geo2web.com

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This is very cool. Roman Nurik of the Google Maps team has created a driving directions simulator for the Google Earth plug-in. With Roman’s tool it is possible to enter your requested directions into the Google Earth browser plug-in and watch a car simulate driving the route. Check out the screen capture below.

My first thoughts on this are that you could use this to create virtual tours of any area on Earth or that you could add street view to this as well so that you could have a first-person view of the route.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog

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On July 1st, Starbucks announced they will close about 600 stores around the US. Since that time, many caffeine lovers in those areas have started petitions to keep their favorite location from losing its juice. And, the markets have had their reaction that this is yet another sign of a collapsing economy. But, even more interesting is that Starbucks released a list of all the locations in a PDF file. Last week, Keir Clarke at GoogleMapsMania took the PDF and scraped the locations into a spreadsheet. Then he used batch geocode and the Google spreadsheet mapper tool to quickly (30 minutes to do the whole ) create a Google Maps map of the closures. I was kind of disappointed Keir didn’t take the step to add a line of code to make his map available in the Earth API as well.

Fortunately, someone else scraped the same PDF and put the Starbucks closures into Finder!. Finder! is an excellent free browser-based service which lets you find, organize and share geospatial data in common formats. Including Google Earth’s KML format. So, here’s the Google Earth view of the Starbucks closures.

If you zoom into the placemarks, you’ll find it’s not always easy to find the particular store based on its address. Geocoding from addresses is usually not accurate - and sometimes places you a block away (or even more).

Just for fun, you can get a quick look at the same KML file in the Google Earth API plugin. Read below the fold to see it.

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Last week, 18 Googlers brought their 9-12 year old kids to our Mountain View headquarters to spend their week learning with Google Earth and all the other geo tools. By the end of the week, the “Geo Camp” participants had mastered Google Earth, Maps, and Docs, and used these tools to research environmental issues, virtually tour the planet (and universe), and collaborate to build sophisticated presentations on habitats around the world.

I’m not sure who had more fun — the teachers or the kids! As the week came to a close, we asked them all to reflect back on what they had learned, and I just can’t help but share some of their responses:

I didn’t know I could ____ with Google Earth

• fly (Matt, 6th grader)
• see all the rides at Disney World (Gwen, 4th grader)
• learn about endangered animals (Aditya, 7th grader)

The coolest place I saw was….

• the Space Needle (Jack, 7th grader)
• the Empire State Building (Jake)
• the entire universe (Andrew, 6th grader)

When I’m a grownup, I’ll use Google Earth to…

• find a place to go on vacation (Nick, 5th grader)
• share global awareness about different countries to other people (Esha, 9th grader)
• look at other galaxies, and see if there’s traffic (Aditya, 7th grader)

If I worked on the Geo team, I would…

• build more SketchUp buildings (Erik, 5th grader)
• create a ship simulator in which you could be the captain of a ship (Ashna)
• make a driving feature so people could pretend to drive on roads (Warren, 7th grader)

Posted by Tina Ornduff, Google Earth Education team

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Michael Jones discusses geographical context and Google’s objectives in this fascinating presentation:

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On Friday, I presented to the Northern Region Council of Land Trusts in Fortuna, California. The subject was using Google Earth and Maps as tools for land conservation. The work of local land trusts is very important, as they work cooperatively with the entire community to preserve open space, create trails and simply make our communities better places to live. Land trusts often operate on a shoestring budgets and rely on the honorable efforts of volunteers.

I’ve long thought that Google Earth and Maps represent great tools for these organizations. With little technical know-how or money, they can use these products to mark locations and parcels important to conservation campaigns and share them with the public. It can be difficult for land trusts to convince the public or government that a particular area is worth preserving, particularly if the land in question is in an obscure or remote location. Google Earth removes these limitations; you can fly people to any location and show off its unique qualities. Once again, it is all about geographical context.

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Posted by Jiajun Zhu, Software Engineer

To celebrate Street View’s one year birthday, I am very happy to announce we are bringing Street View to 37 (you heard me - 37!) new areas and we have expanded coverage in 15 of our existing areas. All in all, this effectively doubles our coverage. The new cities include:

• MA: Springfield
• NY: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse
• NJ: Newark
• VA: Virginia Beach
• NC: Charlotte, Winston-Salem
• SC: Columbia, Greenville
• GA: Atlanta
• FL: Boca Raton, Cape Coral, Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Sarasota, West Palm Beach
• AL: Huntsville
• MS: Jackson
• TN: Knoxville
• KY: Lexington, Louisville
• OH: Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo
• MI: Ann Arbor
• MO: St. Louis
• KS: Topeka
• NE: Lincoln
• OK: Oklahoma City, Tulsa
• NV: Reno
• CA: Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton

Now you can stroll under the iconic Reno Arch:

Along with showing you some great metropolitan areas, I’m especially excited that we’re also bringing you 10 new parks and recreational areas:

• Everglades National Park (Florida)
• Florida Keys
• Grand Teton National Park (Wyoming)
• Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming/Montana)
• Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado)
• Joshua Tree National Park (California)
• Death Valley National Park (California)
• Lassen Volcanic National Park (California)
• Sequoia National Park (California)
• Lake Tahoe (California/Nevada)

Now you can see the boiling springs in Yellowstone National Park from a very safe distance:

And last but not least, Street View coverage has expanded in 15 of our current areas: Boise, Boston, Kansas City, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco, Tampa, and Tucson.

We’ve also been spending the past year working very hard to improve Street View image quality. In this push, we removed some of our oldest images, so say goodbye to odd coloring and funky geometric artifacts. The new images have better color and more consistent lighting.

