Mickey Mellen

Happy 4th of July!

July 4, 2014

Today in the US it is Independence Day, often referred to as simply the 4th of July. Banks are closed, BBQs are being heated up, and fireworks will fill the sky for most of us today.

Speaking of firewoks, here’s a neat post I found from Rick Klau a few years ago, when he used Google Earth to determine if he’d be able to view a local fireworks display from the comfort of his home.

He determined that fireworks typically reach a height of 300m, so he drew a polygon to that height, then used Google Earth’s terrain feature to see if the polygon was visible from his house. It was, and they enjoyed a great show that evening!

If you’re looking for more fireworks, check out the thousands of geotagged photos on Panorama tagged with the words “fireworks“. If you take any yourself, be sure to upload them on Panoramio for everyone else to enjoy.

For those of you running (or watching) the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta today, our post from a few years ago shows you a lot of neat ways to view the course. The easiest is to simply load up this KML file

Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

and explore it for yourself.

Whatever you do today, have a great time and please stay safe!

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.

New Google Earth Imagery – July 3, 2014

July 3, 2014

It appears that Google has just pushed out a fresh batch of imagery. Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader ‘Munden’ for being the first to let us know about it.

It seems to be quite a huge update, based on the areas we’ve found so far!

Japan: Ako, Fukui, Himeji, Kahoku, Kanazawa, Nishi
United States: Arizona (Grand Canyon West airport, Lake Mead), California (Fremont, San Leandro, Sonora, Avery, Tuolumne, Placerville, Diamond Springs, Jackson, San Andreas), Hawaii (island of Kaua’i, island of Ni’ihau), Illinois (Champaign, Mattoon, Moline), Iowa (Davenport, Muscatine), Kansas (Topeka), Mississippi (Jackson), Missouri (Warrensburg, Whiteman AFB), New Mexico (Las Cruces), North Dakota (Fargo), Texas (Anthony, El Paso, Fort Bliss, Houston), Virginia (Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach), Wisconsin (Racine, Milwaukee, Waukeshia, Hartford, West Bend)

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!

About Mickey Mellen

Using Google Earth tour builder as a real estate agent

July 2, 2014

Since the introduction of Google Earth nearly a decade ago, it has been a great tool for real estate agents. One of the earliest examples was when Trulia added Google Earth support for real estate searches back in 2006. We’ve also seen property visualizations, Re/Max using Google Earth and many others.

Thanks to improved tools in recent years, particularly related to embedding Google Earth on websites, we’ve seen many other amazing pieces come along. A great example is what some agents are doing with Google Earth’s Tour Builder. An example is this handy tour of a home, which shows a variety of amenities and stores nearby to help give potential buyers a solid understanding of the area.

A great explanation of how realtors can use the tool came from Jason Fox, a realtor who has build some himself. From Fox’s blog:

By utilizing the Google Earth Application you can easily zoom around your community, neighborhood, city, or county and place a pin on the location you would like to highlight. Then add up to 25 Photos or Videos, Description, Title, Pin Style, and pan and zoom into your highlighted area to capture what you want your audience to see.

Once you have completed your tour you can share it with your client with a link to opens the Tour of your community.

(via Inman News)

About Mickey Mellen

The technology behind Google’s “Santa Tracker”

July 1, 2014

Back in 1955, CONAD (handing it off to NORAD a few years later) began “tracking” Santa on Christmas Eve night for children to call in and get his current location. Starting in 2004, that information has been available in Google Earth and it is a stunningly popular feature.

The technology behind Google’s latest Christmas Eve tracking service is quite impressive. As explained by an article on ZDNet:

By 2013, the Santa Tracker user experience grew into a full-fledged online, snow-kissed winter village with interactive HTML5 games, keystroke animations, a soundtrack, and of course, an elaborate Google Map that can even be integrated with Chromecast for viewing on larger screens.

As part of Google I/O, there was a session titled “How 20% engineers built Santa Tracker” that explained it quite a lot. The full video of that session can be seen here: