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April 29, 2008

Google Earth for Pilots

This is part of a new series exploring Google Earth uses for different professions/hobbies.

If you're a pilot, there are many ways Google Earth can be used to really enhance your trip plans both from an aviation and ground-based perspective. But, Google Earth goes way beyond just trip planning as a tool for pilots. I'm a pilot myself, and have been using Google Earth to enhance my flying experiences for nearly three years.

Here are just a few ways you might use Google Earth as a pilot:

Continue reading "Google Earth for Pilots"

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

Links: Science Uses, Compass, GM vs VE, Healthy Planet, and more

• Science Uses - Google Earth has been embraced by scientists in the fields of Paleotology and Archeology before. But, now - according to Anthropology.net - scientists have actually endorsed using GE for science in an academic, peer reviewed journal. Their paper appears in the Journal of Human Evolution in an article entitled: "Google Earth, GIS, and the Great Divide: A new and simple method for sharing paleontological data.”

• Compass - Barry Hunter has created a cool screen overlay to help you get a more accurate compass reading in GE 4.3.

• GM vs VE - Sean Gorman of Fortius One has posted an interesting comparison of KML support between Google Maps and Virtual Earth. The end result? Both have some shortcomings.

• Healthy Planet - Dr. Mark Mulligan, of Kings College in London (who has developed some great Google Earth content) has now formed a new environmental web site called: HealthyPlanet.org. HealthyPlanet.org will help make people aware of areas of the Earth needing environmental attention, and will enable people to volunteer help by becoming “Land Guardians” for a plot of land. Places needing attention will appear in maps using Google Maps or Google Earth. People visiting the site can become "armchair volunteers" by donating money. Donor can also get involved by helping map the areas using tool Dr. Mulligan has developed. Read more about the announcement.

• GPS Map Tool - Leszek has announced a really cool software tool which lets you upload maps or aerial photos to a Garmin handheld as fully viewable charts. They act just like your built-in charts. He's calling it Moagu (Mother of all GPS utilities). Sounds like a fun application, and I plan to give it a try.

• Mineral Resources - Valery Hronusov has been gathering and publishing another huge dataset. This time he is making available placemarks on mineral resources all over the world. You can see the many different KML files on mineral resources for different regions at his GISPlanet blog.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2008

How to Get 3D Buildings in Google Earth 4.3 Flight Simulator

Google apparently thought the 3D buildings in Flight Simulator mode would slow down performance for many computers. So, with the new Google Earth 4.3 beta (version 4.3.7191.6508) they automatically disable the 3D buildings layer when you turn on the Flight Simulator. As a pilot, and flight simulator fan, I really don't like this - and have sent multiple messages requesting Google re-enable the feature before 4.3 is finalized. Note: download Google Earth 4.3 if you haven't already.

The good news is that there is a work around to make the 3D buildings come on in GE 4.3's Flight Simulator. The process is just a bit of a pain, and you have to do it each time you start up the Flight Simulator. Here are the steps:

Continue reading "How to Get 3D Buildings in Google Earth 4.3 Flight Simulator"

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:11 AM | Comments (6)

April 23, 2008

Space Debris Viewed in Google Earth

In January 2007, the Chinese military decided to demonstrate their technological prowess by shooting down one of their own satellites in orbit. The action was condemned by governments around the world, but many people may not have realized the real consequence. The Earth's orbit is getting very cluttered with satellites and debris after 50 years of launches from Earth. But, this one decision to explode a satellite in space contributed thousands of potentially deadly projectiles (golf ball sized or larger) into many orbits around the Earth. Each object in orbit is typically flying around the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour (27,400 km/h). The European Space Agency recently shared a press release describing the problem of space debris including some 3D visualizations).

