for yourself, simply fly over there by using this KML file. Be sure you have the [3D Buildings] layer enabled. You can also view the collection that Arek created in the Google 3D Warehouse.
Of course, even better is viewing the 3D Android statues on an Android device, so here you go!
Great work, Arek!
Posted by mickmel at 9:20 AM
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January 17, 2012
Where 2.0 2012 coming in April
This spring, for the seventh year in a row, we'll be heading to the Where 2.0 conference in California. This year's event will be held at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis from April 2-4.
As they've done in past years, O'Reilly is offering a discount for GEB readers. If you register on their site and use the code 'WHR12GEB', you'll receive 15% off!
Leading up to the event, O'Reilly has quite a few mobile-themed webcasts they'll be showing. You can few them all right here:
We'll certainly be sharing more information about the conference as it approaches, but in the meantime you can visit the conference site at whereconf.com/where2012 or read below for more:
Now in its 8th year, the O'Reilly Where Conference is where the grassroots and leading-edge developers building location-aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. Where Conference presents leading trends rather than chasing them. Immerse yourself in three full days of hands-on training, information-rich sessions, and an Expo Hall filled with the key players and products. Where's topics and programs include: Mobile Development, Location Development, Business & Strategy, and Marketing, including an all day Location Marketing Boot Camp.
Join with hundreds of experts and practitioners in the mobile and location ecosystems and get a handle on what's happening now and what's lurking just below the radar - and how you can leverage location for your business.
Do you plan on attending Where 2.0 2012?
Posted by mickmel at 8:31 AM
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January 16, 2012
Visit the MLK National Memorial in 3D
Note: This is a re-post from this past October, and is very appropriate for today ("Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" in the United States)
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 8:43 AM
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January 13, 2012
Explore university campuses in 3D, then dive into StreetView
As part of the continual additions to Street View, Google has just added more university campuses around the world to the product, bringing the total number of Street View-able campuses to nearly 100.
Combine that with the fact that thousands of new 3D buildings are added to Google Earth each week, along with 3D trees in a growing number of cities, and you have some excellent tools at your disposal to help browse around your favorite college.
For example, below is Stanford University shown in Google Earth and Street View so you can compare the views:
Google has spotlighted a few other universities in a recent blog post and you can view the full list of Street View-enabled campuses on their site.
You can also view some extra goodies at a few schools (like the virtual campus at Northeastern University) and utilities such as Campus Bird help provide more geo context for hundreds of schools.
As good continues to add Street View at more schools, and schools continue to work on their 3D buildings, this kind of exploration will only get better!
Posted by mickmel at 8:00 AM
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January 12, 2012
New Google Earth Imagery - January 12
It's taken a few weeks, but we finally have our first imagery update of 2012! Thanks to 'Ali' for tipping us off to it on our Google+ page and thanks to 'Steven' for being the first to discover and confirm some fresh imagery. Also thanks to @NoelBallantyne for noticing a few other changes, such as some brightened imagery in Ireland.
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 -- 12-January, 5:12pm EST]
- Austria: Innsbruck, Linz -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
- France: Libourne and other areas -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
- Libya: Homs -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
- Trinidad: Port of Spain -- thanks 'Mark'
- United States: Arizona (Kingman), California (Colfax, Oakland), Mississippi (Grenada), New Mexico (Las Cruces), South Carolina (Greenwood), Texas (Brownwood, El Paso, Levelland, Longview, Lufkin, Ozona, San Angelo) -- thanks 'Steven'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 8:00 AM
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January 11, 2012
iSTAR: Using Google SketchUp to bring out the best in those with autism
It's amazing to see some of the ways that Google products can connect people, often in very unexpected ways. Cheryl Wright, Associate Professor in Family & Consumer Studies at the University of Utah, recently hosted some SketchUp camps known as iSTAR. The camps are designed for children on the autism spectrum, and have proven to be very useful for a variety of reasons.
