January 27, 2010
See the latest GeoEye imagery before it's added to Google Earth
Since the launch of the GeoEye-1 back in late 2008, the satellite has sent a ton of high resolution imagery to Google Earth. Some of their noteworthy imagery includes President Obama's Inauguration and the recent imagery of Haiti.
However, it's difficult for them to quickly post large amounts of new imagery. Frank wrote an extensive post about the process last year, and why it takes some time for new imagery to arrive in Google Earth.
Google receives hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of new imagery every day, and now they're pushing some of the more interesting sights to a special new layer titled "GeoEye Featured Imagery". You can either select the layer from the "More" folder in your layers, or simply download this KML
to check it out.
This layer includes a lot of neat imagery including some big cities (Las Vegas, San Francicso), some neat features (Burning Man, Mt. Kilimanjaro) and lots more. What's your favorite find in this new imagery?
Posted by mickmel at 8:27 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2010
News: Google Earth in the Classroom, More 3D in Australia, DIY StreetView
Google Earth in the Classroom: Last fall, Christine Erlien taught a class at Duke University titled "Google Earth's Impact". One of the projects for the semester was to produce a blog, which they did. They cover a lot of topics such as how Google Earth could best be used in the classroom, how to create layers, etc. It's very interesting reading.
New 3D buildings in Australia (and elsewhere): Last week's 3D release featured the city of Launceston, Australia, which was created via the Cities in 3D program. Along with Launceston was a variety of other user-generated buildings, both from SketchUp and from the Building Maker tool.
DIY StreetView: This is mostly just food for thought, but has some neat possibilities. Using the Sony MHS-PM5 camera and a special lens, you can capture 360 degree footage. They demo software for it that can "unwrap" the image, lay it out, and then allow you to move around in the video while it's playing. It feels kind of like YellowBird or Immersive Media, but it's something you could create and publish by yourself.
Check out the video below to see the demonstration:
Posted by mickmel at 9:43 AM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2010
Real-time 3D models with Live3D
A group of graduate students at Washington University in St. Louis have developed an incredible technique to put real-time imagery on the sides of 3D buildings.
In the words of Austin Abrams, one of the members of the group:
In the last few months, we've been developing Live3D, a Google Earth-powered web application that allows users to transform photos into 3D geometry in Google Earth. If you give the application a webcam URL, then the geometry of the scene changes as the webcam image refreshes. So, you can recreate (say) the Eiffel tower in 3D and get a live, constantly refreshing 3D model, instead of the static Sketchup model. We have a few examples of university campuses, and you can actually watch in real-time as students walk across the surface of Google Earth.
Once a user has built up a scene enough, the camera is automatically calibrated, revealing its location and orientation.
As Digital Urban points out, this technique could work particularly well for urban areas where the content would change much more often (billboards, etc).
The technique is amazing, though it certainly needs some refinement. The biggest problem will likely be the quality of webcam images -- most are of lower quality than what would be ideal. Still, that could one day be an option in Google Earth; view the standard model (better looking) or view the real-view version of that model. The possibilities are certainly intriguing.
Check out their site to browse through the models. They're all shown using the Google Earth Plugin, so you'll need to have that installed to see them.
Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM | Comments (1)
January 22, 2010
Kite photos of Petite Tabac
Back in November, the first batch of Frank's aerial photographs (taken via kite) arrived in Google Earth. Part of his goal with the Tahina Expedition was to capture and share a wide variety of data for Google Earth, and this was a good start. Not much later, his journey became a part of the Ocean Layer in Google Earth.
Now he's taken some beautiful images of Petite Tabac, an island featured in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie (when Elizabeth burned Jack's rum), located near the Tobago Cays in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
He's hoping the imagery will show up in Google Earth soon, but in the meantime you can download a KML of it which is a Superoverlay of the imagery. In addition to that, he's created a Photosynth of the images (Microsoft Silverlight required). Photosynth is a tool from Microsoft that lets you browse pictures in a 3D environment. We first mentioned it back in 2006, and it was recently featured on here as a tool to view recent imagery from Haiti.
You can read more about this on the Tahina Expedition blog.
Posted by mickmel at 6:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2010
Panoramio co-founder Eduardo Manchón leaving Google
Back at Where 2.0 2007, Google CTO Michael Jones announced that they had acquired Panoramio, the popular photo hosting company. At the time, there were roughly two million photos in their database. By the following spring it had risen to 4.5 million photos, and is now well over 20 million!
Sadly, co-founder Eduardo Manchón has just announced that he is leaving Google and heading onward to new projects. In particular, he mentions Askaro, a way to ask questions about a particular geographic area (neighborhoods, etc). He will be replaced on the Panoramio team by Gerard Sanz.
However, it's not all bad news. As TechCrunch points out, many Google acquisitions end very poorly, with the acquired company pretty much dying (Dodgeball, Jaiku, etc), but that certainly wasn't the case here. Panoramio is not only a major part of Google Earth, but is also featured in Google Maps and StreetView. It continues to grow in popularity, and seems likely to continue to thrive.
We certainly wish him well with his new ventures! Given the geographic nature of his new site, I'm sure we'll be writing about him again in the future.
Posted by mickmel at 4:07 PM | Comments (3)
January 21, 2010
New StreetView imagery in Sweden and Denmark
Google has just released StreetView imagery for Sweden and Denmark, details of which can be found on Google Maps Mania.
