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The best of Google Earth for February, 2014

March 3, 2014

February saw some great stories related to Google Earth. Here are my favorites from the month:

The folks at DataAppeal put out some more great updates to their product.

data appeal

We saw some great maps of the Sochi Winter Olympics.

sochi winter olympics

Tony showed us some ways to use Google Earth to help improve your golf game.

google earth golf

We learned about some ways that teachers are using Google Earth to teach math.

google earth math

Ben showed us a great tip for photographers using the “Sun” option in Google Earth to anticipate lighting conditions for a photo shoot.

predicting lighting conditions

The University of East Anglia Climate Research unveiled a new tool to help you view global warming trends.

global warming trends

John showed us some neat tricks to display bar charts from FileMaker in Google Earth

filemaker in Google Earth

We took an early look at some of the new satellites that will be capturing Google Earth imagery in the future.

google earth satellites

Google began pushing out the new version of Google Maps for everyone.

new google maps

We saw how David was using Google Earth to help earn more donations by allowing you to track your shark in Google Earth.

tracking sharks in google earth

What was your favorite story from February?

Filed Under: Applications, Sightseeing Tagged With: february

Future of Google Earth?

February 25, 2014

[Update: Google’s Brian McClendon (who leads the Google Earth, Maps, Street View and other related products) has publicly stated (on the 3rd of March, 2014) that Google plans to continue supporting Google Earth and KML. Good news!]

(This post is by Frank Taylor, publisher and founder of the Google Earth Blog (GEB). For the past 4+ years I have been traveling around the world on a sailboat called Tahina and documenting our experiences with Google Earth and other mapping and photography tools from Google. You can view and follow these experiences at TahinaExpedition.com. During my travels, I asked my friend, and fellow Google Earth fan, Mickey Mellen to keep the Google Earth Blog going. I think he’s been doing a great job!)

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post on GEB. But, I have been following both the blog and Google Earth closely. I had intended to do more writing during the past year, but frankly I’ve been seeing some rather negative signs in Google’s mapping technology and have been reluctant to mention them waiting for more positive news. Unfortunately, the trends just seem to keep getting worse.

Before I dwell on the negative news, let me just say that I still believe that Google Earth continues to serve as an invaluable tool for visualizing the Earth (and other planets) and for creating and sharing maps and other content. The content and the visualization capabilities are still amazing. I’m still a huge fan, I just wish that Google would continue to devote itself to pushing the technology forward.

Google’s pace of development for new Google Earth technology has been dropping. For a long time, many of us who follow the technology have suspected Google would continue to migrate features into the Google Maps platform. However, despite the recent release of the “new” Google Maps for desktop, the news continues to get worse. Maybe Google is developing something new in the Google Earth vein, but, if so, they have been very quiet about it.

Here are some things to note about Google Maps and Earth developments:

1) Google Earth on the desktop has not seen a major new release since February of 2009 when Google release version 5.0. Version 5 introduced major new features such as Historical Imagery, the Mars mode, new 3D terrain, the ability to record tours, and a host of new support features for developers. All the versions for Google Earth on the desktop since that time have only added a few new features, interface tweaks, and bug fixes. No new major push for improving the technology or adding new capabilities. During this time, development focus seemed to be on the mobile mapping platforms (more on this below). Some bugs in Google Earth have remained for years now (one despite my having reported it multiple times – an easy to fix bug in Google Earth’s flight simulator).

2) Support for GE developers has dwindled. Evidence for this can be seen by the drop in news about new applications using Google Earth, the plugin, or KML. The new Google Maps version does not directly support the old “My Maps (originally called My Places)” for creating custom maps. It now uses Google Maps Engine which doesn’t even support KML – you can’t import a KML file into Maps Engine (although you can import My Maps, but you can’t create new My Maps). What’s up with that? Instead of more support on the Google Maps platform for Google Earth features (like the fundamental KML standard), they aren’t even supporting it? Very few developers of the Google Earth platform, who regularly appeared in GEB in the past, have released anything new in recent years. The GE plugin is apparently dying a quiet death, there are no signs Google is trying to replace it with something new. Some developers are migrating to other non-Google platforms.

3) Marketing: Since 2008, Google’s main platform for sharing news related to Google Maps and Earth technology has been the Google LatLong Blog. In recent months, the number of posts have dropped dramatically on their blog. Also, activity on the social network accounts has also dropped. It’s a bad sign that even Google isn’t marketing their Maps and Earth efforts as frequently.