The idea came from a seed planted almost eight years ago, as told by the Google SketchUp Blog:
About 8 years ago, the SketchUp team started receiving some pretty intriguing calls: parents of children on the autism spectrum were calling to let us know how SketchUp was changing their kids' lives. People with autism tend to be unusually strong visual and spatial thinkers, and it became clear that SketchUp plays to those strengths. With that bit of information (and help from the Autism Society of Boulder County), we launched Project Spectrum with a single goal: connecting the autism community with SketchUp.
The video below provides a brief look at the iSTAR camps:
Cheryl and her team have studied hours of footage from the iSTAR camps and have published a paper that details their findings. In addition, you can read more in this article on the University of Utah's web site.
SketchUp is an amazing tool to help model our 3D world, but has uses that go far beyond its original intent. Learn more about these excellent programs on the Google SketchUp Blog.
Posted by mickmel at 8:57 AM
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January 10, 2012
Track Sea Turtle migrations in Google Earth
Over the years, we've seen some great ways that Google Earth can be used to track the migration of various animals, including birds in Russia and Osprey.
Today's tool is used for tracking a single animal - Jklynn, a female Hawksbill sea turtle - as she makes her annual migration.
WIDECAST, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network that is a 2011 Google Earth Outreach grant awardee, tracks Jklynn via a transmitter and plots her location on a map. They've also turned it into a game ("The Great Migration Game"), encouraging students to try to predict where Jklynn will end up after nesting season.
Thanks to the transmissions of her location, they were able to capture video of Jklynn's first hatchlings on Klein Bonaire, seen here:
If you wish to follow Jklynn's journey, you can also track her via Twitter or Facebook. Be sure to also check out the other various organizations on the Google Earth Outreach site.
(via Google Lat Long Blog)
Posted by mickmel at 8:15 AM
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January 9, 2012
Wave mechanics in Google Earth
As you know, Google Earth contains a staggering amount of high-resolution imagery. Thanks to this, it provides a great opportunity to study interesting things such as wave mechanics.
Fabrizio Logiurato at Trento University in Italy has been studying wave mechanics in Google Earth and is finding it fascinating. He's cited a number of examples in his paper, including these below:
Interference on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand | KML
Diffraction and the reflection of circular waves at Port Elizabeth, South Africa | KML
(Use the historical imagery from 11/7/2006 to see the image below)
Wave diffraction at the opening of the port of Alexandria in Egypt | KML
Google Earth can be used for an amazingly wide variety of things, and this research by Fabrizio is another great example of that.
(via Technology Review)
Posted by mickmel at 8:00 AM
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January 6, 2012
Captain James Cook's circumnavigation of South Island, New Zealand
A few months ago, we showed you the awesome tour that Colin Hazlehurst put together of Captain James Cook's circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Colin has now completed the tour of Cook's South Island circumnavigation, and it's equally impressive.
To see the file for yourself, simply download this KML file. Colin has also put together a blog showing Cook's day-by-day journal, which is pretty neat.
I encourage you to check out those links to learn more, and below is some info from Colin that tells more about this voyage that Cook made.
On February 9, 1770, Endeavour reached Cape Turnagain after completing the circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Cook turned southward with the intention of sailing round Tovy Poenammu (South Island), a voyage which the people of Queen Charlotte's Sound had told him could be achieved in 3 or 4 days. The belief in this possibility persisted until 19Feb1770 when land was seen stretching off to the south-west, showing Cook that there was more to discover in that direction.
The voyage down the east side of the island identified the major features of the coast: Cape Campbell, Banks Island (actually a peninsula), Cape Saunders, and South Cape. On two occasions, exploratory trips were made away from the coast towards the south-east, in which direction people thought they could see land. What they saw turned out to be cloud which dissipated as the sun rose.
As when rounding North Cape on North Island, Endeavour was buffeted by storms and encountered strong swells as she rounded South Cape, and this convinced Cook that there was no land for a considerable distance to the south-west and that they had indeed reached the southernmost point of the land.
