Network Links Archives

May 05, 2008

NASA Time Animation of Ionosphere For Google Earth

Last week, NASA announced the release of an amazing dynamic Google Earth resource which shows time animated condition of the Earth's Ionosphere. The ionosphere is used to bounce radio signals over the horizon for long distance communication. But, when storms occur on the sun's surface they can mess up parts of the ionosphere and disrupt ionosphere-based communications. The new NASA Google Earth data can be used to quickly understand where and when there may be radio communication issues.

See for example their primary network link which shows the current condition of the ionosphere in the form of total electron content. Then, check out an animation of the total electron content for the past 24 hours . You use the time slider to see the animation, but note that it will take a while to load each image overlay which covers the entire Earth. Red means area of strong atmospheric disturbance where communications problems are likely to occur. Blue/dark means communications will be fine. You will notice that the night side of the Earth is the best time for radio communications.

This NASA information not only makes for cool looking Google Earth visualizations, but is very useful to anyone with a profession or need for using short-wave radio (e.g. HAM radio operators, mariners, coast guards, etc.). Airliners are increasingly flying over the arctic regions to take shorter routes, but in this area they can't use satellite communications based on geosynchronous satellites. So, they resort to short wave radio over the poles. If the ionosphere is important to you, check out the full list of GE ionosphere visualizations from NASA here. NASA also has a communications alert and prediction system which uses this data.

NASA has done many other Google Earth visualizations. Here are just a few:

• NASA Earth at Night Layer

• NASA Annual Lightning Flash Map

• NASA Sea Surface Temperature and more

• NASA Earth Day Top Photos

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sponsored Ads:

April 23, 2008

Space Debris Viewed in Google Earth

In January 2007, the Chinese military decided to demonstrate their technological prowess by shooting down one of their own satellites in orbit. The action was condemned by governments around the world, but many people may not have realized the real consequence. The Earth's orbit is getting very cluttered with satellites and debris after 50 years of launches from Earth. But, this one decision to explode a satellite in space contributed thousands of potentially deadly projectiles (golf ball sized or larger) into many orbits around the Earth. Each object in orbit is typically flying around the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour (27,400 km/h). The European Space Agency recently shared a press release describing the problem of space debris including some 3D visualizations).

Robert Simpson, who writes the Orbiting Frog blog, had already developed a tool for visualizing orbit tracks in Google Earth. He recently gave a talk on space debris at Cardiff University. Using the orbit tracker, and the data available on all objects tracked in space at Celestrack, he was able to create this visualization showing the positions of all the tracked objects from the destroyed Chinese satellite in Google Earth. Each placemark is a Chinese flag showing the position of tracked debris from that one explosion. This is a network link which will automatically update every 5 minutes with the current position of each object. Read Robert's post for more details and you can get a copy of his presentation.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:25 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 18, 2008

Links: GE Lesson, GETools, Microsoft KML, 3D Bridges, Royal Australian 3D, EPA Award

• Stonehenge GE Lesson - Noel Jenkins has released another well-prepared school lesson which involves Google Earth - this one is about Stonehenge. via Noel's JuicyGeography blog.

• GETools - Brian Flood - author of the excellent Arc2Earth tools for GIS folks, is working on some new tools for working with Google Earth. He's working to turn the tools into a product which he's calling GETools. He has been developing various ways to interact with Google Earth through its little-known API (which also hasn't seen a lot of development by Google). Based on some demonstration videos he has released, the tools will enable some pretty cool functions. My favorite is the implementation allowing draggable directions to work inside Google Earth (I believe he's leveraging the Google Maps API to perform the same function in Google Earth - which Google hasn't done themselves!). I'm looking forward to seeing these tools released Brian!

• Microsoft Maps KML Better Than Google Maps - KML was recently approved as an international standard by OGC. But, KML is already reaching wide acceptance in the geospatial visualization world. In fact, it appears Microsoft's implementation for KML in their 2D version of Virtual Earth is better than Google Maps' implementaiton of KML. And, it's true. I've tested it myself. Google Maps does not show large KML files with lots of vector data. But, Microsoft's recent update to Virtual Earth handles them just fine. Google thinks this is a good thing because they are excited to see KML reach broader implementations.