Robert Simpson, who writes the Orbiting Frog blog, had already developed a tool for visualizing orbit tracks in Google Earth. He recently gave a talk on space debris at Cardiff University. Using the orbit tracker, and the data available on all objects tracked in space at Celestrack, he was able to create this visualization showing the positions of all the tracked objects from the destroyed Chinese satellite in Google Earth. Each placemark is a Chinese flag showing the position of tracked debris from that one explosion. This is a network link which will automatically update every 5 minutes with the current position of each object. Read Robert's post for more details and you can get a copy of his presentation.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:25 AM | Comments (5)

April 22, 2008

NASA Earth Day Photos in Google Earth

As part of Earth Day, NASA released their top ten favorite photos taken by crew from the International Space Station. Since about half the photos were of locations on the Earth we can see in Google Earth, I decided to create a KML version for the NASA photos (which includes overlays of the images). The other 4 photos from NASA were of atmospheric observations which didn't include details of where (and what direction) the photos were taken. Some of the photos were at oblique angles, so I used the Photo Overlay techniques I described last week to place them. This turned out to be quite a challenge because there are limitations on the Photo Overlay in terms of zoom levels so I could not place myself at the same approximate position as the ISS when the photo was taken. Check out the Mount Everest photo and use the transparency slider to judge how well the photo aligns. Anyway, enjoy!

Posted by FrankTaylor at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Google Earth For Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. A time to sit back and think about our wonderful planet, and some of us will be out picking up some trash, or just enjoying nature. For those of you stuck inside due to weather, work, or other reasons - perhaps you might want to spend the day exploring our wonderful planet through the power of Google Earth. Here are a few links of stories from Google Earth Blog (GEB) describing environmental related content available for viewing in Google Earth:

• Basic Tips on Using Google Earth

• Environment Layers - Greenpeace, ARKive (endangered species), Unicef (water and sanitation), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)

• Rising Sea Levels - Animations showing what would happen if ice melting caused seas to rise too high - e.g. New York City.

• EPA Air Quality Report - US Environmental Protection Agency's air quality report for Google Earth - called AirNOW

• International Polar Year - Collection of content for Google Earth about the Earth's poles, and science projects ongoing to study the arctic environment. Part of the International Polar Year project.

• Sea Ice Melting - Dramatic animation of data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center showing ice extents from 1979 through March of 2008 on both poles. See other GE data from NSIDC.

• Google Earth Outreach Showcase - See environmental and science content for Google Earth.

• Amazon Indians Using Google Earth - Primitive indians learn to use GPS and Google Earth to help protect their rainforest - true story!

• Upper Green Valley - Issues of gas drilling impacting the environment in one location

• Neighborhood Fights Logging With Google Earth - Neighbors in Santa Cruz, California successfully stop a logging plan by using Google Earth. Read the full story.

• Blue Marble Add-On - This file lets you view a prettier image of the Earth from NASA for Google Earth. It shows the view of the Earth from space, with or without clouds, based on the current month. The clouds are closer to real time - updated every 15 minutes. The picture of the Earth and clouds disappear automatically as you get closer so you can see GE's built in satellite imagery without interference.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)

April 21, 2008

Google Earth Zooming Music Video

This morning I saw this music video which was created by some students at National Taiwan University (NTU). They have used Google Earth as a presentation medium to capitalize on its ability to show many zoom levels for images all within the same interface. Steven Ho, who has created lots of cool Google Earth content, blogged about this video recently. This was a pretty innovative application of GE, so here it is:

via Steven's blog GEmVG Blog. You can also download in Google Earth one of the two zoomed sets of images shown in the video to see how it was done.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:19 AM | Comments (2)

April 18, 2008

Links: GE Lesson, GETools, Microsoft KML, 3D Bridges, Royal Australian 3D, EPA Award

• Stonehenge GE Lesson - Noel Jenkins has released another well-prepared school lesson which involves Google Earth - this one is about Stonehenge. via Noel's JuicyGeography blog.

• GETools - Brian Flood - author of the excellent Arc2Earth tools for GIS folks, is working on some new tools for working with Google Earth. He's working to turn the tools into a product which he's calling GETools. He has been developing various ways to interact with Google Earth through its little-known API (which also hasn't seen a lot of development by Google). Based on some demonstration videos he has released, the tools will enable some pretty cool functions. My favorite is the implementation allowing draggable directions to work inside Google Earth (I believe he's leveraging the Google Maps API to perform the same function in Google Earth - which Google hasn't done themselves!). I'm looking forward to seeing these tools released Brian!