4) In my opinion, Google’s support for active users of their mapping platforms has also been trending downward. Google put a big emphasis on crowd-sourcing as a way to generate new content in the early days of these platforms. And, to Google’s credit, they did a lot to support the communities they helped create to do these things in the first few years. Understandably, technology has enabled Google to do some of these things without the need for crowdsourcing. For example, when Google sold Sketchup – the 3D modeling platform Google bought to encourage crowd-sourcing of 3D buildings for Google Earth/Maps. Instead Google is now generating 3D Building models in house using photogrammetry automation technologies. They no longer accept 3D buildings built by users for inclusion in Google Earth. Another example is photos. The Panoramio and PicasaWeb platforms that form the basis of geo-tagged photo layers for Maps and Earth. We haven’t seen a lot of new features on those platforms recently, and I suspect they will somehow migrate this to the Google+ photo platform in the future. I’m worried a lot will be lost in the transition. Meanwhile, they have put increased efforts instead in Street View technologies bringing automated photos in-house again. The Google Earth Community discussion forums migrated to a new Google-built platform a few years ago. My sense is that participation dropped significantly in the transition – although, these other trends above have probably contributed. Last reports I have is that Google is still supporting crowd-sourcing for map building in countries that otherwise have no data available.

5) The mobile platform has probably been a big distraction resulting in a lot of these negative trends on the desktop and for Google Earth in particular. The Google Maps app has certainly been a major win for Google in the last couple of years. It was so popular that when Apple tried to remove Google Maps from iOS and replace it with their own inferior app they had major backlash. Google’s new Maps app was quickly the most-downloaded app on the iOS platform when it was released. Google has continued to devote a lot of attention to the Maps platform on Mobile for both Android and iOS. However, the primary focus is mostly about navigation and finding places – not so much about creating maps, sharing, and visualizing content by other people, or supporting third-party maps applications. The Google Earth for Mobile is ok for basic visualization, but support for creating and importing maps/KML has always been a weakness on mobile. Also, the 3D capability while present, is awkward to use on the mobile app IMO.

These are just a few of the things I’ve noticed. Maybe other people can add their thoughts in the comments below. Please tell me if my analysis is off base, I will gladly retract if there are facts showing I’m wrong.

In closing, let me say that Google has been a fantastic company for advancing the pace of mapping and 3D visualization technologies. Some of the smartest people in the world work there. And they proved in the first few years of Google Earth that they could amaze everyone. I’m hoping they will pull a new genie out of the lamp and introduce some major new advances in both visualization and mapping technologies in the near future. I think there is still plenty of new things that can be done with the wealth of content Google has for geo-spatial, especially with the continued advances in computer graphics, processors, sensors, mobile, and Internet bandwidth. Whether that would be a new Google Earth (how about Google Universe?), VR, or something totally new, I would be thrilled to see something that would be as life-changing as Google Earth was when it came out in 2005. Come on Google, let’s see what you can do!

Filed Under: 3D Models, Applications, GE Plugin Tagged With: Earth, future, mapping, platform, technology, visualization

Lots of nice updates to the DataAppeal tool

February 3, 2014

We’ve written about DataAppeal a few times over the years. We first showed you their great tool back in 2011 along with some updates in 2012. They’re back again with a variety of enhancements that make their tool even more useful.

Some of their new features include:

  • The wrapping of the Google Earth digital globe with other base-map canvas, included Staman’s artistic maps (watercolor and black and white), in order to provide users more visual options for base-maps rather than the satellite look.
  • They also now allow for the export of the data-models (3D maps) as DAE and importing them into other 3D vector-based modeling programs like SketchUp and 3DSMax.  Users can take that extra step further and print their 3D data-maps.
  • They have released the ability to connect data-points along a path to create a wall of information. They also released buffer rings, which allows users to define a zone around selected points to analyze their relationship to their neighbors or surrounding area.
  • They also released a new look to their application and for enterprise users they offer “User Groups” in which a user can curate and manage the sharing of maps with his/her team members and colleagues in their own private space.

You can read more about what has happened with them over the past year in their 2013 year in review blog entry or check it out for yourself at DataAppeal.com.

Filed Under: Applications Tagged With: dataappeal

Checking back in with the “Google Earth War” game

November 22, 2013

Eight years ago I created a game on Google Earth Hacks titled “GE War“.  It was based very loosely on the idea of a Risk-style “take over the world” game, and it started as mostly a proof-of-concept of some interesting ideas I had regarding dynamic KML files.

gewar

I built a few other games using similar ideas (such as GE Football and GEMMO), but GE War remained the most popular.  In fact, it was really taxing my server to manage the traffic, not to mention my time in developing and troubleshooting the game, so I handed it over to some of the more active players and developers and they’ve run with it!

The game was moved to gewar.net shortly after, and has continued to slowly evolve over the years.  While the basic idea is the same (collect resources, attack other cities), it’s expanded quite a lot.  They’ve changed some of the mechanics (changed oil from a “resource” to a “commodity”), adjusted how nuclear attacks work, created a boot camp for new players, and now have more than 1300 cities featured in the game, but it was a great game to pass the time, although there are other alternatives like Casino games, such as judi dadu online where you can make money on different sites online.

