Weather Archives

June 24, 2007

Cómo agregar un cielo en Google Earth

James Stafford, conocido en la Comunidad de GE como "Barnabu", ha escrito en el Barnabu blog una nota buenísima sobre cómo crear un cielo 3D para Google Earth. Lo llama "Domo del Cielo". Básicamente ha creado una semiesfera (o hemisferio) usando Google SketchUp, y luego agregó, proyectado apropiadamente, un cielo lleno de nubes al interior de la semi-esfera 3D. Tomó uno de sus modelos 3D, el Edificio Torso Retorcido, y creó un video mostrando cómo se vé dentro de SketchUp. Véanlo aquí:

Yo dí un paso más. Bajé su Edificio Torso Retorcido , y luego bajé su ejemplo de "Domo del Cielo" en SketchUp. Luego, importé la Vista Actual desde GE (simplemente seleccionando "Herramientas->Google Earth->Obtener vista Actual"). Luego exporté el Domo del Cielo a GE, seleccionando "Herramientas->Google Earth->Colocar Modelo"). Nota: También hay 2 íconos en la Barra de Herramientas de SketchUp para facilitar esta tarea.

Pueden ver el resultado bajando esto modelo de domo que mostrará el modelo de cielo y, si ya lo tenías descargado, el Edificio Torso Retorcido dentro de GE. Sólo ahora tienes un cielo alrededor del edificio. Puedes editar las Propiedades del Domo dentro de GE "Modelo" y arrastrar para mover el cielo a una nueva posición. Inclusive puedes cambiar el tamaño también. Puedes mirar hacia el cielo si tienes un SpaceNavigator (Navegador Espacial). Esta historia de Barnabu explica cómo puedes aplicar diferentes imágenes de cielos al Domo, usando SketchUp. Gracias Barnabu!

Otras cosas excepcionales de 'barnabu':

• Tierra Rebotando
• Edificio Torso Retorcido
• Nubes de Júpiter en Movimiento.
• Animación de Edificios de Londres creciendo.
• Saturno en GE
• Capilla "Kings College" en Cambridge.
• Cuartel General del MI6.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2007

Global Lightning Animation for Google Earth

Received a tip from a GEB reader about some new weather data for Google Earth. The data comes from a web site called GuiWeather.com which predominantly is focused on providing global lightning data, but also has other GE weather tools. GuiWeather hopes to help people avoid lightning strike dangers by alerting them to nearby lightning using cell phone alerts. More importantly from a GE perspective, they are sharing their global lightning data in the form of lightning time animations. The data is near real-time (less than 2 minutes old when I last checked) and the animation shows the last 30 minutes of lightning strikes world wide. Check out the global lightning time animation . I like the way they show you how to configure and play the timeslider with little "pointer hand" graphic icons overlayed on the screen. GuiWeather's site says they have a world-wide network of sferic sensors collecting the lightning data.

In addition to the lightning data, the GuiWeather site has a number of other KML files with weather data. Current temperatures for many cities in the US are color coded as well as giving temperature values. This same temperature data is also available as a Google Mapplet. I also like GuiWeather's buoy and ship weather collection.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 02:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 07, 2007

Monthly Cloud Animations for Google Earth

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know I like the ability to show satellite views of clouds over the Earth. To me it quickly illustrates how Google Earth can pull in information from places on the Internet, overlay them over the Earth, and produce a visualization which is both informative and beautiful to behold. Earlier this year, Google Earth Community member 'barnabu' (who has produced many cool time animations and 3D models for GE - see below) wrote a script to capture each image overlay of global clouds which are produced every three hours. He used this to produce a cloud animation for the past 10 days (about 5 Mbytes each). He now has enough data (for the first five months of the year) that he has compiled month-long cloud animations (about 16 Mbytes each). You could load more than one of these, but they will likely slow down your machine because they are so large. But, it is definitely cool watching an animation of an entire month of weather progression. For example, check out the cloud animation for January (16 Mbytes). Once it loads in Google Earth, hit the "play" button (the right-arrow to the right of the time slider) to start the time animation.

A special note of thanks to Hari Nair at Xplanet who wrote the program that produces the composite satellite photos global clouds.

Other cool things by 'barnabu':

• Bouncing Earth
• Turning Torso Building
• Jupiter Clouds in Motion
• Animating Building Growth in London
• Google Saturn
• Kings College Chapel in Cambridge
• MI6 Headquarters

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | 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 25, 2007

Rising Water Effects for NYC in Google Earth - Part III

Last week I shared some data created by Leszek of FreeGeoGraphyTools.com where he had created a more accurate result showing how water would rise around Manhattan based on a more detailed terrain model available from the USGS. At the time, I suggested he do an animation using the time animation capability of Google Earth. Yesterday he posted his animation and details on how to create it using the same tools he used. He had to generate 61 frames of rising water calculations to get the smooth animation effect. You can view the animation in Google Earth. Once it loads, click on the "Play" button on the right of the time slider in the top-right-center of GE. You can turn on the 3D Buildings and the Terrain layers to see the effect of the water relative to buildings, ground, and the satellite / aerial photos. Or just watch a video of the GE animation here:

Related:

• Rising water effects - Part II
• Rising water effects - Part I

Posted by FrankTaylor at 07:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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More entries for this category:

6. Google Earth Umbrella - May 16, 2007
7. News Roundup - Nokia N95, gCensus US, Greensburg Radar Animation - May 14, 2007
8. New Satellite Imagery of Town Destroyed by Tornado - May 09, 2007
9. News Roundup - Taj Majal in 3D, KML as Open Standard, Katrina Imagery, New AIA150 Tour - May 08, 2007
10. EarthNC Releases Browser-based Google Earth Content - April 26, 2007
11. Animation Roundup: Rising Sea Levels, Filling Grand Canyon, Global Clouds - April 06, 2007
12. Historical Maps of Tornado Paths in the US - April 03, 2007
13. Google Shows Pre-Katrina Photos for New Orleans - March 30, 2007
14. New Snow and Ice Data for Google Earth - March 05, 2007
15. Happy International Polar Year! Google Earth Presentation - March 02, 2007
16. Fox Television Offering Google Earth/Maps Weather Data - February 12, 2007
17. Recent Weather Satellite Animations in Google Earth - February 01, 2007
18. News roundup: Google vs. Microsoft, 3D San Jose, Endurance, Weather, Off the Map - January 23, 2007
19. NOAA Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) Weather Feed for Google Earth - January 13, 2007
20. NASA Goddard Publishes Huge Google Earth Time Animations - December 10, 2006
21. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab Publishes Google Earth Content - December 08, 2006
22. History: The Flood of Florence in 1966 with Google Earth - December 01, 2006
23. Earth on Fire - November 04, 2006
24. National Weather Service Releases Radar Loops for Google Earth - October 26, 2006
25. Katrina Time Animation in Google Earth - September 25, 2006
26. Track Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Lane in Google Earth - September 16, 2006
27. New Storms - Track Hurricane Gordon, Typhoon Shanshan - September 13, 2006
28. Track Tropical Storm Florence in Google Earth - September 06, 2006
29. Global Clouds with Altitude for GE 4 - September 03, 2006
30. Hurricane John Threatens West Mexico Coastline - August 30, 2006
31. Back to School - Educational Uses with Google Earth - August 29, 2006
32. Track Hurricane Ernesto in Google Earth - August 27, 2006
33. Track Tropical Storm Ernesto in Google Earth - August 25, 2006
34. High Resolution Satellite Photo of Typhoon Saomai - August 11, 2006
35. Homemade Network of Real-time Lightning Data - See it in Google Earth - August 09, 2006
36. Tropical Storms in the Pacific - Maria, Typhoon Saomai, and Bopha - August 08, 2006
37. Tropical Storm Chris - August 01, 2006
38. Weather Forecasts for South America in Google Earth/ Pronostico America del Sur - July 13, 2006
39. Weather and Storm Tracking Tools for Google Earth - July 03, 2006
40. NASA Lightning Map in Google Earth - June 20, 2006
41. Near Real-time Severe Weather Data for the US from NOAA - May 31, 2006
42. Real-time Stream Flow Sensor Net in Google Earth - May 14, 2006
43. Gulf Impact - Analysis of Damage to Oil/Gas Industry from Hurricanes - May 09, 2006
44. Near Real-time Ocean/Weather Data - April 28, 2006
45. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Adds Google Earth Data - April 13, 2006
46. Global Cloud Map is Back - April 03, 2006
47. Follow Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 in Google Earth - February 19, 2006
48. Pilot World-wide Weather in Google Earth - February 08, 2006
49. News Roundup - February 07, 2006
50. More Satellite Environmental Data in Google Earth - January 31, 2006
51. NASA Annual Day Land Temperatures of the Earth - January 30, 2006
52. Global Fire Data in Google Earth - January 26, 2006
53. Arctic and Antarctic Ice Floes in Google Earth - January 25, 2006
54. Aurora Viewing Map in Google Earth - January 05, 2006
55. Tropical Storm Zeta - January 04, 2006
56. Fantastic Google Earth Documentary on Sir Ernest Shackleton - November 14, 2005
57. Post-Wilma NOAA Aerial Photography Released - October 26, 2005
58. Hurricane Wilma Google Earth Imagery - October 24, 2005
59. Hurricane Wilma Most Intense Atlantic Storm - October 20, 2005
60. Storm Tracking Tools - Hurricane Wilma - October 19, 2005
61. Nice Global Cloud Map - September 26, 2005
62. Hurricane Rita - Using Google Earth to Track - September 23, 2005
63. Storm Tracking Tools - Hurricanes Rita/Phillipe - September 20, 2005
64. Hurricane Katrina - Summary of Google Earth Resources - September 16, 2005
65. Hurricane Ophelia High-Res Satellite - September 15, 2005
66. Much Improved Method for Viewing Katrina Damage Imagery - September 08, 2005
67. Latest FEMA Katrina Damage Assessment Overlay - September 06, 2005
68. News Coverage on Google Earth and Hurricane Help - September 05, 2005
69. [UPDATE] Google Releasing Katrina Imagery - September 02, 2005
70. New Katrina Damage Photos in Google Earth - September 01, 2005
71. Hurricane Katrina Video and Google Earth - August 31, 2005
72. Hurricanes/Tropical Data - August 26, 2005
73. All Atlantic Hurricanes 1851-Present - August 20, 2005
74. Clouds of the Earth - August 08, 2005
75. Hurricane Tracking - August 01, 2005

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