Network Links Archives

June 12, 2007

News RoundUp: Football Game, VesselTracker, Antarctic Bases, Egyptian Digs, 3D Cities Help, Chimps, Gallery

• Football Game - Google Earth Hacks has developed an American-style football game you can play within Google Earth. The game is played within a football stadium inside GE, and you interact through radio buttons in the Places pane. You either choose Offensive or Defensive plays depending on who has the ball. You see the position of the ball at the end of each play, and get feedback on statistics for each play including scores. Pretty fun to play, and an interesting application of GE technology.

• VesselTracker - The VesselTracker.com site is dedicated to providing ship vessel tracking data (right now for north of Europe) using maps and Google Earth using the Automated Identification System (AIS). Interestingly, VesselTracker are using Virtual Earth for the 2D maps, but Google Earth for the 3D maps. Thanks to a tip from GmapsMania. Try a free version in GE (24 hour delay).

• Antarctic Bases - Google's recent imagery update includes some high resolution photos of portion of Antarctica. Stefan Geens found a KML collection of placemarks for all antarctic bases (via this site). Many, but not all, appear in the new high res photos.

• Egyptian Digs - OgleEarth reports about a LiveScience article on how satellite photos are helping Egyptian archaeologists to find new dig sites. OgleEarth notes that satellite photos are helping make many kinds of scientific discoveries.

• 3D Cities Help - The Google Lat Long blog has posted about a new 3D Warehouse "Help Model a City" feature. The intent is to help foster a community based approach to creating 3D models of buildings in cities around the world.

• Chimps - Jane Goodall's Gombe Chimpanzee blog has released a new site design. It's appropriate that the first blog which used Google Earth initially as the only way to view blog entries is now supporting GeoRSS (geotagged RSS). They are also now supporting Google Maps for viewing entries, and are using a new blogging tool called EarthWatchr. via OgleEarth.

• Gallery - The new Google Earth Gallery has been updated with new entries. You can also install a Gallery Gadget for your iGoogle page. My favorite new entry is the collection of placemarks showing the life of Neil Armstrong (first man to walk on the moon).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 08, 2007

ISDE Day 3 Summary

Read my overview of ISDE5 here, or visit their web site ISDE5.org for more details. Also, read my summary from ISDE5 Day 1, and my summary from ISDE 5 Day 2. So, after nearly two weeks of attending conferences, I'm getting a bit tired. But, I'm valiantly attempting to still summarize highlights. I will follow up later (maybe next week?) with more details for some of the things I liked most. Here are some of my notes from Day 3 - my apologies, but I missed several of the talks during the morning session due to other obligations, and the ones I did see had little to do with Google Earth.

• International Polar Year - Technical session. Matt Nolan presented the IPY Google Earth network link. He appealed to other IPY scientists to start developing more KML content to be included in the network link. They are also working to get the network link included as a Google Earth layer. Although it is a bit unique in form, I think Google should make an effort to highlight the IPY content. Several suggestions were made to help improve the process (writing a manual to help scientists understand how best to submit the KML content, doing some user testing to improve the design, and using more features of GE - like 3D - to grab the attention of the general public). Download the IPY network link . Stefan Geens also demonstrated that he was implementing GeoRSS tags for IPY news and will be publishing a network link allowing people to visualize IPY news in Google Maps or Earth.

• Sensor Webs in Digital Earth - Matt Heavner talked about the importance of sensor webs to gather and collect data from different types of sensors to scientific research. He then discussed why KML is an important vehicle for sharing and visualizing the data from sensor webs. KML enables scientists to not only collect data in real-time, but also show different forms of data (placemarks, tables, photos, graphs, 3D shapes, and web cam photos) all tied to location. By using KML you also can use either Google Earth or the browser-based Google Maps. Although Stefan Geens (who was attending) pointed out Maps doesn't handle areas around the poles very well.

