16th April 2008 4:53 pm Google Earth

Peter Birch, Product Manager of Google Earth today announced the launch of new version of Google Earth. Version 4.3 has many new features; Peter explains “The Google Earth team is proud to announce the latest version of Google Earth is available today at http://earth.google.com.

The release of Google Earth 4.3 (beta) greatly advances our vision of offering a realistic, 3D model of the world by giving users a higher quality, more immersive experience. Here’s a summary of what’s new:

New navigation - Google Earth is a 3D application, but we realized that a lot of our users never quite got the hang of using the tilt feature to navigate around 3D features like mountains and buildings. Not only that, but even for expert users, if you tried to get down to the ground and navigate at street-level, navigation was cumbersome and confusing. Well, no more.

We spent a lot of time rethinking how users interact with 3D data. We realized that when in outer space and far above the ground, you really want standard map-like controls that allow you to pan and zoom smoothly. However, if you want to get down to the ground and check out a city street, you really want a street-level navigation mode like you’d typically find in a video game.

Finally, you want to be able to seamlessly transition between these modes as you fly down to visit a city and fly back out to space. So we modified the zoom control. As you get closer to the ground, your view slowly tilts, almost as if you are parachuting onto the ground. We also added a new control, the “look” joystick, which allows you to look around. If you are on the ground, you can change your viewpoint and look up at buildings, down canyons, or over at the rising sun. If you use the “pan” joystick when on the ground, you will follow the ground as if you were walking on it.

More, faster 3D buildings - What good would fancy new navigation controls be if there wasn’t something new to look at? While we’re regularly adding new user-created SketchUp buildings submitted through 3D Warehouse, we decided to take things up a notch for this release by including photo-realistic models for dozens of new cities. Take a spin around Tokyo, Munich, or Boston to get a taste. We’ve also significantly enhanced our approach to rendering 3D data to greatly improve performance and realism.

Here comes the sun - The world may not be flat, but something about the lighting in the old Google Earth sure was. If you’ve gotten tired of seeing everything lit with the mid-day sun, then we have just the trick for you. Click on the new sunlight button on the toolbar in Google Earth, click the play button on the time slider, and watch the sun as it circles around the globe. Try getting close to the ground and look up at the eastern sky, and see the sun rise. I’m more of a sunset kind of person, but you can just look to the west and watch the sun disappear behind the hills too. While it’s no substitute for the real thing, it is great fun to play around with.

Street View - Ever since we introduced Street View in Google Maps back in May 2007, people have been asking us when the same data would be available in Google Earth. Well, that day is today; using the PhotoOverlay feature available in KML 2.2 (or should I say the OGC standard KML 2.2,) we have made all of the Street View panorama photos available as a layer in Google Earth. Double-click on an icon to fly into a photo, and navigate from photo to photo.

Imagery acquisition date - As Product Manager for Google Earth, I’m fortunate enough to get to talk to a lot of our users, and usually the first question I get asked is, “When was the imagery taken?” With the new imagery acquisition date feature, I no longer have to answer. Now you can just move your mouse cursor over an area you’re interested in and see when the image was taken right in the status bar in Google Earth. We don’t have dates for everywhere, but we have great coverage, so have fun exploring.

12 new languages - When Google Earth first launched in 2005, it came in any language you wanted, as long as it was English. We’ve come a long way since then, with support for 26 languages in Google Earth 4.3.”

New additions include: Danish, English (UK), Spanish (Latin American), Finnish, Hebrew, Indonesian, Norwegian, Portuguese (PT), Romanian, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish.

Here’s a video giving you a taste of what you’ll find when you install Google Earth 4.3.

Google Earth used to track historic dog race

10th March 2008 3:40 pm Google Earth

EarthSlot, a company specialising in the use of virtual globe technology, has produced a google earth add-in to allow users to track the progress of the various teams in the Alaskan Iditarod race. Dubbed “The Last Great Race on Earth” it is basically a two week, 1000 mile race across some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. Now however you can track the race in real-time from the comfort of your own desk.

Named after the former settlement of Iditarod it has been run since 1970 and was originally intended to raise awareness of the Iditarod trail in order to help get in designated as a National Historic Trail.

Download the plug-in here and enjoy the race.

Many thanks to Frank Taylor at the GoogleEarthBlog for the original post.

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Pentagon ask Google Maps to remove images of military installations

7th March 2008 6:08 pm Google Earth

Reuters reporting an agreement has been reached between the US government and Google over images of military bases appearing on their Google Maps :

Google Inc has complied with a request by the Pentagon to remove some online images from its street-level map service because they pose a security threat to U.S. military bases, military and company officials said on Thursday.

Gen. Gene Renuart, head of the military command responsible for homeland defense, said the Pentagon had talked to Google about the risks and expected the company to cooperate in removing selected images from its Street View service.

“We have been contacted by the military,” Google spokesman Larry Yu said. “In those instances where they (the U.S military) have expressed concerns about the imagery, we have accommodated their requests.”

The Defense Department, which is still studying how many images are available, has also banned Google teams from taking video images on bases.

“We’ve got to get a sense of what is there and see how we can mitigate it,” Renuart said.

But because many images were taken from public streets, the military may not have a legal right to request that videos be pulled.

Street View, a feature of Google Maps, offers ground-level, 360-degree views of streets in 30 U.S. cities. Web users are able to drive down a street, in a virtual sense, using their mouse to adjust views of roadside scenery.

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YouTube videos tagged up in Google Earth

15th October 2007 5:39 pm Google Earth

YouTube Team today alerted to a new feature that links Google Earth and YouTube together. YouTube announced the merger on their blog.

“Google Earth has just launched a new browseable layer which populates geo-tagged YouTube videos when you click on a location.

To access this feature, go to Google Earth and head over to the new ‘Featured Content’ folder on the left-hand side of the page. Click the ‘YouTube’ button and icons pointing to videos related to that area on the map will appear.

The closer you zoom in, the more videos will display; you can then watch these videos via Google Earth or YouTube. You can also search for all videos attached to a specific location or just click around on the map as you please. This works best if you download the newest version of Google Earth, so be sure to get the latest version.

You can tag your video with a location during the upload process on YouTube. Simply click the “Date and Map Options” to display the maplet, then drag the marker or use the search browser to choose a specific location. Once your location is recorded, your video will appear on Google Earth.

Geo-tagging your videos is a great way to share your experiences with your viewers they can literally peek in on that scuba diving trip in the Pacific, see what it’s like to be at the top of L’Arc de Triumph in Paris, or feel like they’re right there with you in the park with your best friends. “

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