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The amazing things about Google Earth


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Real-time Stream Flow Sensor Net in Google Earth

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has released yet another sensor net of data with excellent visualization in Google Earth. This time their WaterWatch program has released real-time streamflow data compared to historical streamflow for the day of the year for all the states in the US and Puerto Rico. There are hundreds of sensors in this data set which tracks short-term changes (over several hours) in rivers and streams. The colors represent real-time streamflow compared to percentiles of historical daily streamflow for the day of the year. There is a legend explaining the colors, and you can click on the placemarks for more details. You can zoom down to each placemark and see where they are located in the satellite photos of Google Earth. The USGS previously released a real-time Earthquakes sensor net.
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Win a Mazda CX-7 in a Sweepstakes Contest in Google Earth

Mazda has just started a contest in which you can win (US Citizens only) a Mazda CX-7 SUV by playing a simple game in Google Earth. They call it the Mazda CX-7 EarthSearch Sweepstakes. This is a little better than the Fiat contest back during the winter Olympics. In the Mazda contest you are given clues, you then have to zoom in close to look at the satellite photos of the target region at an altitude of 5000 feet or less. Then you should be able to find the hidden location.
After the first clue you are prompted to give your name and address before you can go further with the contest. Also, they only give one more location at this point and will give more locations after May 9th. This is to keep you hooked to playing the game. Whether they got the idea from Fiat or not, it’s yet another example of a company using Google Earth’s popularity as an advertising tool.
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[EDIT: by the way, I’m carefully moderating the comments to only include hints – no direct answers to clues. Also, to keep the length of the comments down, I have begun excluding most comments which just say “thanks”, or don’t add value to the game or the story.]

Where’s Tim? Tracking Tim in Google Earth

There’s a popular web site called “Where’s Tim?” which follows the places a guy named Tim Hibbard is going: live in Google Earth or Google Maps. Tim is using a phone with GPS. As he moves he leaves a trail of where he’s been, or you can load a history for a given day. Some people wouldn’t like this kind of scrutiny. But, Tim works for a company called EnGraph which sells GPS tracking software. So, it is good marketing for his employer.
Tim also has had a simple “Fly To with Google Earth” which shows a placemark of his current location on the satellite photos in GE. I sent him some E-mails and suggested he try using a GE network link to follow him interactively, and I suggested he allow history paths to be shown in Google Earth as well. He has already implemented both.
Here is the Where’s Tim GE network link (he comments here) which updates once every 15 seconds. If you click on the Placemark you get his location and current speed (if he is moving).

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Near Real-time Ocean/Weather Data

Last month someone named Jeremy Cothran from the University of South Carolina posted some interesting data at the Google Earth Community. He works with the Carolinas Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction System (Caro-COOPS), and they have made available a large collection of sensor data for sea and weather conditions. Their focus is with the Southeast US, but they have added sensor data for both North and South America and Hawaii. Jeremy said the data is updated hourly and includes both placemarks with the data in the descriptions, and some image overlays for sea surface temperature and other satellite/radar data (mostly low resolution though). You can download this network link which automatically updates once per hour.
Not only are there a lot of data placemarks, but if you click on a placemark and look at the weather data you will see links for the data. If you click on the data you are taken to web sites which provide historical statistics and graphs. See this for example which shows wind gusts for the last several hours at a buoy off the coast of the Carolinas. This application is yet another example of growing sensor nets for science which Nature Magazine’s Senior Editor Declan Butler has written about. Via OgleEarth.

Using the New 3D Warehouse Network Link

Google SketchUp (beta) – the free 3D Modeling tool for Google Earth – was just released yesterday. As part of that release, Google created the 3D Warehouse which allows you to upload your 3D models to share with others, or allows you to download models or components to make your models better. Another important part of the 3D Warehouse is the 3D Warehouse Network Link . The network link lets you find the models which have been placed onto Google Earth, the placemark descriptions give you a screenshot and details about the model, and give you the choice to download and look at it in Google Earth. You have to pause a couple of seconds for the network link to search and find out if there are models in your current view.
Let’s see what it takes…

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