• Volcanic Ash Dispersion Modeling in Google Earth - Peter Webley of the Alaska Volcano Observatory presented his research visualizations which use a very innovative application of Google Earth technology to show ash plumes which are thrown into the atmosphere by volcanoes. I first saw this at the AGU conference last fall. But, I never wrote about it because there was no available KML file. It turns out their model outputs 2000 placemarks with graphical icons to model the plume as particles. The icons are designed to look like gray ash from a distance and it works quite well. They also use time animation to show how the plumes drift. They also have the ability to predict how the ash plumes will drift based on atmospheric models. The airlines use this to avoid flight plans which might take them into these dangerous clouds of ash. You can read more about this at their web site - which includes several GIF animations. I can't resist, so here is one example showing ash coming from Mt. St. Helens' eruption in 1980 in Google Earth:

  

• NASA Earth Observatory (NEO) - David Herring presented the efforts of NASA to provide a valuable educational tool designed to not only educate the public, but also to attract young people into the field of science. Not only that, but the data is very valuable for illustrating climatic change, how humans are effecting the environment, and for analyzing our planet. The NEO web site has recently been re-designed to be even more effective. What I like is their support for showing the data in Google Earth. If you click on "Ocean->Sea Surface Temperature" you not only see a flat 2D map showing the data, but also a link for a Google Earth version like this . Although, I was disappointed to note the data came from 1985. But, I liked David's approach to designing better ways to view data.

  
  

• Spot Image Announced Planet Action - The president of Spot Image US announced a new initiative called Planet Action. My hat is off to any company which takes on the noble goal of trying to organize a call to action to help take care of our planet. And, a satellite imagery company certainly has a good perspective to understand what is happening on Earth. So far they have enlisted the aid of partners: ESRI, Unesco, and Infoterra. They should definitely talk to Google if they want to get maximum exposure.

  
  

• After these sessions, there was a Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony. During the cocktails I managed to grab Stefan Geens for a photo. Look for a separate post on that. One of the winners of the visualization challenge was UNEP for their Google Earth layer which shows 120 locations around the Earth where noticeable problems demonstrating natural climatic change and human destruction of the environment have occurred. See my earlier post on the UNEP layer which is now under the new "Global Awareness" layer in GE.

  
  

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 04, 2007

News Roundup - France Censors, Flickr, Seabeds, Live tracking

• France Censors - Stefan Geens of OgleEarth is back to writing his blog after a successful launch of the Second House of Sweden (a virtual embassy for Sweden inside Second Life). Stefan notes that France has managed to insert censored imagery in the new Google Earth satellite and aerial imagery which went out on Saturday. Stefan says they are using a similar technique to the censoring in the Netherlands. Here's an example with an image overlay from Google Maps showing what an airpor looked like before it was censored (turn off the overlay - or use the transparency slider - to compare). Also, the Chinese version of Google Earth has censored imagery as well.

• Flickr - Rev Dan Catt was the first to implement an interface for Google Earth for Flickr. Something which later had something to do with his getting a job at Yahoo. Now Dan has finally re-created KML links for Google Earth. Read about it at his blog Geobloggers which includes a history of his Flickr/GE project. Here's a sample KML file showing how you can show photos for a specific tag - e.g lightning . Look at the URL for how to change the tag to whatever you want.

• Seabeds - The UK's Maritime Coast Guard Agency has released Google Earth files showing the coastal seabed surveys using colorized relief maps. Here's a sample showing the Holm channel .

• Live Tracking - Magnalox has recently been adding the ability to show live tracking using PDAs, and now Simbian cell phones, to interface your GPS location. He has now enabled the ability to show your position with Magnalox (which supports many mapping interfaces including Google Maps and Google Earth). You can even insert a live-tracking Google Map into your own web page if you have a need. If you're looking for a wide range of capabilities for a mapping application, Magnalox has some of the nicest features I've seen.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:39 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 02, 2007

Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth

The Hurricane season has officially begun. And the second named storm - Tropical Depression Barry - is currently providing much needed wetness to a dry southeastern US. One of Google Earth's most powerful features is the ability to pull in real-time information from other sites and overlay the information for visualization. Weather data is one of my favorite applications of this ability. Imagine pulling in the latest satellite photos, radar animations, hurricane tracking, live web cams on the ground, sea surface temperature analysis, etc. Well, you can do all that with the set of tools I've bundled together into this: the weather and storm tracking tools collection . Simply drag this network link into your Places folder to keep it handy. It won't take up space until you turn it on. It first loads several folders of weather tools you can explore. Right now it includes: a global hurricane tracking tool, global cloud maps, severe weather warning data and radar data from NOAA for the US, weather observations for the US from WeatherBonk, a real-time day/night viewing tool, and the global annual lightning flash rate map from NASA. Turn on the Hurricanes - Live Positions link to see T.D. Barry's current position. You will see the past track, forecasted path, current position, and the red dots are nearby web cams. The position o the storm, when a hurricane, will show it's storm strength (level 1, 2, etc.). These tools were put together by a variety of people in the Google Earth Community. I will add more storm and weather tools to the network link periodically, but if you save this network link, you will automatically see them added. Read about each here:

• Hurricanes - Live positions
• Global Cloud Map
• NOAA Severe Weather
• Weather Bonk - For Google Maps, but GE file available
• Real-Time Day and Night Earth
• Annual Lightning Flash Rate

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 23, 2007

PhotoFlyr - A Google Earth 3D Flying Photo Viewer

There have been a number of network links written for Google Earth for showing geo-tagged photos (tied to the place where they were taken). Over a year ago, the author of Geoblogger.com, Rev Dan Catt, did some neat Google Earth network links letting you see geo-tagged Flickr photos. The Flickr folks liked it so much, he ended up with a job there. A few months later, Flickr created Flickr Maps for viewing geo-tagged photos. Google Earth has it's own built in photos now thanks to the Panoramio layer.

Recently, we saw the release of TwitterVision (for viewing the most recent Tweets on a Google Map), and more recently FlickrVision (for viewing the most recent Flickr photos on a Google Map). Both of these were written by David Troy. This more dynamic way of viewing recently posted content is mesmerizing and fun to watch in Google Maps. I wrote a blog entry about some ways you could view photos in Google Earth in a similar fashion.

Now I want to share another method for viewing the most recent photos with position information from Flickr by using Google Earth. Check out PhotoFlyr.com which was co-developed by EarthNC's Virgil Zetterlind, with a little help from Google Earth Blog (in other words: me). You can view it either in a browser window (using Google Earth thanks to a plug-in by Google Earth Airlines), or with a network link directly (for those of you running on a Mac, Linux, or who just want the full application). See below for more details.

Background on PhotoFlyr:

So, last week, I had some discussions with Virgil about ways we could do something to show the most recent photos from places like Flickr. We came up with a Google Earth network link which can be viewed either straight from Google Earth, or using the GoogleEarthAirlines browser plug-in. Here are some interesting notes on the application:

1. If a photo was posted with geo-tagged (coordinates) information, you are seeing that location. If it doesn't have coordinates we use the photo's user id location. Otherwise we skip that photo.
2. If you click on the photo and then click on the photo in the description bubble, you see the Flickr page for the photo
3. Notice that the tour flies to different angles and heights as you see each photo
4. If you are fast enough, you can double click a photo and zoom in for a closer view
5. You can stop the viewer with the "Viewer" button in the upper left
6. There were some other tricks Virgil developed to keep the network link running smoothly and to minimize demand on the Flickr API for larger numbers of users (hopefully they appreciate that).
7. If you're using the plug-in, you can click on the little GE logo in the lower right of PhotoFlyr and it will open up the Google Earth window. Then hit F11 and you can view the Flying Viewer full screen!

We have other innovations in mind for the application. But, we thought we would release this since Google Earth is a fun way to view dynamic real-time content in 3D. Let us know what you think!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 05:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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More entries for this category:

6. Watch Weekend Boating Live in Google Earth - May 18, 2007
7. FlickrVision - And Now for Google Earth - May 15, 2007
8. 3D Warehouse Map Mashup for Collections - May 04, 2007
9. Yahoo! Pipes Supports KML - May 03, 2007
10. Globe Glider Video Demonstration - May 02, 2007
11. Super Mapping Mashup -> Globe Glider Next Generation - May 01, 2007
12. Dynamic Map Showing AIM Chatters in Google Earth - April 30, 2007
13. News Roundup: Tour de France, Tasmania Logging, Somalia, GE-Sharing, More Biking - April 23, 2007
14. The Google Earth Network Link - April 19, 2007
15. Continuous Flow of New 3D Buildings - April 17, 2007
16. Google Earth Classified Ads by Safarri - March 26, 2007
17. News Roundup - Fixes for Windows Vista, Airshows, FBOWeb update, Photos with Search - March 19, 2007
18. Dig a Hole Through Google Earth - March 16, 2007
19. gCensus - US Census Data for Google Earth - March 14, 2007
20. Skype + Unype = Multi-User Google Earth - March 10, 2007
21. Topographical Maps and Other Goodies for Google Earth - March 06, 2007
22. News Roundup: KML Standardization, Cruise ship tracker, IGiGLE, 3D Printing - March 03, 2007
23. New Real-time Traffic in Google Maps for USA - February 28, 2007
24. Planes in Flight Hobby - February 13, 2007
25. Using Satellite Photos to Document Human Rights Violations - February 07, 2007
26. Google Street Maps Overlay for Google Earth - February 02, 2007
27. High Res Photos from an Aerial Drone in Google Earth - January 26, 2007
28. Track Cruise Ships in 3D in Google Earth - January 22, 2007
29. Daily NASA MODIS Satellite Imagery for Google Earth - January 20, 2007
30. NOAA Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) Weather Feed for Google Earth - January 13, 2007
31. Shaded Relief Map of US Terrain in Google Earth - January 12, 2007
32. Upper Green Valley Environmental Issues Illustrated with Google Earth - January 10, 2007
33. New Layers - Yelp Reviews, Textured 3D Buildings, Brazilian Roads, and more - January 07, 2007
34. Watch Remote Control Plane with Camera Capturing Real-time Images for Google Earth - January 05, 2007
35. Using GPS in Real-time with Google Earth - January 02, 2007
36. Play "Mars Sucks" Game in Google Earth - December 29, 2006
37. Multilingual Wikipedia Project Linking to Google Earth - December 28, 2006
38. Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 27, 2006
39. Amazing Implementation of Marine Charts for Google Earth - December 21, 2006
40. Avian Flu Tracker Updated - December 12, 2006
41. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab Publishes Google Earth Content - December 08, 2006
42. Plazes.com Does Google Earth - Social Network - December 06, 2006
43. Beautiful Blue Marble and Clouds Add-on for Google Earth - November 16, 2006
44. CBS News Does Google Earth - November 09, 2006
45. Earth on Fire - November 04, 2006
46. Route du Rhum - Live Sailing Race in Google Earth - November 01, 2006
47. News Roundup - Animated 3D, EmerGeo, Altered Oceans, Virtual Airlines - October 29, 2006
48. National Weather Service Releases Radar Loops for Google Earth - October 26, 2006
49. Global Paleogeographic Time Animation - October 16, 2006
50. Watch UK Autumn Leaves Changing Colour - October 13, 2006
51. Space Atlas for Google Earth - October 10, 2006
52. More Space Content for Google Earth from Wirefly X PRIZE Cup - October 08, 2006
53. RoboGEO 5 Released - Geotag Photos with Google Earth - September 27, 2006
54. Google Earth Las Vegas - September 22, 2006
55. Roundup - Pillows, redtrails, earthpoint, Robogeo 5, libferris, virtual land rush - September 20, 2006
56. Anousheh Ansari Blasts off to Space - September 18, 2006
57. Track Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Lane in Google Earth - September 16, 2006
58. New Storms - Track Hurricane Gordon, Typhoon Shanshan - September 13, 2006
59. CBS News Does Google Earth - Missing Last Step - September 08, 2006
60. Track Tropical Storm Florence in Google Earth - September 06, 2006
61. News Roundup - RoboGeo, PhotoModeler, Trippermap, EditGrid - September 05, 2006
62. Global Clouds with Altitude for GE 4 - September 03, 2006
63. British Airways Uses Google Earth to Improve Online Sales - September 01, 2006
64. Track Hurricane Ernesto in Google Earth - August 27, 2006
65. World's Largest Cosmic Ray Detector Shown in Google Earth - August 16, 2006
66. Homemade Network of Real-time Lightning Data - See it in Google Earth - August 09, 2006