• Microsoft Maps KML Better Than Google Maps - KML was recently approved as an international standard by OGC. But, KML is already reaching wide acceptance in the geospatial visualization world. In fact, it appears Microsoft's implementation for KML in their 2D version of Virtual Earth is better than Google Maps' implementaiton of KML. And, it's true. I've tested it myself. Google Maps does not show large KML files with lots of vector data. But, Microsoft's recent update to Virtual Earth handles them just fine. Google thinks this is a good thing because they are excited to see KML reach broader implementations.

• 3D Bridges - Gerardo Paz of Buenos Aires, Argentina (who translates GEB to Spanish) is also a 3D modeler, and he has posted some excellent 3D models of bridges in Argentina. Notice how he has even edited the underlying imagery to remove the aerial photo of the bridges while replacing them with 3D. You can see all four bridges here in GE. Here's a collection of other bridges found in 3D Warehouse.

• Royal Australian 3D - The Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) has released a layer featuring hundreds of unique buildings and structures in Australia. This is similar to the layer for GE released last year by the American Institute of Architects. In the RAIA layer , each placemark contains photos and details of each site and links to more information. In addition, they have modeled 60 of their favorite structures and uploaded them to the Google 3D Warehouse, so you can easily choose and download them for viewing in Google Earth. I do wish their layer of placemarks highlighted the locations with the 3D models with a different placemark icon and provided a link in the placemarks to download the models. In fact, I sent that as a suggestion. See the Google post about this new content, and the RAIA web page.

• EPA Award - The US Environmental Protection Agency has given an environmental award to Terradex for its development of a Google Earth network link called AirWatch that dynamically shows air quality for the US (and the UK, China, and Mexico City - see post). This work inspired the development of the EPA's AirNow application for Google Earth. See details from Google about the award announcement.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

New Layers for Google Earth's Sky Mode - April 17

Just a quick note that Google has updated the layers for the Sky mode of Google Earth (viewable with GE 4.2 or the new 4.3 beta). We last had a big update to the Sky layers in January. So, I'm kind of surprised to see even more data added. But, I'm not going to complain!

So, today's update includes several new layers:

• Current Sky Events - This layer folder now has two new additions: 1) Hubblecast - a layer of placemarks showing video clips from the Hubble Space Telescope team showing science mini-documentaries on various astronomical topics. The placemarks show the location of the objects discussed. 2) StarDate - StarDate is the public education and outreach arm of the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. These are radio broadcasts available in English and Spanish, and again placemark places discussed in each clip.

• Education Center - This layer folder also has two new additions: 1) Celestron Skyscout - another astronomy layer which comes from the Celestron telescope company. They have developed Skyscout, which is a "personal planetarium" device that lets you point at objects in the sky and tells you what you are looking at (Read more about Skyscout). I'm guessing this layer is a sample of the content you would get if you had one of these Skyscout devices. 2) Virtual Tourism - this is a much more interesting layer. The layer actually comes from a project by Keir Clarke at Virtual Tourism. He created a Google Maps mashup called Star Viewer which uses the Sky API to show astronomy video clips. Now its a built-in layer for Google Earth's Sky.

There seems to be some problems with the "Our Solar System" layer at the moment. First, there seem to be two copies of each planet in slightly different positions. Double clicking on the planet in the layers doesn't fly you to the location either.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

More Thoughts on Google Earth 4.3 (beta)

It's been over 24 hours now, and many thousands of people have had a chance to download the first beta release of Google Earth 4.3. Read GEB's first impressions for screenshots and see the GEB video demonstration. Here are some more observations about GE 4.3, including other new features, and some problems reported with the new release (some of which GEB readers have pointed out in the comments to earlier posts):

• Streaming indicator - the old horizontal streaming indicator which showed the progress of images loading for the current view has been replaced with a small circular streaming "clock"-like indicator. The old one actually showed a numerical percentage. The new one does not. While I understand the desire to not waste the screen with too much information, I would rather have the option to use the old indicator, or have an option to at least show the numerical percentage.

• Imagery dates - When you move your mouse over imagery, Google will show the dates in the lower right - if dates are available. Google says the dates may only be approximate. And, some of the sources of the imagery did not provide date information. Most of the DigitalGlobe satellite imagery have dates, and are more accurate. I'm quite surprised the Spot Image imagery doesn't have dates though. Perhaps they are blends of several dates like the Landsat imagery?