• 3D Bridges - Gerardo Paz of Buenos Aires, Argentina (who translates GEB to Spanish) is also a 3D modeler, and he has posted some excellent 3D models of bridges in Argentina. Notice how he has even edited the underlying imagery to remove the aerial photo of the bridges while replacing them with 3D. You can see all four bridges here in GE. Here's a collection of other bridges found in 3D Warehouse.

• Royal Australian 3D - The Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) has released a layer featuring hundreds of unique buildings and structures in Australia. This is similar to the layer for GE released last year by the American Institute of Architects. In the RAIA layer , each placemark contains photos and details of each site and links to more information. In addition, they have modeled 60 of their favorite structures and uploaded them to the Google 3D Warehouse, so you can easily choose and download them for viewing in Google Earth. I do wish their layer of placemarks highlighted the locations with the 3D models with a different placemark icon and provided a link in the placemarks to download the models. In fact, I sent that as a suggestion. See the Google post about this new content, and the RAIA web page.

• EPA Award - The US Environmental Protection Agency has given an environmental award to Terradex for its development of a Google Earth network link called AirWatch that dynamically shows air quality for the US (and the UK, China, and Mexico City - see post). This work inspired the development of the EPA's AirNow application for Google Earth. See details from Google about the award announcement.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 17, 2008

Links: SR22 Cockpit, Jane Austen, Magnetic Pole, Taiwan GE Bonanza, Tutorial, VE3D on Mac

• SR22 Cockpit - Not satisfied with just doing a cockpit add-on for the F16, Gerardo has also done a cockpit add-on for the SR22 for Google Earth's built-in flight simulator. It's a screen overlay showing the cockpit while you fly the simulator. Make sure to check out the tips on using GE's flight simulator.

• Jane Austen - An excellent Google Earth documentary showing the life and works of literary legend Jane Austen (3.5 Mbytes) has been posted by GEC member 'LuciaM'. The collection is organized into three sections: The biography layer shows the actual places that she experienced over the course of her life from the small town of her birth to estates in Kent through to her final resting place amidst Saxon kings. The second marks the real places in her literary works. The final section identifies the historical buildings used as backdrops for the major film adaptations of her books. The placemarks are annotated with information about Austen's life, as well as quotes from her letters and books. LuciaM also developed the excellent collection about the Six Wives of Henry VIII.

• Magnetic Pole - An excellent collection of time animations for Google Earth visualizing the Earth's magnetic fields changing over time has been posted at the GEC by Stefan Maus. The animation covers from the year 1590 to 2010. Be careful not to load all the visualizations at once as they will bog down your memory. But, carefully used these animations are excellent. Turn on the time animation and prepare to wait a while to load each frame.

• Taiwan GE Bonanza - Steven Ho of Taiwan has done a huge amount of work in Google Earth, but most of it hasn't been seen in the English-speaking world. He has recently started a new blog in English to share some of his amazing collection for Google Earth. His posts usually have YouTube videos as well as links to the KML files. I especially like this post with a very innovative application of screen image overlays. Note that the KML file has a jet fighter instead of a remote control plane in the animation.

• Tutorial - Spatial education site Geochalkboard has released a tutorial for the spreadsheet mapper which Google released that lets you create nice KML files without programming KML.

• VE3D on Mac - Stefan Geens discovers that the Windows emulator software for Mac OS X from VMWare called Fusion is now good enough to run Virtual Earth 3D on Internet Explorer. While you still can't run VE3D on a Mac natively - this at least lets you check things out with it without having to boot up Windows under bootcamp.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 10, 2008

Iditarod 2008 Dog Sled Race Live in Google Earth

EarthSLOT, whose mission is "to advance earth science and earth science education through the use of on-line 3D terrain visualization and GIS tools", has once again published a Google Earth file about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race which is an 1150 mile dog sled race through the middle of Alaska. The race just started a few days ago, and the EarthSLOT Iditarod file shows the route of the race, and the live GPS position of the teams, along with the satellite photos and 3D terrain in Google Earth.

Matt Nolan, who runs EarthSLOT, has also included in the Iditarod file a link to the International Polar Year network link which contain all kinds of information about the Arctic and Antarctic and the science missions studying our polar regions. Matt is a scientist who studies Glaciers and other polar environmental features and worked with the IPY to develop the Google Earth content.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

---

More entries for this category:

6. Super UK Photo Project geograph Turns Three - March 06, 2008
7. Live Orbit Tracker in Google Earth - March 03, 2008
8. UK Earthquake - View Data in Google Earth - February 27, 2008
9. Links: Star Viewer, Green Screen, World Hockey, European Pollution, Golden Shadow - January 29, 2008
10. New Layer Goodness for Google Earth - January 2008 - January 25, 2008
11. Links: KML Wrap-up, New Orrery, Zip Scribble, South China Sea - January 23, 2008
12. Top 10 New Google Earth Features 2007 - December 31, 2007
13. Top 25 Stories of Google Earth 2007 - December 27, 2007
14. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007 - December 26, 2007
15. Links: Daily Earth Imagery, Antarctica Photos, Panoramio Searchable, Santa Sleigh - December 18, 2007
16. AGU Fall Meeting - Day 1 Highlights - December 13, 2007
17. Earthquake Activity Time Animation - December 12, 2007
18. Links: Maps Terrain in GE, GPS Trip Planning, Geo Lessons, and more - December 11, 2007
19. Tropical Cyclone Sidr in Google Earth - November 16, 2007
20. San Francisco Oil Spill in Google Earth - November 12, 2007
21. Big Layer Update - Weather Layers in Google Earth - November 08, 2007
22. Caribbean 1500 Sailing Cup in Google Earth - November 05, 2007
23. X PRIZE Cup Photos Mapped - November 01, 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. Improved KML Support for Google Maps - October 17, 2007
27. 2007 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup - October 08, 2007
28. Links: Ohio Class Sub, Galactic Delight, Constellation Drawings - October 05, 2007
29. News Roundup: Poles Overlays, Rocket Garden, Army Topos, Astronomy, Roads - September 20, 2007
30. Sky News Roundup: New Horizon, SpaceNavigator, Google plans for Sky - September 12, 2007
31. FlashEarth Mashup with Google Earth 4.2 - August 28, 2007
32. News Roundup: Peru Earthquake, Virtual Earth Update, Stefan's Alps Hike - August 16, 2007
33. Best Storm Tracking and Weather Tools for Google Earth - August 15, 2007
34. Scientific Ocean Drilling Database in Google Earth - August 14, 2007
35. R/C Planes and Camera Fun with Google Earth - August 12, 2007
36. Improved International Polar Year Content for Google Earth - July 30, 2007
37. Population Data for Mexico - July 27, 2007
38. Energy Production Information for Western US - July 17, 2007
39. Google Finds Matt in Google Earth - July 11, 2007
40. 3D Dresden in Google Earth - July 09, 2007
41. Quasi-global Near real-time Rainfall in Google Earth - July 03, 2007
42. News RoundUp: Football Game, VesselTracker, Antarctic Bases, Egyptian Digs, 3D Cities Help, Chimps, Gallery - June 12, 2007
43. ISDE Day 3 Summary - June 08, 2007
44. News Roundup - France Censors, Flickr, Seabeds, Live tracking - June 04, 2007
45. Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth - June 02, 2007
46. PhotoFlyr - A Google Earth 3D Flying Photo Viewer - May 23, 2007
47. Watch Weekend Boating Live in Google Earth - May 18, 2007
48. FlickrVision - And Now for Google Earth - May 15, 2007
49. 3D Warehouse Map Mashup for Collections - May 04, 2007
50. Yahoo! Pipes Supports KML - May 03, 2007
51. Globe Glider Video Demonstration - May 02, 2007
52. Super Mapping Mashup -> Globe Glider Next Generation - May 01, 2007
53. Dynamic Map Showing AIM Chatters in Google Earth - April 30, 2007
54. News Roundup: Tour de France, Tasmania Logging, Somalia, GE-Sharing, More Biking - April 23, 2007
55. The Google Earth Network Link - April 19, 2007
56. Continuous Flow of New 3D Buildings - April 17, 2007
57. Google Earth Classified Ads by Safarri - March 26, 2007
58. News Roundup - Fixes for Windows Vista, Airshows, FBOWeb update, Photos with Search - March 19, 2007
