Google Earth Community (GEC) member ‘giasen’, who produced the cool-looking world oil consumption charts last month, has now used his exploding 3D shape charts technique to show US migration patterns 
. Taking data from moving company United Van Lines for 2006, he shows for each state of the US “inbound shipments minus outbound shipments multiplied by 100 in meters” (negative values are shown as flat). I was only somewhat surprised to find out that the state I live in, North Carolina, had the most number of people moving to it. It’s just unfortunate so many people have found out how nice it is to live here. Here’s his post.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
Hmmm, this seems like a great example of when using Google Earth is overkill. The kml doesn’t show us anything that couldn’t be more clearly depicted on an old-fashioned color-coded map. The 3D doesn’t really add any information and there’s no reason for it to be in 3D other than ‘because you can’.