If you’re a fan of this kind of game, having an always-on war-style game that runs inside of Google Earth is a pretty neat thing.  Go start a game at gewar.net and take over the world!

Filed Under: Applications Tagged With: games, gewar

3DConnexion releases their wireless SpaceMouse

October 1, 2013

We’ve been big fans of the 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator for a long time.  Frank first told us about it nearly seven years ago, and no other device has been able to match the quality and usefulness of it — until now.

Released today, the new SpaceMouse Wireless is the next evolution for 3DConnexion. The new SpaceMouse can last roughly a month between charges, and remains fully functional while recharging via USB. The wireless is handled via 2.4Ghz connection, similar to standard wireless mice and other devices.

Beyond that, thankfully, it remains very similar to the existing model with it’s familiar “six-degrees-of-freedom” controls that make using Google Earth a breeze.

The SpaceMouse Wireless will retail for $129 and is available today from professional CAD resellers and major online resellers.  You can learn more by visiting their website or reading their press release below.

—————————

Waltham, MA, October 1 2013 — 3Dconnexion®, the global leader in advanced 3D navigation devices, is proud to announce SpaceMouse® Wireless, the world’s first wireless 3D mouse.

3Dconnexion 3D mice enable engineers, designers and architects at the world’s leading companies to deliver better designs in less time, by providing a more natural and comfortable way to interact with digital 3D content.

Now, for the first time, SpaceMouse Wireless combines 3Dconnexion’s 6-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) sensor with 3Dconnexion 2.4 GHz wireless technology to deliver the reliability of a wired device, without the clutter of cords.

The SpaceMouse Wireless has a battery life of up to 1 month1 and when it does need recharging, the supplied micro-USB cable handles data and charging at the same time so users simply connect and continue working.

“We are excited to introduce SpaceMouse Wireless, the world’s first wireless 3D mouse,” said Antonio Pascucci, vice president of products at 3Dconnexion. “It’s designed to meet the evolving needs of 3D software users by combining 3Dconnexion’s superior 3D navigation experience with optimized 2.4GHz wireless technology for a real-time connection to digital 3D content and a clutter-free desktop.”

Like other 3Dconnexion products, SpaceMouse Wireless allows users to smoothly position 3D content or camera views while simultaneously using the standard mouse as a pointing device to select, create and edit. The end result is a more rewarding 3D experience, proven productivity gains and a reduction in repetitive strain injuries caused by repeatedly clicking and moving a standard mouse.

The 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Wireless offers 3D software users the following benefits:

  • Six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) navigation. Gently manipulate the SpaceMouse Wireless’ controller cap to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate digital models or camera views for a smooth, intuitive 3D experience.
  • 3Dconnexion 2.4GHz wireless technology. The SpaceMouse Wireless communicates with your computer via a micro-USB receiver (included) ensuring a discreet and reliable connection to your 3D content.
  • One month of design on a single charge. The SpaceMouse Wireless’ lithium-ion polymer battery lasts up to a month connect the micro-USB cable (included) and continue working without interruption.
  • Ease of use. Each of the SpaceMouse Wireless’ two conveniently positioned buttons open their own on-screen radial menu for mouse click access to application commands.
  • Modern design. The SpaceMouse Wireless sports a small footprint, high-quality construction and a stylish brushed steel base.

Pricing and Availability
SpaceMouse Wireless has a suggested retail price of $129 and is available immediately from professional CAD resellers and major online resellers.

Technical Specifications

  • 3Dconnexion six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) sensor
  • 3Dconnexion 2.4GHz wireless technology
  • Lithium-ion polymer battery
  • Micro-USB connectivity (USB receiver and recharging cable supplied)
  • Simultaneous data and recharging
  • Dimensions (L x W x H): 78 x 78 x 54mm / 3.1 x 3.1 x 2.1 in.
  • Weight: 424g / 0.96 lbs.
  • 2-year warranty

Supported Operating Systems

  • Microsoft Windows 8 and 8.1 x86 and x64 (all editions; RTM)
  • Microsoft Windows 7 (all editions; RTM and SP1)
  • Windows Vista x86 and x64 (all editions; RTM, SP1 and SP2)
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (SP1, SP2)
  • Windows XP Professional (SP2, SP3)
  • Mac OS X 10.6 to v. 10.8
  • Linux

Filed Under: Applications Tagged With: 3dconnexion, spacemouse, spacenavigator

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This blog and its author are not an official source of information from Google that produces and owns Google Earth Google and Google Earth are trademarks of Google Inc.. All image screenshots from Google Earth are Copyright Google. All other trademarks appearing here are the trademarks of their respective owners.