I've also heard that various other areas have been updated, including:
UK: New small areas in the UK are now visible. Avebury, Glendurgan Garden, Castle Drogo, Nymans Garden, The Wicken Fen, and many more
Italy: Coverage is expanded, particularly in southern Italy. (Sicily and Sardinia also got updates and look to be near 100%)
Netherlands: Updated.
Taiwan Expanded coverage.
If you know of any other new/updated areas, please let us know. Some of the best new locations have already been posted on Street View Gallery, StreetViewFun and the Google Earth Hacks StreetView section, so check those out to see the best sights in this new imagery.
Posted by mickmel at 8:44 AM | Comments (7)
January 20, 2010
New 3D models for the Olympics (and Cincinnati)
Toward the end of last year, Google pushed out a bunch of excellent 3D models for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, covering 8 of the 9 venues. They've now updated many of those models with higher-resolution imagery and they also added the ninth venue (the Bobsled Course).
With this update, they have include a total of 54 buildings across all nine venues. You can view them in the Google 3D Warehouse, or simply fly out there (Bobsled KML) to see them in Google Earth (make sure to have the "3D Buildings" layer checked).
For another way to view the venues, Soren Johannessen has built a tour of the venues using the Google Earth Plug-in, which you can view here.
Also in the past few days, Google has added 3D buildings to Cincinnati, Ohio. These buildings come from a variety of sources; some are user-generated, some are Google-generated, and some gray buildings were submitted via the Cities in 3D Program. All in all, it makes for a great 3D city to fly through!
Posted by mickmel at 8:27 AM | Comments (3)
January 18, 2010
Mapping the 2010 Santos Tour Down Under
The 2010 Santos Tour Down Under is the biggest cycling race in Australia, and it's the first event in the 2010 UCI (International Cycling Union) World Calendar. It features top riders from all over the world, including Lance Armstrong.
GEB reader Thomas has spent some time building an impressive collection of KML data for the race. You can check out the details on his blog, or simply download the KML file here.
The race begins tomorrow, January 19, and consists of six stages that cover a total of nearly 800 kilometers. Each stage is mapped out in the KML in a different color, and it really helps to show the size of the race.
For more information about the Tour Down Under, you can visit their website at www.tourdownunder.com.au.
Posted by mickmel at 4:33 PM | Comments (2)
Resources for Haiti
In the days since the tragic earthquake in Haiti, many geo-related resources have been released. Here are some of the more noteworthy things we've seen:
[UPDATE - Jan 21 -- Even newer imagery from Google, with incredibly high 15cm resolution in some areas]
Recent imagery from GeoEye
We mentioned it before, but felt it worth mentioning again. Google and GeoEye are working together to push out fresh imagery to a special layer in Google Earth and they've made it available a few different ways. You can download the KML file to view the imagery, and now you can also access it via the "Historical Imagery" slider at the top of your screen. The file is constantly being appended with more data and imagery.
Interactive Imagery Tool from the New York Times
The New York Times has built a slick tool to highlight some of the areas hardest hit by the earthquake. It's a unique and powerful way to compare "before and after" imagery, with various landmarks highlighted and explained.
Massive Imagery Files for Relief Organizations
In addition to the updated imagery being provided for Google Earth, GeoEye is releasing massive high-res imagery files for relief organizations. These files are hundreds of MB in size, and intended for mapping professionals to assist in responding to the earthquake.
Staying Connected
Google is doing a lot of things to try to help people stay connected with loved ones in Haiti, such as offering a "People Finder" gadget to get people together, and offering free phone calls via Google Voice from the United States to Haiti. All of the details can be found here.
Bing Maps and Photosynth
Microsoft has built a Photosynth of some of the damaged areas of Port-Au-Prince. Photosynth is a neat way to view collections of photographs, though this imagery was collected from video footage and isn't of the highest quality.
However, they've also added updated imagery to Bing Maps. Unlike Google, this imagery is part of the standard layer now, so you can simply fly there to see it. This makes it more easily accessible to people, but it eliminates the ability to compare before/after shots.
Open Route Service via Open Street Map
OpenRouteService is keeping an updated map of available street routes in Haiti. Due to the extensive damage, many streets are closed. This map can help authorities and rescuers to reach their destination as quickly as possible. Open Street Map is helping with the project. (link via Mapperz)
Do you know of any other great resources? Let us know in the comments.
Posted by mickmel at 7:55 AM | Comments (5)
January 15, 2010
News: Building Maker, iPhone App, SketchUp
New improvements and cities in Building Maker: Google continues to improve the slick (and popular) Building Maker tool. This update makes it even easier to see which other buildings are under construction by fellow modelers, which is a much-requested enhancement. When viewing the map for potential locations to build, blue icons will appear to show where nearby buildings have recently been modeled. In addition, they've added the cities of Milan, Italy and Miami, Florida to the list.
Get the GEB iPhone app: With the help of MotherApp, we're pleased to announce the launch of our first iPhone app! The app gives you quick access to our recent posts, recent videos on
our YouTube page, and our recent tweets (@GEarthBlog). It's nothing too remarkable, but it's free! Download it from the app store here, or simply search for "Google Earth Blog".
New SketchUp Build: A new build of Google SketchUp has just been released, which tackles some bugs and security issues (full details). It's a free update, so it's recommended if you're a SketchUp user.
Posted by mickmel at 7:34 AM | Comments (1)
Links marked with this icon are Google Earth files. You must have Google Earth installed to use these links.