GPS Archives

May 13, 2009

News - Sky makes it to Android, Greece Halts Street View

  • Sky Goes Android - the Google Earth Sky application, which started out as an inside-out version of Google Earth to view the night sky, was first ported to Google Maps over a year ago. Now, Google has ported the app and data over to the Android mobile platform. Using position sensing and built-in compass feature of Android phones, the Android version of Sky can tell which part of the sky you're pointing at and show the sky map for that area. Sounds cool! I hope to see one next week when I go to California for Where 2.0.

  • Greece Halts Street View - I've had several reports the past few months from excited folks in Greece seeing Google cars shooting Street View. Now their government has decided to halt Street View shooting until they decide whether it is a good thing for their citizens (wow, those guys must be really powerful to stop Google! *snicker*). via Cnet

Posted by FrankTaylor at 6:18 AM | Comments (4)

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May 8, 2009

Current Positions of 10,000+ Ships World-wide in Google Earth

In the past few years, commercial shipping vessels have been required to broadcast a vessel position "transponder" similar to those used by aircraft. The system used is called AIS (Automatic Identification System) and uses GPS for position data, but also broadcasts other important data such as ship name, course, speed, and more. The system allows vessels at sea to have a much better awareness of other ships and, in particular, helps avoid the potential of collisions as the seas get increasingly more crowded (especially in ports).

Some academic researchers have been running a web site called MarineTraffic.com that shows the positions of ships around many ports around the world. They rely on a community of data collectors who simply need an AIS receiver and an Internet connection to provide data on ship positions for a given port. A number of similar sites have offered such data on the Internet before (for example, I mentioned VesselTracker.com a couple of years ago). Some of the vessel position report sites are only available on a subscription basis. But, MarineTraffic.com is the largest collection of data I've seen and its available for free.

The current MarineTraffic map shows over 10,000 ships. The positions of the ships may be up to 1 hour old, but are otherwise near real-time. Their primary interface is Google Maps which lets you zoom in to see more detail, but only shows a summary of the position data when zoomed out. Clicking on a region zooms you in to show the vessel positions (and headings). Clicking on a ship placemark can give you all kinds of interesting information including a picture of the ship (if they have it), speed, vessel type, size, draft, destination and more (the amount of data varies per ship).

They also have a Google Earth file that lets you view the entire dataset of vessels at once. Google Earth is better able to handle over 10,000 position placemarks at once - so you can actually view the entire data set. Also, with the Google Earth version you will see a link in the placemark that will let you see the recent GPS track of the vessel so you can see part of the route it took to get to its current position.

Marine Traffic vessel positions in Google Earth

Even Google Earth can get slowed down some by this many placemarks. The developers could use some KML tools to improve its efficiency. For example, by de-cluttering the number placemarks when zoomed higher. Read the MarineTraffic.com FAQ for more information on their data, research, maps, and AIS.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:14 AM | Comments (9)

April 13, 2009

Visualizing GPS Tracks for Trips with GE Plugin

Last week I noticed an interesting application of the Google Earth plugin for playing back a GPS track with photos on a travel site called @trip (www.a-trip.com). @trip, like many GPS track travel sites, lets you upload your GPS track and photos. They also have software available for download to geotag your photos and organize your journey log for viewing on the site. I didn't download the software, but it appears to be free and is made by the same company called Mobile Application Technology based in Taiwan.

@trip in Google Earth Plugin

What I found interesting is that @trip actually developed a playback mechanism very similar to the new Tour mode for GE, but by using the GE API. You can see an example by visiting one of the trip pages at @trip, and clicking on the 3D option buttons on the right. This will load the GE Plugin application which uses a 3D car as your point of reference in the 3D scene for playback - which automatically points in the direction of your travels. They have their own set of controls for playback that includes speeding and slowing down the playback. You can adjust your view with the mouse and your camera stays pointed in the new position. It's well done, and accomplishes the task. I only found myself wondering if you could select different objects (instead of the car) for different modes of transportation (boat, person hiking, plane, etc.).

Shortly after Google released GE 5, popular GPS travel journal site EveryTrail released support for the GE Tour playback by generating a Tour KMZ file you can view in GE (the plugin didn't support Tours until earlier this month). Maybe EveryTrail will support the plugin now that they can playback these Tours.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:40 AM | Comments (1)

March 12, 2009

Heli-Ski Tour in Google Earth

A few weeks ago, Oliver Davis, who is CEO of Concept3D (which does 3D modeling for Google Earth for one thing), took a holiday trip to British Columbia and went on a Helicopter Ski run. Being a savvy Google Earth user, he took along a GPS device and recorded his track both in the air, and while skiing down the snowy mountains. He got one of his engineers to produce a Google Earth 5 tour of the heli-ski GPS track which lets you fly along his trip. You'll have to use your imagination for the sounds, and the pauses for putting on skis, and the strenuous, but exhilirating, runs down the mountain. But, you get to enjoy the views, and really get a sense of what a heli-ski trip would be like. Oliver posted about his trip and the tour at his blog, and they created a video showing the tour here:

To get the full experience, you should download their GE 5 tour file here . Once it loads in GE, open the folder "OliversHeliTrip" and look for the "Tour" placemark. Double-click that to start the tour. NOTE: If you are prone to motion-sickness from watching fast moving flying scenes, watch out. If not, I suggest you can speed up the tour by using the fast-forward button during the playback. You can also grab the land with the mouse during playback to take control of the view so you can look in all directions (a very cool feature of GE 5's tour controls).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:57 AM | Comments (2)

February 26, 2009

Google Earth 5 Tour Roundup

Google Earth 5's most powerful new features is the new Tour capability. At its most basic level Record Tour provides a fast and easy way for people to share with others a demonstration of some aspect of Google Earth and KML content, and the ability to add voice narration. (See a tutorial by Richard Treeves on creating basic tours). But, with a little KML coding, the Tour function allows much more powerful scripting of Google Earth demonstrations, 3D animations, movie-like camera action, and the ability to add professional audio overlays.

Here is a brief review of some of the early examples of Tours done with GE 5:

  • Jimmy Buffet - This demonstration, created by Google for the GE 5 announcement event, was significant. Certainly the first with a music audio track with the approval of the artist. The demo includes a tour of Hawaii and the ocean while highlighting the locations of Jimmy Buffet's concert tour there. It uses a colorful image overlay for a title of the tour, and points out significant locations as it flies along. A great demonstration of the potential.

  • Flight 1549 - This tour by Jeral Poskey is really amazing. It re-enacts the flight of 1549 using GE 5 tour functions. The first thing you'll notice is that he's included several audio overlays from the FAA of the controllers and pilots speaking on the radios during the event. The moments after they realize the emergency shows a flurry of 8 simultaneous streams of urgent discussions. You can also here how calmly Solly (the pilot) reacts to the situation. Not only that, but the author has added a model of the Intrepid aircraft carrier which is near where the plane crash landed in the river. And, he's simulated the motion of the plane in the river after it landed and the currents drifted it down the river. Turn on the 3D Buildings layer while its playing to get more realism. Read Jeral's post for more details.

  • San Francisco Tour - Brian Flood, author of the popular GIS tool called Arc2Earth, is working on a tool to make sophisticated tours for GE 5. He has already created a couple of demonstrations showing cinematography-like camera movements. See this tour of San Francisco. He also did one for New York . These are really cool tours which show how the Tour function can show Google Earth's 3D features like a movie while only requiring a relatively small download. Add music and other annotations and you could have a flying documentary.

  • Oil Rig Tour - Gerardo Paz has created a model of a 3D oil rig. He created a Tour to not only show the rig, but also demonstrate some geologic features under the rig, and a 3D animation of a helicopter taking off from the rig. This tour is an excellent demonstration of GE 5's ability to do some fancy 3D animation.

  • More 3D Animations - James Stafford, who has created many examples of powerful Google Earth features over the last couple of years, has created several examples illustrating some of the animation capabilities with GE 5's touring. First an animation of a 3D jet flying , next a shape transformation animation changing France into Spain, and finally a trip illustration using the new GE 5 techniques.

  • Glider Tour - Another interesting example of the Tour function showing how you can take old GPS tracks and turn them into powerful tours. Read the post for more details.

(By the way, don't forget you can use the tour control panel (in the lower left) to control the playback - including fast forwarding, backwards, and pausing.)

These are all early examples just illustrating the potential. As GE 5 matures out of beta, and as these, and other developers, learn more about the capabilities. I expect there will be some amazing GE 5 tours in our future. Kudos to these early adopters of the technology!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:20 AM | Comments (3)

More entries for this category:

  1. Rowing Around the World with Google Earth - February 11, 2009
  2. EveryTrail Supports New Tours for Google Earth 5 - February 3, 2009
  3. Google Earth 5 Released - 3D Ocean and More! - February 2, 2009
  4. Urban Tick - Research Results in Google Earth - January 8, 2009
  5. Upgrade to EveryTrail GPS Trails Layer in Google Earth - December 17, 2008
  6. Links: GE Plugin Update, KML Contest Update, Panoramio Contest, Teaching with GE, Santa Video - December 5, 2008
  7. The Boat Story Continues - Boatyard, Name, Moving - September 21, 2008
  8. Update on Using GPS for Tracking in Google Earth - September 19, 2008
  9. More Add-ons for Google Earth Flight Simulator - July 28, 2008
  10. Links: Walking, Havana, Eclipse, Oil, Follow the Boat - July 23, 2008
  11. Clipper Yacht Race in Google Earth - June 1, 2008
  12. Links: New StreetView Stuff, WorldWide Telescope, Yahoo WOE, Dishpointer, GPSAnimator - May 13, 2008
  13. Google Earth for Pilots - April 29, 2008
  14. New Contour Lines in Google Maps - April 3, 2008
  15. Deer Blogs His Own GPS Position in Google Earth - March 17, 2008
  16. Wikiloc - GPS Tracks Site - February 11, 2008
  17. Real-Time Google Earth GPS Tracking - via Bus - February 2, 2008
  18. Guys Fly Balloon to 30 km Altitude - See it in Google Earth - January 25, 2008
  19. Top 10 New Google Earth Features 2007 - December 31, 2007
  20. Top 25 Stories of Google Earth 2007 - December 27, 2007
  21. Links: Santa Tracker, Santa Mapper Poem, VE Followup, GPS Spider - December 26, 2007
  22. Links: Maps Terrain in GE, GPS Trip Planning, Geo Lessons, and more - December 11, 2007
  23. Links: Google at the Pump, Sigdoarjo Mud Flow, Boxing Champs, California Fire Costs, New Trees - November 9, 2007
  24. Trip Status, Links: PhotoOverlay tool, CIA World Factbook, Another BMNG - October 29, 2007
  25. Links: Chinese Cop Catches Crook, Malibu Fire, EveryTrail Update, CIA WorldFactbook, Hungary Weather - October 22, 2007
  26. 2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup - October 8, 2007
  27. News Roundup: UFO Sightings, Free UK GE workshops, Godwit migrations, Boating videos - September 21, 2007
  28. Back to School - Educational Uses with Google Earth - September 11, 2007
  29. News Roundup: Peru Earthquake, Virtual Earth Update, Stefan's Alps Hike - August 16, 2007
  30. Sailing with Google Earth for Navigation - August 6, 2007
  31. India Maps - Local Knowledge Power - July 24, 2007
  32. TakItWithMe - Handy GPS Tool - July 17, 2007
  33. News Roundup: GE 4.1 Stuff, Plotting a Trail, Business Reviews, More Second Earth - June 20, 2007
  34. Google Earth Helping Amazon Indians - June 19, 2007
  35. Photo Finding in Google Earth - Just for Fun - June 15, 2007
  36. News Roundup - France Censors, Flickr, Seabeds, Live tracking - June 4, 2007
  37. Watch Weekend Boating Live in Google Earth - May 18, 2007
  38. Google Earth Umbrella - May 16, 2007
  39. News Roundup - Nokia N95, gCensus US, Greensburg Radar Animation - May 14, 2007
  40. Having Fun with Google Earth and SpaceNavigator - May 10, 2007
  41. News Roundup 2 - Science Visualization, Netherlands GIS, Flu Map, Nokia SportsTracker - May 6, 2007
  42. News Roundup: My Maps/YouTube, Nokia N95, Census, Arc2Earth, Show-n-Tell - April 13, 2007
  43. New Google Earth Layers for April: Darfur, Trimble, and more - April 9, 2007