67. Three Flickr Photo Browsing Tools for Google Earth - August 03, 2006
68. Tropical Storm Chris - August 01, 2006
69. New Tsunami Hits Southern Java Indonesia - July 17 - July 17, 2006
70. News Roundup - July 15, 2006
71. Bus Live Tracking at USC - Research Project - July 14, 2006
72. Tour de France Live Tracking Enhancements - July 12, 2006
73. Traffic Cameras for Quebec/Montreal, Canada in Google Earth - July 10, 2006
74. FSEarth 3.0 - MS Flight Simulator and Google Earth - July 08, 2006
75. Magnalox Provides Live Tracking Interface for Google Earth - July 07, 2006
76. Tour de France by Google - July 06, 2006
77. Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth - July 03, 2006
78. Live Tracking of Tour de France in Google Earth - July 02, 2006
79. Tour de France 2006 Starts Tomorrow - June 30, 2006
80. Aeronautical Information System - June 26, 2006
81. Project Thin Ice - Expedition to North Pole in Google Earth - June 07, 2006
82. FIFA World Cup Football Stadiums in 3D - June 03, 2006
83. Avian Flu Outbreak Map Update - Human Cases in Indonesia - June 01, 2006
84. Near Real-time Severe Weather Data for the US from NOAA - May 31, 2006
85. Unicycling for College Money - Track Max in Google Earth - May 28, 2006
86. Tour de France 2006 in Google Earth - May 25, 2006
87. Integrating Calendar Events to Location in Google Earth - May 23, 2006
88. See More Recent Aerial Photos in Google Earth - May 22, 2006
89. Decrease in Avian Flu Spread During Last Month - May 19, 2006
90. Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 in Google Earth - May 18, 2006
91. Mount Merapi Volcano in Google Earth - May 15, 2006
92. Real-time Stream Flow Sensor Net in Google Earth - May 14, 2006
93. Win a Mazda CX-7 in a Sweepstakes Contest in Google Earth - May 01, 2006
94. Near Real-time Ocean/Weather Data - April 28, 2006
95. Seattle 911 Live in Google Earth - April 18, 2006
96. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Adds Google Earth Data - April 13, 2006
97. Wikipedia for Google Earth and WikiSearch Tool - April 11, 2006
98. Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 5 - April 03, 2006
99. Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race in Google Earth - March 29, 2006
100. Enhanced Avian Flu Outbreak Tracker - March 27, 2006
101. Real-Time Sensor Net in Google Earth - March 23, 2006
102. GlobalFlyer Attempting Third World Record - March 15, 2006
103. Bed and Breakfast Locations in Google Earth - March 06, 2006
104. GolfNation.org - Courses in Google Earth - March 03, 2006
105. Emotion Map in Google Earth - February 21, 2006
106. Follow Steve Fossett/Global Flyer in Google Earth - February 09, 2006
107. Pilot World-wide Weather in Google Earth - February 08, 2006
108. Earthquake Monitoring - February 07, 2006
109. Real-time Shuttle Bus Tracking in Google Earth - February 01, 2006
110. Arctic and Antarctic Ice Floes in Google Earth - January 25, 2006
111. Real Estate for Google Earth by Re/Max - Again! - January 14, 2006
112. Aurora Viewing Map in Google Earth - January 05, 2006
113. Globe Glider - Integrated Maps within Google Earth - January 03, 2006
114. Locations for Amusement Parks/Roller Coasters in Google Earth - December 09, 2005
115. Near Real-time Flight Tracking in Google Earth - December 02, 2005
116. EarthBooker - 80,000 Hotels in Google Earth - November 07, 2005
117. Geocaching.com Uses Random Approximate Coordinates in Google Earth - November 01, 2005
118. Meteor Craters on Earth - October 18, 2005
119. The Ants Go Marching One by One - October 01, 2005
120. UK Autumn Leaves Changing Colour - September 30, 2005
121. Owners of Geocaching.com Stifle Innovation - September 24, 2005
122. Placeopedia Links Google Earth to WikiPedia - September 21, 2005
123. Storm Tracking Tools - Hurricanes Rita/Phillipe - September 20, 2005
124. Dynamic Clock - Big Ben - September 16, 2005
125. Much Improved Method for Viewing Katrina Damage Imagery - September 08, 2005
126. Up To Date Katrina Damage Imagery - September 05, 2005
127. City of Portland GIS Adds 3D Buildings - September 03, 2005
128. Real Estate Done Google Earth Style - August 29, 2005
129. Hurricanes/Tropical Data - August 26, 2005
130. City of Portland GIS - August 25, 2005
131. Geosnapper.com Photos - August 19, 2005
132. Geotagged Flickr photos on the fly... - August 03, 2005

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