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Google Street View Italy Released – October 29th

October 30, 2008

I’ve been traveling this evening, or I would have reported sooner: Quick on the heels of France and Spain, now Italy gets some Street View coverage as well. Included locations are: Milan, Florence, Rome and Lake Como. That’s essentially three new countries to get notable Street View coverage in two weeks. Reports came in from Google Maps Mania, Digital Earth Blog and Google Blogoscoped, and I got an E-mail from GEB reader ‘Munden’ as well.
Here’s a shot of the Colliseum to start you on your tour of Italy:

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Don’t forget, you can see full 3D panoramas of each Street View image inside Google Earth. Here are some tips on using Street View in Google Earth.
So, which country do you think will be next? Already we have: US, Japan, Australia, France, Italy, and Spain. The UK is a highly anticipated one, but other countries have reported seeing the Google cars which take the pictures…

Links: Planet Search, Interactive KML, FlightSim, iPhone GPS

October 21, 2008

Planet Search – Recently Google revealed they had added a new feature to the Sky mode of Google Earth (which lets you see the night sky instead of the Earth). The new feature lets you search for our solar system’s planets in the “Fly to” search panel. It then flies you to the location and zooms in so you can see the planet. I like the fact it lets you search for “Pluto” too. Also, if you turn on the “Our Solar System” layer, you can use the time slider to show the position of the solar system planets over the course of the next three months. I wrote a post last year about a KML file which lets you view the locations of planets discovered outside our solarsystem – aka “exoplanets”.
Interactive KML – Google has announced a new tool to help with learning KML. They have an interactive KML sampler which lets you simultaneously view samples of KML with the Earth API plugin. Of course, you can also copy any KML sample text and then paste it right into Google Earth to view them as well. I did notice a few of the KML samples didn’t work properly though.
FlightSim – A GEB reader named Jasper sent me an E-mail to let me know about his new tool for linking Google Earth to MS Flight Simulator (MSFS). His tool is called GPS60 (because it simulates Garmin’s GPS 60 handheld GPS). The application is very versatile. It lets you not only simultaneously view your position in MSFS also in Google Earth, but it also logs your track and even functions as a TCAS (showing positions of other planes in the sim). Check it out here along with documentation of the features, screenshots, and a log of the changes. He has released several updates recently. This isn’t the first time a link has been created between these two apps. Back in September of 2005, someone did something similar (no longer available). But, Jasper’s version is available now and has some cool features.
iPhone GPS – EveryTrail is a popular site for uploading GPS tracks (and geotagged photos) and viewing them in Google Maps/Earth. They sent me an e-mail a while back letting me know they have released an iPhone application for EveryTrail. Their new app lets you record tracks with your iPhone (I assume this is only practical with iPhone 3G with its GPS ability), and you can also take geotagged photos through their app. Here’s the link to their iPhone app page. On another note, EveryTrail’s Earth API support disappeared when they started supported Maps Flash API, but they plan to get it back in there soon.

More Street View Imagery for France in Google Earth/Maps

October 14, 2008

As reported at Google Maps Mania, Google has released new Street View imagery in France. Google had already released Street View imagery in July for the Tour de France route. Now they have more complete coverage for the following cities: Paris, Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, and Lille. Most people are aware you can view the Street View imagery in Google Maps, but you can also see these new spherical panoramic photos inside Google Earth with a 3D interface.
To see the images in Google Earth, turn on the Street View layer and zoom in a bit to see the camera icons over France. You can fly to a city covered with the Street View icons to find an interesting site. Then click on a camera icon near your desired location. Click “Show Full Screen” or double click the icon to enter the Photo Viewer mode. This mode lets you look in all directions using the mouse or keyboard arrows. You can also zoom in and out with the mousewheel. See a video demonstration of the Google Earth Street View imagery.

Links: Panoramio Heat Maps, See Russia?, 1m LiDAR, Airship

October 13, 2008

There was no post on Friday because I was attending the Annapolis Boat Show in Maryland. Given all the terrible news about the economy and stock market, I was thinking the boat show attendance would be down. But, people were there in droves. The weather was fantastic for one thing. But, American optimism is just amazing. I heard boats were still selling, and lots of boat accessories were selling as well.

Panoramio Heat Maps – Alexander Tchaikin sent me an E-mail to share a project he’s been working. Using the Panoramio API he has been creating useful statistical maps showing the density of photos from Google’s Panoramio photo site. In his blog post, he provides details on what he’s been doing, and lots of screenshots and example KML files.
See Russia? – In response to Palin’s comments about her foreign policy experience based on being able to see Russia from Alaska, Michael Koswowsky has set up a special map using his “HeyWhatsThat” tools. Looks like there are only 4 very hard to reach spots where you can see Russia in Alaska.
1m LiDAR – The USGS has released a KML file that lets you see very high resolution (1m per pixel) LiDAR terrain imagery for the Norther California mountain ranges. You can download the KML file here , then make sure you zoom into an area outlined in green and wait for the imagery for that area to load. You have to be zoomed in close. The LiDAR data shows the terrain in shades of gray. This will give you an idea of what Google Earth’s terrain could look like if they boosted the 3D terrain detail to 1 meter. Wow!
Airship – A few days ago I got an E-mail from some folks flying a real live Zeppelin Airship from Europe to California. They created a Google Maps airship tracking map so you could watch it travel along. The ship should be leaving Texas soon to travel to California. Even better news: Airship Ventures is setting up for tours at Moffett Field in California (one of the few remaining locations with large airship hangars – and right next door to the Google Headquarters). I actually met the husband and wife team which started this venture at the X Prize Cup last fall. Hopefully they’ll be setting up some Google Earth files for tracking their tours as they fly over the San Francisco sights. We should get some excellent Panoramio aerial photos in the coming months.

Fire Hydrants in Google Earth

September 29, 2008

Washington DC is the first city I’m aware of to use Google Earth to report on the status of fire hydrants. The DC Water and Sewer Authority has released a KML network link which reports on both working and non-working hydrants throughout the city. Not only that, but if you see a hydrant which is not working you can report it through the KML file placemarks! While fire hydrants may not be an every day concern for most people, I think this type of public information ought to be easily accessible to citizens of cities all over the world. This is GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for the masses with Google Earth making it easy to visualize and use the data. via DCist
An even better example of this I read about a while back was a city in India which had released a similar file showing potholes. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the KML file for this one, but here is a Times of India story on it. (UPDATE: A commenter below provides the link to the potholes interactive map – it uses Google Maps.) I can’t think of the number of times I’ve wished I had a mapping application online so I could report a pothole since I read that. In fact, I may actually write my local county office and suggest they do that. You could even write an iPhone app to make it even easier to report location!
(UPDATE 30-Sept.: GEB reader Joe Wade points to an excellent Google Earth plugin GIS map for Peachtree City, Georgia. This is my new favorite city-wide GIS site. Check it out.)
Some other examples of GIS with Google Earth: