EveryTrail, the popular GPS track and geotagged photo site, has already announced support for the new tour option in Google Earth 5 (obviously they were beta testers). EveryTrail already has a layer in Google Earth. Now, they offer the ability for folks to upload recorded tours showing off their EveryTrail travel logs.
In their announcement EveryTrail listed several examples. But, my favorite was the one of a hike up Half Dome in Yosemite Park, California. (I made the same hike many years ago). All you need to do is have Google Earth 5 installed, and then load their Half Dome Tour
(UPDATE: You must be logged in on EveryTrail to load the KMZ now). Once it loads, double-click on the “half-dome-tour” recorded tour and it will start flying you through the hike and show you photos along the way. Awesome! Users could also add voice narration over the tours if they wanted.
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.
Frank,
Thanks for the post. We updated the KMLs slightly to make it easier to start the tour:
After you download the KML file, a placemark with the text “Start Here” appears in the center of your view. When clicked a balloon opens with a large “Play Tour” button.
Enjoy!
Joost from EveryTrail
The image data for my area (Punta Gorda, Florida) is at least 4 years old, and going on 5. This is Hurricane country and the storms of 2004 did a ton of damage and none of it is reflected in the images. I have tried to get this fact to Google but nothing seems to get their attention.
Is the voice narration for the public to hear? or just for your own account?