Sports Archives
June 20, 2007
Tour de France 2007 in Google Earth
As in the previous two years, biking enthusiasts have put together the details on the routes for all stages of this year's Tour de France. Someone called "Timetxu" in the Netherlands has published this TdF 2007 KMZ file 
in this forum post (Dutch).
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. An important difference this year for Google Earth viewers is that the imagery for the French Alps has been greatly improved now that Google Earth includes medium resolution 2.5 meter resolution imagery from Spot Image. Still fuzzy up close, but better than it was last year. Also see a thread of posts with some other KML files showing some of the different stages for this year's Tour de France.
The GE file for this year's TdF posted above is not as detailed as some previous versions of the Tour de France, but it gives a good overview of all the stages. Last year Google helped develop an official Google Earth file (in four languages) for the stages for the official TdF web site. And someone even developed a live tracking capability of the race for 2006 (see below). Maybe we'll see some other innovations before the race begins on July 7th.
Related:
Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 20, 2007
News Roundup: GE 4.1 Stuff, Plotting a Trail, Business Reviews, More Second Earth
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GE 4.1 Stuff - The Google Earth 4.1 beta has been out for more than a month. There are a couple little features I haven't mentioned. First, they fixed a bug which prevented you from looking straight up in Google Earth. And, when using the SpaceNavigator you can look up at a 3D Building and when you let go the view stays looking up (pre-4.1 would pop the view back to the horizon). In addition, during time animation, the background star field animates according to the passage of time (see a post about this at Barnabu's site). There is an annoying bug in 4.1 which prevents the compass in the upper right from automatically disappearing like it is supposed to. There are also a number of subtle rendering bugs which are annoying. I hope a new beta will come out soon.
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Plotting a Trail - Googler John Gardiner posts about his hobby of helping plan trails. He uses topo map overlays, a GPS track and placemarks to help communicate a planned trail. See an example trail
near South Yuba River in Northern California.
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Business Reviews - Google has added a new feature to Google Maps which lets you review and rate a business you find in a map search. Maps already showed ratings and reviews from other web sites, but it also now allows you to give your own reviews and ratings. Simply search for a business and choose "More Info". Then choose "Write a review". You have to be logged in to a Google account. Very simple and straight-forward. A couple of suggestions I have: Allow folks to just give it a rating without writing a review, and allow people to use anonymous as a reviewer name (but, limit them to one review per establishment).
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More Second Earth - Avi Bar-Ze’ev, former Keyhole developer of the application which became Google Earth, shares his thoughts about the recent article by MIT Technology Review called Second Earth. Avi goes into depth about the possibilities / impossibilities of Google Earth and Second Life being combined as a mashup. Definitely a worthy read if you liked the Second Earth article. Wade Roush (author of the Second Earth article) even commented he really liked Avi's article.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2007
Photo Finding in Google Earth - Just for Fun
I do a bit of mountain biking now and then, and happened to notice an article on the New York Times today. The article is called "Where Mountain Bikers Carved Their Dream Terrain" and is about a remote place in western Colorado near a town called Fruita, Colorado. I decided I would like to find this place in Google Earth. There were some nice photos in the article, so I thought I would try finding an exact spot. I noticed the name of a trail in one photo was "Zippety Trail". My first thought was to try Garmin's MotionBased.com site which lets people upload GPS tracks of their favorite outdoor activities. A simple search for "Zippety" and I got four results (like this one) - all listed as being near Fuita. I loaded up this trail in Google Earth (Motionbased supports GE for all tracks). It didn't take me long to find the place on the trail where the photo was taken in the satellite photos. This placemark tries to duplicate the same viewing angle as in the camera (as seen in the screenshot).
One thing that really helped me find the location is that Google just recently updated the terrain resolution for the western US (see coverage area) and this area now has 10 meter resolution data. Another way I found the location was by simply searching in Google Earth for "Zippety Trail". This returned a "Web result" for "Zippety Trailhead" that also showed me the location.
For a really cool example of photos matched to places in Google Earth, check out this article about a book called "Earth From Above" and the cool collection of placemarks people created trying to duplicate each view for 500 of the beautiful photos from the book in GE. The photos were so beautiful in this book, I just had to buy it. It's my favorite coffee table book.
On a related note: check out Googler John Gardner's post about a Google mountain biking team's plan for a race.
