In what’s becoming quite a popular event, the cruise liner Hurtigruten has been live broadcasting its position as it travels along the coast of Norway. The cruise line has been operating for well over 100 years, and this event has been apparently drawing large crowds at its stops, and is becoming quite the event in Norway.
The site itself is very well built. You can follow of a map of the journey, view various live cameras from the ship, and even view a live 3D model of the ship’s location: just click on the 3D tab in the lower right, then click the resulting image to see the ship in 3D.
As pointed out by Google Maps Mania, you can click the red icons on the map to view a replay of that section of the journey. The scenery in Norway is stunning, and this is a great way to view it all.
There are also other elements that can be added to the map, such as Flickr photos, archived video, and the location of other boats in the area. Some of the photographs in there are simply amazing, as shown here:
To see it for yourself, simply head over to their site and you’ll be streaming the live feed almost immediately.
(via GMM and Ogle Earth)
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
Cool and disappointing.
Cool because they bring together various resources onto a single page. Following progress of the ship is quite entertaining.
But here is the missed opportunities:
– The 3D ship model could be MUCH nicer
– The 3D ship model should be animated in GE
– GE plugin should appear on the page itself
Personally I would also add a first person view mode in Google Earth that would allow the viewer to walk around an observation deck looking around.
Paul — I agree that the model was disappointing. Your ideas would have been pretty sweet.
I think this is popular event about cruise liner Hurtigruten.
@ Paul – I think the 3D ship model us a very secondary feature – possibly put there as a way of helping bring Google into the project – when for example you can replay (full screen) any part the real time voyage along the beautiful Norwegian coast by clicking on the little red buttons on the route. A fantastic TV programme and site for ship enthusiasts especially, and I hope that it will be kept available on-line.
The MS Nordnorge had reached the end of its voyage, and the live TV show, at Kirkenes, but for the moment the sire is open and you can replay any part of the voyage – click any little red button along the route – you may have to open the route from the menu bar of the map.