Yesterday Google published an upgrade to the EveryTrail layer in Google Earth found under the Gallery layer folder. EveryTrail allows you to upload both GPS tracks and geotagged photos to its free service and the results can appear in their Google Earth layer. Once you turn on the layer, zoom in and look for the green EveryTrail logo placemarks. They mark the locations of available tracks which if you zoom in you can see more detail.
The new update to the layer includes an improved interface for viewing the geotagged photos. When you click on a green placemark for an EveryTrail location you see a gallery of photos for some of them. If you click on a single photo, you get a placemark “slideshow” which lets you see each photo and fly to each location. It’s pretty slick, and I recommend you try it out in Google Earth. You can also watch this video they released showing it in action:
By the way, EveryTrail also has an iPhone application you can download which lets you record your tracks and photos and upload them to their site in one convenient package. This is a pretty cool way to document your travel and get it into Google Earth with your iPhone. But, if you don’t have an iPhone, EveryTrail still makes it pretty easy with a GPS and camera. (To be fair, there’s another iPhone app called Earthscape which also lets you take photos and you can get KML from a User’s collection of photos – which came out earlier this year.)
Another note: I got a message from Joost Schreve (Founder and CEO of EveryTrail) and he says they have grown rapidly since their layer was added to Google Earth. They now have over 36,000 public trips from over 120 countries. And, their iPhone app is really taking off with over 500 downloads a day. He recommends reading the EveryTrail blog where they have been talking about and releasing other mobile phone applications as well as other news.
And another note: Another GPS track layer is also available in Google Earth called WikiLoc which was released in GE last August. See first review of WikiLoc at GEB. Wikiloc is another GPS uploading web site, and has some very nice Google Maps and Google Earth features. I like the feature that shows your vertical profile for your tracks.
Here’s a list of other GPS-related sites with Google Earth tie-ins from the past:
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.
everytrail on the iphone doesn’t need GPS to work…!
if the area has WPS coverage (skyhookwireless), then the iphone 2G & 3G will be able to pinpoint you with just the wifi-module active…! braodcom and qualcomm release many new GPS hardware with WPS integrated in order to get a faster first fix and to save battery…!
the EyeFi SD-card has the WPS on the little SD-card…! this enables every SD-capable camera to geo-tag your photos, or to know where you were @ a certain time;-)