Sports Archives

June 29, 2009

Tour de France 2009 in Google Earth

Tour de FranceOnce again, Thomas Vergouwen is the first to send GEB the complete tracks for the 2009 Tour de France for viewing in Google Earth. The organizers did not release the full details on the routes of the stages until recently, so it took longer then usual for maps to be created. The race begins this Saturday - July 4th. Thomas describes the situation and provides lots of details on each stage of the race at his web site, and he provides both Google Maps and the Google Earth file on the routes.

Viewing the Tour de France routes in Google Earth is one of my favorite examples of the power of Google Earth. With GE's 3D terrain, you can tilt your view and truly get a feeling of how challenging this race really is - even if you have never been to see it in person. Just load Thomas' file for the 2009 Tour de France in GE . Then, make sure you tilt your view I'm hoping there will be some more real-time tracking this year that will let you watch the position of some of the racers in Google Earth as they go along.

Le Tour de France in Google Earth

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:25 AM | Comments (3)

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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)

March 10, 2009

Paris-Nice 2009 in Google Earth

Thomas Vergouwen has posted Google Earth files to illustrate the routes for the various stages of the Paris-Nice 2009 bike race. Paris-Nice is put on by the same organization which does the Tour de France and serves as the spring precursor race for the bigger summer race. Check out Thomas' complete collection of routes and sprints for Paris-Nice 2009 in Google Earth .

Paris-Nice 2009 in Google Earth

The race started on Sunday - my apologies for not posting about this sooner. Thomas contacted me about it last week. Thomas also created a Tour de France network link for Google Earth last year which showed live positions of the lead racers. Thanks for helping us follow the races Thomas!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 2:40 PM | Comments (0)

February 1, 2009

Superbowl XLIII in 3D in Google Earth

Superbowl XLIII Tampa Bay stadium in Google Earth

It's the biggest day in American Football. Today's Superbowl XLIII will be held in Tampa Bay, Florida. Fortunately, Google Earth provides a nice 3D rendering of the Raymond James Stadium, the SketchUp 3D model was created by Google. All you need to do though is go to Google Earth and turn on the "3D Buildings" layer and fly to the superbowl stadium . Of course, for some this game is all about the commercials. But, if you're really caught up in the sport, you might want to take a tour of all the NFL stadiums in Google Earth.

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

January 30, 2009

Links: An 1830 Swiss Town in 3D, GE Marijuana Arrest, GE Bass Fishing, Ourense in 3D

[UPDATE 1630 ET: A GEB reader may have found the marijuana field - see this post for details.]

  • Solothurn in 1830 in 3D for Google Earth

    An 1830 Swiss Town in 3D (German) - A new 3D look into the past has been released for Solothurn, Switzerland. Apparently they saw the Ancient Rome in 3D Google released last fall and did the same for this town. There was a cardboard rendering of the town and they've digitally reconstructed it into 3D. Now you can view the 1830 town in Google Earth (courtesy of Earth-Dots.de). Thanks to Keir Clarke for the tip.

  • GE Marijuana Arrest - Yesterday an AP story came out about police in Switzerland having used GE to discover a marijuana crop hidden in a corn field. Before writing a blog post, I thought I would try to find the location itself. But, the first thing I noticed was that the imagery in that part of Switzerland is dated 1997. At that point, I figured it was either a hoax, or the police were really slow to have gone 10 years without discovering it. Then I read the actual search was conducted back in 2006. Well, the imagery in GE right now was added in February 2007. So, maybe there was a high res image in GE back in 2006 that was more recent and did show the crop. I'd still like to know the location and see the original image the police used that shows the crop. By the way, this isn't the first time Google Earth was involved in a marijuana arrest. Read this story about a case in 2006 in Racine, Wisconsin.

  • GE Bass Fishing - Got an E-mail from BassFishin.com about a video they've created telling fisherman about using Google Earth (and other mapping tools) to help plan a fishing trip. The video shows using Google Earth to check out the waters, weather, terrain, and photos of your next fishing site. And, I made sure to point out he should check out EarthNC for even more boating data available for GE.

  • Ourense, Spain in 3D - Got a nice E-mail from Celso Campos who is a teacher at the University of Vigo. They have released a 3D rendering of their city Ourense for Google Earth developed for their city council (primarily for sightseeing promotional purposes). The link above is to their spanish web page which includes a video showing their nicely detailed renderings. The models are a little slow to load (probably having more to do with bandwidth constraints - the 3D models seem nicely optimized). There's a lot of detail, and I enjoyed flying around. You can download the Ourense in 3D here (instructions and placemarks are in Spanish and, I'm told, Galician). Even if you can't read the languages, the placemarks include photos of some of the buildings so you can compare the realism.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:53 AM | Comments (6)

More entries for this category:

  1. Links: Dakar Rally, Dropbox KML, Lost World Found, Bridge Construction, Skateboarders - January 7, 2009
  2. Alps Ski Information Layer in Google Earth - December 22, 2008
  3. New York City Marathon 2008 in Google Earth - November 2, 2008
  4. Links: A Million Photos, Wii Jogging, Transportation, Argentina Roads, KML Contest, Ryder Cup - September 26, 2008
  5. Singapore Grand Prix Track in 3D - September 25, 2008
  6. Top 10 Games With Google Earth - September 24, 2008
  7. EarthGamz Using Google Earth Plugin - August 19, 2008
  8. Google Launches 3D 2008 Olympic Games - August 8, 2008
  9. Follow a Book, Check Aeronautical Charts in Google Earth Plugin - July 31, 2008
  10. Brand New Beijing Olympics Satellite Imagery in Google Earth - July 30, 2008
  11. Google Releases Street View for Tour de France in Google Earth/Maps - July 2, 2008
  12. South Africa Tourism Layer - July 1, 2008
  13. Links: Another Deer, KML Power Tools, Ride the Lobster, Optimize 3D, Altered Oceans - June 16, 2008
  14. Links: General Electric, Stadiums, CyberCity Buildings, KML Validator, Tour de France - June 6, 2008
  15. Links: NBA Destination, EarthNC 2.0, Geo Education - May 7, 2008
  16. Follow the Olympic Torch Relay in Google Earth and Maps - April 3, 2008
  17. Iditarod 2008 Dog Sled Race Live in Google Earth - March 10, 2008
  18. Links: Star Viewer, Green Screen, World Hockey, European Pollution, Golden Shadow - January 29, 2008
  19. Top 25 Stories of Google Earth 2007 - December 27, 2007
  20. 3D Red Bull Flights in Google Earth - September 21, 2007
  21. Back to School - Educational Uses with Google Earth - September 11, 2007
  22. Singapore F1 Race Visualization in Google Earth - July 19, 2007
  23. News Roundup: GE Design, Live Tour de France, PhotoSketch, Iran Nuclear Project - July 13, 2007
  24. Tour de France 2007 in Google Earth - June 20, 2007
  25. Photo Finding in Google Earth - Just for Fun - June 15, 2007
  26. News RoundUp: Football Game, VesselTracker, Antarctic Bases, Egyptian Digs, 3D Cities Help, Chimps, Gallery - June 12, 2007
  27. Watch Weekend Boating Live in Google Earth - May 18, 2007
  28. News Roundup - Chile Border Crisis, Caribou, Gumball Rally, Emotions - April 30, 2007
  29. Maverick Waves Explained - Illustration in Google Earth - April 23, 2007
  30. New Google Earth Layers for April: Darfur, Trimble, and more - April 9, 2007
  31. Cricket World Cup 2007 Venues in Google Earth - March 12, 2007
  32. Dog Sled Races in Google Earth: Iditarod and Finnmarksløpet - March 8, 2007
  33. Google Earth Layers - January 11, 2007
  34. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 27, 2006
  35. Baseball, 3D Stadiums, Videos, and Google Earth - November 2, 2006
  36. Route du Rhum - Live Sailing Race in Google Earth - November 1, 2006
  37. Google Earth Googlers in Moab Mountain Bike Race - October 5, 2006
  38. Roundup - Pillows, redtrails, earthpoint, Robogeo 5, libferris, virtual land rush - September 20, 2006
  39. GPSVisualizer Supports New Google Earth 4 Time Support - September 15, 2006
  40. US National Parks Layer in Google Earth - September 13, 2006
  41. MacWorld Does Google Earth Golfing - September 5, 2006
  42. Tour de France Live Tracking Enhancements - July 12, 2006
  43. Tour de France by Google - July 6, 2006
  44. Live Tracking of Tour de France in Google Earth - July 2, 2006
  45. Tour de France 2006 Starts Tomorrow - June 30, 2006
  46. Win a Free Trip from Surfing Magazine by Using Google Earth - June 21, 2006
  47. FIFA World Cup Football Stadiums in 3D - June 3, 2006
  48. Tour de France 2006 in Google Earth - May 25, 2006
  49. Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 in Google Earth - May 18, 2006
  50. Cricket Venues in Google Earth - May 15, 2006
  51. Multicup 60 - Live Sailboat Race in Google Earth - May 10, 2006
  52. World's (second) Biggest Soccer Ball? - May 8, 2006
  53. magnalox - New Features for Google Earth - April 25, 2006
  54. GPS-Tour.info - A Resource of GPS Tracks for Google Earth - April 21, 2006
  55. Ski Snowbird - April 2, 2006
  56. Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race in Google Earth - March 29, 2006
  57. Sking Alta Shown in Google Earth - March 28, 2006
  58. Football Stadiums Update (4500) - March 18, 2006
  59. Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006 in Google Earth - March 10, 2006
  60. GolfNation.org - Courses in Google Earth - March 3, 2006
  61. Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 in Google Earth - February 19, 2006
  62. MLB World Series Winners 1903-2005 in Google Earth - February 16, 2006
  63. Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 3 in Google Earth - February 12, 2006
  64. New High Res Torino Olympics Photos in Google Earth - February 9, 2006
  65. CNET Superbowl Guessing Game in Google Earth - February 2, 2006
  66. Off Road Races in Dakar and Baja - January 9, 2006
  67. Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2 - January 6, 2006
  68. Heavy Weight Boxing Champions in Google Earth - January 2, 2006
  69. Adidas Promotion Uses Google Earth - December 27, 2005
  70. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 23, 2005
  71. 3280+ Football Teams and Stadiums Around the World - December 12, 2005
  72. Ski Resorts and Snow Reports in Google Earth - November 21, 2005
  73. Transat Jacques Vabre 2005 Race in Google Earth - November 16, 2005
  74. And They're Off! - November 13, 2005
  75. Volvo Ocean Race in Google Earth - November 11, 2005
  76. Huge Resource of 3D Glider Tracks for Google Earth - October 12, 2005
  77. Aussie Crag Climbing - October 7, 2005
  78. Garmin Buys MotionBased - October 4, 2005
  79. Watching Sports with Google Earth - September 27, 2005
  80. 1650+ Football (aka Soccer) Stadiums Around the World - September 22, 2005
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