Tours

An amazing 3D tour of the Costa Concordia

January 27, 2012

Last week we showed you the fresh satellite imagery and tour of the wreck of the Costa Concordia. It was a great file that helped to show what happened, but now Peter Olsen (who just days ago unveiled the excellent Terra Nova models) has built an incredible 3D tour of the wreck, with the entire journey animated!

The speed has been increased to save time, so you don’t have to wait 2-1/2 hours for it to finish, but it’s otherwise as accurate as possible. To see it for yourself, simply visit the Costa Concordia Disaster Animation page in the Google 3D Warehouse and choose the “View in Google Earth” link.
If you’re not familiar with using Tour files in Google Earth, simply click the “Double-click me!” text on the left to get it started, then click the play button at the bottom to step through the introductory slides, as seen here:

Fully animated tours like this are a great way to recreate events, and Peter is one of the best around at creating them. A similar example you might want to check out is his recreation of the 1977 Tenerife Airport disaster from a few years ago. Great job, Peter!

Satellite imagery and 3D model of the cruise ship Costa Concordia

January 19, 2012

By now you’ve likely heard all about the wreck of the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner crashed off the Tuscan coast last Friday, killing at least 11 passengers.
DigitalGlobe has since captured aerial imagery of the site of the wreck, which can be found in their gallery or viewed below.

I’ve added that image to Google Earth as an image overlay, which you can view by downloading this KML file.

Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Another great way to view the ship is thanks to Paul van Dinther from PlanetInAction.com. A few years ago we showed you the amazing collection of cruise ships that Paul created for CleanCruising.com.au. One of the ships that Paul created for that project happened to be the Costa Concordia.

Since he had a 3D model of the ship and the skills to make some great tours, Paul put together this short video showing a bit about what happened.

Thanks to the generosity of the folks at CleanCruising.com.au, they’ve allowed Paul and PlanetInAction.com to release a full KMZ file of the stricken ship, which you can download in this KMZ file.

Paul’s model is amazingly accurate, and he includes various notes in the file to show the path of the ship.
Great work, Paul!

Captain James Cook’s circumnavigation of South Island, New Zealand

January 6, 2012

A few months ago, we showed you the awesome tour that Colin Hazlehurst put together of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Colin has now completed the tour of Cook’s South Island circumnavigation, and it’s equally impressive.

To see the file for yourself, simply download this KML file.

Colin has also put together a blog showing Cook’s day-by-day journal, which is pretty neat.
I encourage you to check out those links to learn more, and below is some info from Colin that tells more about this voyage that Cook made.

On February 9, 1770, Endeavour reached Cape Turnagain after completing the circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Cook turned southward with the intention of sailing round Tovy Poenammu (South Island), a voyage which the people of Queen Charlotte’s Sound had told him could be achieved in 3 or 4 days. The belief in this possibility persisted until 19Feb1770 when land was seen stretching off to the south-west, showing Cook that there was more to discover in that direction.

The voyage down the east side of the island identified the major features of the coast: Cape Campbell, Banks Island (actually a peninsula), Cape Saunders, and South Cape. On two occasions, exploratory trips were made away from the coast towards the south-east, in which direction people thought they could see land. What they saw turned out to be cloud which dissipated as the sun rose.

As when rounding North Cape on North Island, Endeavour was buffeted by storms and encountered strong swells as she rounded South Cape, and this convinced Cook that there was no land for a considerable distance to the south-west and that they had indeed reached the southernmost point of the land.

On the west coast they saw many of the bays that are now called the New Zealand Sounds, but were prevented from anchoring either by winds sweeping them past (Dusky Bay) or the uncertainty of being able to sail out at will (Doubtful Bay). There was much mist and fog as they explored this coast and typically they would hove to at night to avoid running aground.

Endeavour anchored for a few days in Admiralty Bay, not far from Queen Charlotte Sound. After refreshing the supplies of wood and water, Cook left the shores of New Zealand from Cape Farewell with the intention of exploring the east coast of New Holland (Australia).

Great new 3D San Francisco site

January 5, 2012

After launching 3DHawaii and 3DLasVegas in the past few years, 3DTravel.com has just launched their ,3DSanFrancisco site and it’s great!

I’m heading to San Francisco in a few months for Where 2.0, and I’m not familiar with the city, so it’s been fun to use it to cruise around and check things out. While the San Francisco site isn’t that much different from the Hawaii and Vegas sites, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s clear that they’ve spent a lot of time plotting destinations, adding content, creating tours, and building all of the other items that make the sites so useful.
You can read more about the new site here and visit it for yourself at sanfrancisco.3dtravel.com.

The Immortal Game of chess in 1851

December 2, 2011

A few days ago we showed you the excellent tour of James Cook’s circumnavigation of New Zealand that Colin Hazlehurst put together. Colin is back with another neat file, this one from the “Immortal Game” of chess.
1851 was the year of the Great Exhibition in London (England not Ontario). The chess community marked the event by staging the first international chess tournament which brought in the best players of Europe.
An exciting game played during the event became tagged ‘The Immortal Game’. The opponents were Adolf Anderssen, the eventual winner of the tournament, and Lionel Kieseritsky. If Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, had not already given his name to a type of battle in which victory was gained despite incurring heavy losses, then we might today have used the name of Anderssen with the same meaning, for he sacrificed many pieces to get one bishop and two knights into a winning position.

Anderssen was much the more aggressive player but the rate of attrition was high. He lost a pawn early on when his King’s Gambit was accepted. Then a bishop fell, and another pawn, then both castles. Finally, he forced checkmate by sacrificing his queen even while Kieseritsky thought he was doing well to have Anderssen’s king on the run as his queen and a bishop controlled row 1 of the board.
So, why the animation in Google Earth? Colin said:

“I imagined the game as a battle between two armies, that’s easy enough to do, but I also wanted to tell a story. As well as being fun to create, the animation is intended to illustrate not only the chess game but also a story in which an embedded reporter watches the raging battle and the bloodshed all around from the position of the King’s Pawn. I’ve written a short story which now forms the bones of a longer novel.

It took a while to find the right place on Earth to set the battle. I needed high ground as defensive positions for Kieseritsky and a landscape that would match the story. I found this in the mountains and valleys of the English Lake District, one of my favourite places and destination of many camping trips.

I created the chess pieces using Google SketchUp and that was a fun exercise in itself. I exported the pieces from SketchUp as 3D models which I could then place and animate in Google Earth. The latest version uses the gx:Tour features of KML; previously I had animated the game using set positions after each move, but that doesn’t flow so well. I’m pleased with the way the pieces now glide over the ground.”

You can view it yourself in Google Earth by using this KML file.