As we mentioned in February, Google has decided to Open Source Google Earth Enterprise. It is available for download on GitHub.
[ Update: Thank you to GEB reader Eddy Shipman for pointing us to www.opengee.org the official Google Earth Enterprise site.]
According to the docs, it only runs on 64-bit versions of:
– Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6.0 to 7.2, including the most recent security patches
– CentOS 6.0 to 7.2
– Ubuntu 10.04, 12.04 and 14.04 LTS
Google Earth Enterprise consists of three core components:
Fusion – imports and ‘fuses’ imagery, vector and terrain source data, into a single, flyable 3D globe or 2D map.
Server – Apache or Tornado-based server which hosts the private globes built by Fusion.
Client – the Google Earth Enterprise Client (EC) and Google Maps Javascript API V3 used to view 3D globes and 2D maps, respectively. The client is not open source, but Google is providing it free of charge.
In general, it is an enterprise product and probably not of much interest to the casual user. But if you are in the GIS community and have imagery or even vector-based mapping data you wish to share, it may well be worth a look. There is also an opportunity for cloud services to offer preinstalled versions of it, possibly with Landsat and Sentinel-2 or other open imagery datasets.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
OpenGEE site: http://www.opengee.org
Can you please share the latest Google Earth Enterprise installer? The installation of the git version is very difficult.
Thank you,
Zsolt
@Zsolt We have made some updates to the insttall scripts since your question. The build and install should now be much easier to run. Please give it another try: https://github.com/google/earthenterprise/wiki/Build-Instructions
There isn’t a pre-built installer like the commercial versions of Google Earth Enterprise. However, we will soon have Docker images available that you can try out. If you need any support, please join our slack channel. You can request an invite here: http://slack.opengee.org/
Hi Zsolt,
We currently working to improve the Open GEE installers. We’ve made some improvements since your post. What issues were you running into? How do you think we can make it better?
Regards,
Andres T.