On the west coast they saw many of the bays that are now called the New Zealand Sounds, but were prevented from anchoring either by winds sweeping them past (Dusky Bay) or the uncertainty of being able to sail out at will (Doubtful Bay). There was much mist and fog as they explored this coast and typically they would hove to at night to avoid running aground.
Endeavour anchored for a few days in Admiralty Bay, not far from Queen Charlotte Sound. After refreshing the supplies of wood and water, Cook left the shores of New Zealand from Cape Farewell with the intention of exploring the east coast of New Holland (Australia).
Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM
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January 5, 2012
Great new 3D San Francisco site
After launching 3DHawaii and 3DLasVegas in the past few years, 3DTravel.com has just launched their ,3DSanFrancisco site and it's great!
I'm heading to San Francisco in a few months for Where 2.0, and I'm not familiar with the city, so it's been fun to use it to cruise around and check things out. While the San Francisco site isn't that much different from the Hawaii and Vegas sites, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's clear that they've spent a lot of time plotting destinations, adding content, creating tours, and building all of the other items that make the sites so useful.
You can read more about the new site here and visit it for yourself at sanfrancisco.3dtravel.com.
Posted by mickmel at 9:46 AM
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January 4, 2012
More ideas for using Google Earth in the classroom
Lucas Van de paer has a blog at teacher.be that highlights great ways to use technology in the classroom. One of his recent posts was titled 100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator. It's full of great ideas using a wide variety of Google products (Sites, Gmail, Calendar, etc), but we'll focus on his ideas for using Google Earth specifically:
• Share a 3D model of the world: With Google Earth, students will have access to a 3D model that can be grabbed, spun or zoomed in on.
• Set up science projects: Science projects like global warming can be done using Google Earth.
• Create a Google Earth tour: You can create a quick Google tour of any location.
• Work on Google Earth models: Using Google Earth and SketchUp, you can create models of a location.
• Scavenger hunt: Use Google Earth to create a scavenger hunt for students.
• Travel the real earth: Use Google Earth to travel explorations, migrations, history, and more.
• Make placemarks: Include live pictures and more with placemarks.
• Share heritage: Students can use Google Earth and other tools to show where they and their families are from.
Over the years, we've shown you a variety of ways to use Google Earth in the classroom. In fact, just a few weeks ago we highlighted Josh Williams and his excellent GEteach site.
If you're a teacher and have incorporated Google Earth into your class, leave a comment and tell us about it!
Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM
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January 3, 2012
Fun Easter Egg: Morrissey in front of the Salford Lads Club
On the cover of the 1986 The Queen is Dead LP, you'll find a photo of Morrissey standing in front of the Salford Lads Club in the UK with his arms folded across his chest. If you view the building in Google Earth, you'll see the same thing!
To see it for yourself, fly out there using this KML file and make sure that the [3D Buildings] layer is enabled.
The model was created by Ste Allan, who has created over 70 models that have been accepted into Google Earth.
That was a great little addition to the building, Ste!
(via Animal NY)
Posted by mickmel at 8:30 AM
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January 2, 2012
3D Fireworks in Google Earth
In celebration of the new year many people shot off fireworks, and we love to show off the work of GEB reader 'Steven' who took it a step further and created some great 3D fireworks in Google Earth! As you can read about in his blog, the fireworks are intended to duplicate the 2011 Taiwan New Years Eve show, based on the simulation that you can view here.
As you can see from the photo above, the fireworks aren't just simple animated images -- they're fully 3D! Some of them shoot into the sky, and some wrap around the Taipei 101 tower. As Steven points out in his post, animations like this are only possible because of the work of 3D modelers that created the buildings. In this case, credit goes to user tang Huang who created the exceptionally detailed model of the Taipei 101 tower.
To see the fireworks in action, you can view them here using the Google Earth Plug-in, download this KMZ file, or watch the video below:
For another fun way to view fireworks, Keir at Google Maps Mania built a map that allows you to view video from celebrations around the world. It's a simple map that does a great job.
Happy New Year!
Posted by mickmel at 8:23 AM
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