  44. 677 US Marine Charts for Google Earth on 1 CD - March 31, 2007
  45. News Roundup - Version stats, KML Editors, GooPs, Hey What's That? - March 15, 2007
  46. FedEx Pilots "Smart" Tracking with Google Earth - February 23, 2007
  47. More Details on New Layers/Updates - February 18, 2007
  48. News Roundup - FreeGeoTools, Sprol, Subsurface, conferences, Magnalox - February 12, 2007
  49. News Roundup - KML indexing, GPS tools, SketchUp PhotoMatch Tutorial, GE Blogs - January 13, 2007
  50. Using GPS in Real-time with Google Earth - January 2, 2007
  51. Explosion of GPS mapping tools and web sites - December 7, 2006
  52. Route du Rhum - Live Sailing Race in Google Earth - November 1, 2006
  53. Google Earth Googlers in Moab Mountain Bike Race - October 5, 2006
  54. More Innovative Time Animation Examples for Google Earth - September 19, 2006
  55. GPSVisualizer Supports New Google Earth 4 Time Support - September 15, 2006
  56. My Backpacking Trip and the Lost Couple Found After Three Days - July 24, 2006
  57. Trackstick - Small USB-stick GPS with Google Earth Support - July 18, 2006
  58. Unicycling for College Money - Track Max in Google Earth - May 28, 2006
  59. Accomodation Planning for Norway in Google Earth - May 17, 2006
  60. Juicy Geography Lesson on GPS - May 3, 2006
  61. Where's Tim? Tracking Tim in Google Earth - May 1, 2006
  62. Go Flying - Flight Tracklogs for Google Earth - April 30, 2006
  63. GPS-Tour.info - A Resource of GPS Tracks for Google Earth - April 21, 2006
  64. Honda Releases Traffic System in Japan for Google Earth - April 4, 2006
  65. Ski Snowbird - April 2, 2006
  66. Sking Alta Shown in Google Earth - March 28, 2006
  67. European Speed Cameras in Google Earth - March 21, 2006
  68. Touch and Gos - February 22, 2006
  69. Emotion Map in Google Earth - February 21, 2006
  70. Panoramio - Photos of the World - January 31, 2006
  71. Enhancement to GPSVisualizer for Google Earth - January 23, 2006
  72. 3D Planes for Flight Tracking in Google Earth - January 19, 2006
  73. Transatlantic Sailing Adventure Using Google Earth - January 18, 2006
  74. Off Road Races in Dakar and Baja - January 9, 2006
  75. Google Earth for Cars - January 7, 2006
  76. Santa's Route in Google Earth - December 21, 2005
  77. 40 Highest Buildings in Rotterdam for Google Earth - December 5, 2005
  78. Near Real-time Flight Tracking in Google Earth - December 2, 2005
  79. Transat Jacques Vabre 2005 Race in Google Earth - November 16, 2005
  80. GPSVisualizer Supports Google Earth - November 15, 2005
  81. And They're Off! - November 13, 2005
  82. Volvo Ocean Race in Google Earth - November 11, 2005
  83. Another Sailor Documents Trips Using Google Earth - November 9, 2005
  84. Geocaching.com Uses Random Approximate Coordinates in Google Earth - November 1, 2005
  85. GPS/Photo Tracks - RoboGEO v2.1 Supports Google Earth - October 31, 2005
  86. Geocaching.com Officially Supports Google Earth - October 22, 2005
  87. Magnalox - GPS Story Telling for Google Earth - October 19, 2005
  88. Huge Resource of 3D Glider Tracks for Google Earth - October 12, 2005
  89. Documenting a Recent Flying Trip - October 9, 2005
  90. Garmin Buys MotionBased - October 4, 2005
  91. Middle Earth Found in Google Earth - September 28, 2005
  92. Watching Sports with Google Earth - September 27, 2005
  93. Garmin Supports Google Earth - September 26, 2005
  94. Owners of Geocaching.com Stifle Innovation - September 24, 2005
  95. Sailing the Seven Seas - September 10, 2005
  96. Geocaching Google Earth - August 15, 2005
  97. Arizona Hiking Trip - August 10, 2005
  98. Flying - Keeping a Flight Log - August 5, 2005
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