• Mac Flash Support - and Bug - Google has added a frequently requested capability to 4.3 to also support Flash applications inside placemarks, as was done for Windows in 4.2. This means you can now view YouTube videos, and other flash apps on the Mac as well. However, there is a bug with YouTube videos on the Mac. Once you start playing a video, you have to double-click to get the buttons to work (like Pause, the slider, etc.). This needs to be fixed!

• Mac Atmosphere - The new atmosphere on the Mac is too bright, and obscures the view of the Earth. The transparency/brightness needs to be turned down so it looks like the Windows version when viewed on the same screen.

• 3D Buildings - As I've previously said, the performance in 4.3 is much better than with 4.2. However, some people have reported things are slower. I think this has to do with the increase in the number of 3D buildings, or it may be graphics driver issues (make sure to update your graphics drivers). Older graphics cards are going to be slower with more 3D buildings even with the improvements. After testing on several differently aged computers, my tests show 4.3 to be faster in all cases for 3D buildings with comparable numbers of buildings (most of my computers tend to have faster than average 3D cards though). By the way, I would really like to know how Google acquired several complete cities in 3D with photo textures: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Oakland, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Francisco - and there may be more (anyone find any others?). Some of these buildings even appear in Tokyo. These are not in the 3D Warehouse - if you put your mouse over these 3D buildings they don't highlight. It appears the cities may have been at least partially automatically generated. Hamburg also has lots of 3D buildings, but these came from an earlier release from the city itself. One last thing, many new cities also have "gray buildings" (without photo textures) in the new release. [UPDATE - See Google's post about the new 3D buildings.]

• Sunlight - I generally like the sunlight in this version. It's obviously designed to make things look nicer in Google Earth, as opposed to accurately portraying the sun and lighting accurately. If that's the intent, then I wish the atmospheric effects would show more orange and reds when at sunsets/sunrises. There have been reports with some people not getting the expected behavior with the new lighting. It appears there are some graphics driver, or video card incompatibilities with this beta release. If you're having these problems, make sure to report them at the Google Earth Support Forum. Google has been really good at making GE run on a wide variety of platforms and video cards.

• Placemarks - This release of Google Earth appears to have a complete re-write of the placemark description bubbles (probably required in order to enable Flash support for the Mac). Some people using less common browsers have reported problems when following links that they don't open in their browser (e.g. Maxthon).

• Flight Simulator - The Flight Simulator is no longer an "easter egg". It is now enabled as soon as you install 4.3. Look under the Tools menu for "Enter Flight Simulator...". Follow GEB's Flight Simulator tips for how to use it, or read the new Flight Simulator instructions in the GE User Guide. via UsingGoogleEarth blog.

Regarding beta releases: For Google Earth 4.2, Google only released one beta version before releasing the final version. GE 4.0 had several beta releases before the final version. There are several reports now of things needing fixing for this release - I'm sure Google will take all the reports and implement fixes as quickly as possible. If you've got a problem not reported elsewhere, report it at the Support Forum.

Over all, I think this release has some very nice new features. There are several things I would still like to see added in a future version of Google Earth, but the one I want most is: a new user interface for the layers (the current interface makes it too hard to find and use good layers). Google Earth has some really great data, but many people don't realize the data is there. Plus, Google is constantly moving the layers around trying to help, but that means those of us who use it every day have re-learn the locations. Not only that, those of us who blog about layers have to re-edit old posts to point to the new locations - which is a real pain (I still have dozens I'm sure which point to old layer locations).

Stefan at OgleEarth has some thoughts and ruminations about this release. As I stated in my comments to his post, I think Google Earth's strength is its ability to share useful information, but also be able to produce beautiful views of the Earth as well. The new features in 4.3 focused on making it look good (new atmosphere, sunlight, and better 3D buildings) are just as important in my opinion as functional features like showing dates for the imagery. They all contribute to its popularity, and usefulness for different applications (whether scientific, presentational, or even artistic).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 10:32 AM | Comments (21)

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