59. Dig a Hole Through Google Earth - March 16, 2007
60. gCensus - US Census Data for Google Earth - March 14, 2007
61. Skype + Unype = Multi-User Google Earth - March 10, 2007
62. Topographical Maps and Other Goodies for Google Earth - March 06, 2007
63. News Roundup: KML Standardization, Cruise ship tracker, IGiGLE, 3D Printing - March 03, 2007
64. New Real-time Traffic in Google Maps for USA - February 28, 2007
65. Planes in Flight Hobby - February 13, 2007
66. Using Satellite Photos to Document Human Rights Violations - February 07, 2007
67. Google Street Maps Overlay for Google Earth - February 02, 2007
68. High Res Photos from an Aerial Drone in Google Earth - January 26, 2007
69. Track Cruise Ships in 3D in Google Earth - January 22, 2007
70. Daily NASA MODIS Satellite Imagery for Google Earth - January 20, 2007
71. NOAA Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) Weather Feed for Google Earth - January 13, 2007
72. Shaded Relief Map of US Terrain in Google Earth - January 12, 2007
73. Upper Green Valley Environmental Issues Illustrated with Google Earth - January 10, 2007
74. New Layers - Yelp Reviews, Textured 3D Buildings, Brazilian Roads, and more - January 07, 2007
75. Watch Remote Control Plane with Camera Capturing Real-time Images for Google Earth - January 05, 2007
76. Using GPS in Real-time with Google Earth - January 02, 2007
77. Play "Mars Sucks" Game in Google Earth - December 29, 2006
78. Multilingual Wikipedia Project Linking to Google Earth - December 28, 2006
79. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 27, 2006
80. Amazing Implementation of Marine Charts for Google Earth - December 21, 2006
81. Avian Flu Tracker Updated - December 12, 2006
82. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab Publishes Google Earth Content - December 08, 2006
83. Plazes.com Does Google Earth - Social Network - December 06, 2006
84. Beautiful Blue Marble and Clouds Add-on for Google Earth - November 16, 2006
85. CBS News Does Google Earth - November 09, 2006
86. Earth on Fire - November 04, 2006
87. Route du Rhum - Live Sailing Race in Google Earth - November 01, 2006
88. News Roundup - Animated 3D, EmerGeo, Altered Oceans, Virtual Airlines - October 29, 2006
89. National Weather Service Releases Radar Loops for Google Earth - October 26, 2006
90. Global Paleogeographic Time Animation - October 16, 2006
91. Watch UK Autumn Leaves Changing Colour - October 13, 2006
92. Space Atlas for Google Earth - October 10, 2006
93. More Space Content for Google Earth from Wirefly X PRIZE Cup - October 08, 2006
94. RoboGEO 5 Released - Geotag Photos with Google Earth - September 27, 2006
95. Google Earth Las Vegas - September 22, 2006
96. Roundup - Pillows, redtrails, earthpoint, Robogeo 5, libferris, virtual land rush - September 20, 2006
97. Anousheh Ansari Blasts off to Space - September 18, 2006
98. Track Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Lane in Google Earth - September 16, 2006
99. New Storms - Track Hurricane Gordon, Typhoon Shanshan - September 13, 2006
100. CBS News Does Google Earth - Missing Last Step - September 08, 2006
101. Track Tropical Storm Florence in Google Earth - September 06, 2006
102. News Roundup - RoboGeo, PhotoModeler, Trippermap, EditGrid - September 05, 2006
103. Global Clouds with Altitude for GE 4 - September 03, 2006
104. British Airways Uses Google Earth to Improve Online Sales - September 01, 2006
105. Track Hurricane Ernesto in Google Earth - August 27, 2006
106. World's Largest Cosmic Ray Detector Shown in Google Earth - August 16, 2006
107. Homemade Network of Real-time Lightning Data - See it in Google Earth - August 09, 2006
108. Three Flickr Photo Browsing Tools for Google Earth - August 03, 2006
109. Tropical Storm Chris - August 01, 2006
110. New Tsunami Hits Southern Java Indonesia - July 17 - July 17, 2006
111. News Roundup - July 15, 2006
112. Bus Live Tracking at USC - Research Project - July 14, 2006
113. Tour de France Live Tracking Enhancements - July 12, 2006
114. Traffic Cameras for Quebec/Montreal, Canada in Google Earth - July 10, 2006