Posted by FrankTaylor at 12:25 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 12, 2007
News RoundUp: Football Game, VesselTracker, Antarctic Bases, Egyptian Digs, 3D Cities Help, Chimps, Gallery
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
May 18, 2007
Watch Weekend Boating Live in Google Earth
My friend Virgil from DestinSharks has been doing some serious hacking again and has pulled together a really cool-sounding project for this weekend. Virgil is also the guy behind EarthNC which is a company which provides detailed nautical charts for Google Earth from the official NOAA digital chart data for the US, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands. Virgil is going to be participating this weekend in the Billy Bowlegs Poker Run in Ft Walton Beach, Florida. He will be navigating his 27 foot Regal power boat using Google Earth software, but he's doing way more than that - live geotagged flickr photos, live GPS tracking, combined with GE's satellite photos, and more. Let me share with you his description:
In a nut shell, we're going to use the new GooPs Pro ( http://goopstechnologies.com/) to capture our realtime position to Google Earth from a USB GPS on my laptop, transmit our track/position KML to our webserver every 2 minutes using cellular EVDO, and to the extent possible - geotag photos while aboard using GPicSync, upload them to my Flickr account, and then use the Flickr API to create KML from the photos to push back to the map. Obviously, I'll be leaving most of the driving up to someone else tomorrow.
The combined network link - http://destinsharks.com/kmz/nl/bowlegs_pokerrun.kmz
So, I encourage you to save the network link in your "Places" folder in GE, and check it out tomorrow to watch his trip.
Related:
- EarthNC Online - use Google Earth from within your browser to view EarthNC charts
- EarthNC releases 677 nautical charts for Google Earth
Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More entries for this category:
- News Roundup - Chile Border Crisis, Caribou, Gumball Rally, Emotions - April 30, 2007
- Maverick Waves Explained - Illustration in Google Earth - April 23, 2007
- New Google Earth Layers for April: Darfur, Trimble, and more - April 09, 2007
- Cricket World Cup 2007 Venues in Google Earth - March 12, 2007
- Dog Sled Races in Google Earth: Iditarod and Finnmarksløpet - March 08, 2007
- Google Earth Layers - January 11, 2007
- Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 27, 2006
- Baseball, 3D Stadiums, Videos, and Google Earth - November 02, 2006
- Route du Rhum - Live Sailing Race in Google Earth - November 01, 2006
- Google Earth Googlers in Moab Mountain Bike Race - October 05, 2006
- Roundup - Pillows, redtrails, earthpoint, Robogeo 5, libferris, virtual land rush - September 20, 2006
- GPSVisualizer Supports New Google Earth 4 Time Support - September 15, 2006
- US National Parks Layer in Google Earth - September 13, 2006
- MacWorld Does Google Earth Golfing - September 05, 2006
- Tour de France Live Tracking Enhancements - July 12, 2006
- Tour de France by Google - July 06, 2006
- Live Tracking of Tour de France in Google Earth - July 02, 2006
- Tour de France 2006 Starts Tomorrow - June 30, 2006
- Win a Free Trip from Surfing Magazine by Using Google Earth - June 21, 2006
- FIFA World Cup Football Stadiums in 3D - June 03, 2006
- Tour de France 2006 in Google Earth - May 25, 2006
- Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 in Google Earth - May 18, 2006
- Cricket Venues in Google Earth - May 15, 2006
- Multicup 60 - Live Sailboat Race in Google Earth - May 10, 2006
- World's (second) Biggest Soccer Ball? - May 08, 2006
- magnalox - New Features for Google Earth - April 25, 2006
- GPS-Tour.info - A Resource of GPS Tracks for Google Earth - April 21, 2006
- Ski Snowbird - April 02, 2006
- Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race in Google Earth - March 29, 2006
- Sking Alta Shown in Google Earth - March 28, 2006
- Football Stadiums Update (4500) - March 18, 2006
- Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006 in Google Earth - March 10, 2006
- GolfNation.org - Courses in Google Earth - March 03, 2006
- Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 in Google Earth - February 19, 2006
- MLB World Series Winners 1903-2005 in Google Earth - February 16, 2006
- Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 3 in Google Earth - February 12, 2006
- New High Res Torino Olympics Photos in Google Earth - February 09, 2006
- CNET Superbowl Guessing Game in Google Earth - February 02, 2006
- Off Road Races in Dakar and Baja - January 09, 2006
- Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2 - January 06, 2006
- Heavy Weight Boxing Champions in Google Earth - January 02, 2006
- Adidas Promotion Uses Google Earth - December 27, 2005
- Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in Google Earth - December 23, 2005
- 3280+ Football Teams and Stadiums Around the World - December 12, 2005
- Ski Resorts and Snow Reports in Google Earth - November 21, 2005
- Transat Jacques Vabre 2005 Race in Google Earth - November 16, 2005
- And They're Off! - November 13, 2005
- Volvo Ocean Race in Google Earth - November 11, 2005
- Huge Resource of 3D Glider Tracks for Google Earth - October 12, 2005
- Aussie Crag Climbing - October 07, 2005
- Garmin Buys MotionBased - October 04, 2005
- Watching Sports with Google Earth - September 27, 2005
- 1650+ Football (aka Soccer) Stadiums Around the World - September 22, 2005