115. FSEarth 3.0 - MS Flight Simulator and Google Earth - July 08, 2006
116. Magnalox Provides Live Tracking Interface for Google Earth - July 07, 2006
117. Tour de France by Google - July 06, 2006
118. Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth - July 03, 2006
119. Live Tracking of Tour de France in Google Earth - July 02, 2006
120. Tour de France 2006 Starts Tomorrow - June 30, 2006
121. Aeronautical Information System - June 26, 2006
122. Project Thin Ice - Expedition to North Pole in Google Earth - June 07, 2006
123. FIFA World Cup Football Stadiums in 3D - June 03, 2006
124. Avian Flu Outbreak Map Update - Human Cases in Indonesia - June 01, 2006
125. Near Real-time Severe Weather Data for the US from NOAA - May 31, 2006
126. Unicycling for College Money - Track Max in Google Earth - May 28, 2006
127. Tour de France 2006 in Google Earth - May 25, 2006
128. Integrating Calendar Events to Location in Google Earth - May 23, 2006
129. See More Recent Aerial Photos in Google Earth - May 22, 2006
130. Decrease in Avian Flu Spread During Last Month - May 19, 2006
131. Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 in Google Earth - May 18, 2006
132. Mount Merapi Volcano in Google Earth - May 15, 2006
133. Real-time Stream Flow Sensor Net in Google Earth - May 14, 2006
134. Win a Mazda CX-7 in a Sweepstakes Contest in Google Earth - May 01, 2006
135. Near Real-time Ocean/Weather Data - April 28, 2006
136. Seattle 911 Live in Google Earth - April 18, 2006
137. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Adds Google Earth Data - April 13, 2006
138. Wikipedia for Google Earth and WikiSearch Tool - April 11, 2006
139. Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 5 - April 03, 2006
140. Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race in Google Earth - March 29, 2006
141. Enhanced Avian Flu Outbreak Tracker - March 27, 2006
142. Real-Time Sensor Net in Google Earth - March 23, 2006
143. GlobalFlyer Attempting Third World Record - March 15, 2006
144. Bed and Breakfast Locations in Google Earth - March 06, 2006
145. GolfNation.org - Courses in Google Earth - March 03, 2006
146. Emotion Map in Google Earth - February 21, 2006
147. Follow Steve Fossett/Global Flyer in Google Earth - February 09, 2006
148. Pilot World-wide Weather in Google Earth - February 08, 2006
149. Earthquake Monitoring - February 07, 2006
150. Real-time Shuttle Bus Tracking in Google Earth - February 01, 2006
151. Arctic and Antarctic Ice Floes in Google Earth - January 25, 2006
152. Real Estate for Google Earth by Re/Max - Again! - January 14, 2006
153. Aurora Viewing Map in Google Earth - January 05, 2006
154. Globe Glider - Integrated Maps within Google Earth - January 03, 2006
155. Locations for Amusement Parks/Roller Coasters in Google Earth - December 09, 2005
156. Near Real-time Flight Tracking in Google Earth - December 02, 2005
157. EarthBooker - 80,000 Hotels in Google Earth - November 07, 2005
158. Geocaching.com Uses Random Approximate Coordinates in Google Earth - November 01, 2005
159. Meteor Craters on Earth - October 18, 2005
160. The Ants Go Marching One by One - October 01, 2005
161. UK Autumn Leaves Changing Colour - September 30, 2005
162. Owners of Geocaching.com Stifle Innovation - September 24, 2005
163. Placeopedia Links Google Earth to WikiPedia - September 21, 2005
164. Storm Tracking Tools - Hurricanes Rita/Phillipe - September 20, 2005
165. Dynamic Clock - Big Ben - September 16, 2005
166. Much Improved Method for Viewing Katrina Damage Imagery - September 08, 2005
167. Up To Date Katrina Damage Imagery - September 05, 2005
168. City of Portland GIS Adds 3D Buildings - September 03, 2005
169. Real Estate Done Google Earth Style - August 29, 2005
170. Hurricanes/Tropical Data - August 26, 2005
171. City of Portland GIS - August 25, 2005
172. Geosnapper.com Photos - August 19, 2005
173. Geotagged Flickr photos on the fly... - August 03, 2005

Google Earth Blog Copyright © 2005-2008 Frank Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

All image screenshots from Google Earth are Copyright Google