Let’s revisit San Francisco City Hall:

And the skyscrapers of Chicago:

Now you can look up in all our images. But what goes up must come down, so with this release you can also look down as well. The roof of our car and the ‘black hole’ really aren’t all that interesting — now when you pan down the car is magically gone and you can see straight to the ground in most of our images!

And finally, in the spirit of getting better with age, the face blurring technology we began testing in Manhattan has been deployed for all of our imagery. Remember that all these new Street View images are simultaneously available in Google Earth and through Google Maps API.

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The Google Earth browser Plug-in supports a JavaScript API that allows you to manipulate camera angles, open balloons, add 3D models, draw KML, toggle to Sky mode and much more.

To see first hand what it can do and view some sample code, check out this sample page. For beta documentation, take a look at the developer guide. For additional help, visit the Google Earth Plug-in help group.

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As in real life, navigating in Google Earth is easier if you have some physical reference points. Some of these are obvious and popular, such as the road, borders and labels layers. In addition, you can orient yourself by using Places of Interest layers. Within this folder, I find the following very useful:

Geographic Features - I spend a lot of time hiking and biking and this folder shows great information (bodies of water, mountain peaks, etc.) in areas that have fewer roads. Plus, you can check out historic seismic activity around the world, courtesy of the USGS.

Parks and Recreation Areas - Again, my bias towards the great outdoors is in effect here. But this information is fantastic. Camping spots, trail routes, wildlife refuges, ranger stations and more. The USFS boundaries can help you work with traditional topographical maps to find your way.

Of course, you may need to zoom in a bit to see some of these points of interest in the 3D viewer.

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Posted by Mano Marks, Geo APIs team

By now, many of you have heard about the new Google Earth API that we announced Wednesday during Google I/O. It’s exciting that you can now enjoy the 3D Google Earth experience in the browser, and you can create your own custom interactive apps on top of it. This new API lets you use JavaScript to programmatically interact with the Earth browser, changing camera views, loading KML or 3D models, or even creating KML objects from scratch.

Here’s your basic “Hello Earth” app:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><head><title>Hello Google Earth!</title><!-- *** Replace the key below below with your own API key, available at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html *** --><script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi?key=abcd"></script><script>google.load("earth", "1");

var ge = null;

function init() { google.earth.createInstance("map3d", initCallback, failureCallback);}

function initCallback(object) { ge = object; ge.getWindow().setVisibility(true);}

function failureCallback(object) { // Gracefully handle failure.}</script></head>

<body onload='init()' id='body'><center> <div> Hello, Earth! </div>

 <div id='map3d_container' style='border: 1px solid silver; height: 600px; width: 800px;'> <div id='map3d' style='height: 100%;'></div> </div></center>

</body></html>

And, if you’re already a Google Maps API developer, adding Google Earth to your mashup is really easy. Just add the following line:

 map.addMapType(G_SATELLITE_3D_MAP);

To view apps written in the Earth API, you will have to download a browser plug-in. Currently, the plug-in is Windows only, and works on Mozilla and Internet Explorer based browsers, including Firefox. We are working to expand the number of browsers, and have announced Mac and Linux plug-ins will be released in August.

Check out the cool sample apps. If you have any questions or come across any problems, post them in our Earth API developer group.

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Posted by: Richard Suhr, Head Enterprise for Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia

For those who have enjoyed the Google News layer and the New York Times layer in Google Earth there’s now another way for you to stay on top of the world’s news. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) today announced the launch of ABC Earth, which will feature live stories and archived content in a Google Earth layer. Read more about it on the Google Australia Blog.

It’s another great reason to fly over to Australia in Google Earth - if you haven’t already, that is.

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Google Earth Pro users may be happy to learn that the user guide has a section devoted to movie maker tips. By following these suggestions, you can make outstanding movies with much less hassle.

Perhaps the most important thing to do before recording is to maximize the performance of your computer. You can do this by closing all other applications, unchecking all layers in Google Earth except terrain (and 3D buildings if necessary) and downloading the latest video driver for your computer. You can also try adjusting texture quality as this can affect both performance and visual quality of your video.

If you are still have questions, try the Google Earth Pro group.

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With Google Earth version 4.3 comes the ability to navigate on ground level. To do this, zoom into your favorite location so that your line of sight is parallel to the surface of the earth (you can do this using the Zoom slider). Navigate around by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Press Alt + arrow keys to move slower.

Note that when you encounter a change in ground elevation (such as a hill or mountain), your viewpoint ascends and descends these objects, as if you were climbing over them. Google Earth returns you to your original elevation once you have cleared them.

Of course, you can stop anywhere and look around using the Look joystick.

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When I was a kid, I was a Marvel comic book fanatic, but no superhero held my fascination like Spiderman. I horded Spidey issues. I drew pictures of him. My family has pictures of me posing as Spiderman as I pretended to walk on walls and swing from building to building.

30+ years later, my fantasy has become realized in Google Earth 4.3. Few have noticed this new feature yet, but you can swoop to the top or sides of 3D buildings, then jump from building to building ala my favorite superhero. To do this, right click (CTRL + click on the Mac) on the building and drag the mouse. You can swoop from building to building by doing the same. Learn more in the user guide.

You can also view a 3D building from different perspectives. To do this, click the middle mouse button (Shift + left mouse if your mouse does not have a middle button).

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Leica Titan has actually been out for a while. There is a post on OgleEarth from December 2006 when the first product was just coming out. My first try with it was not so smooth. But recent updates have gone much better.

It appears to be your standard 3d earth browser, but is oriented more towards data sharing and collaboration. It has a built in instant messanger to share your spatial data with others.

Leica Titan Globe

Search for a Place and zoom

Load a shapefile. It seems to be able to handle many different formats.

You can change feature colors (not based on attributes).

Click on a loaded feature to view attributes

You can also load photos and place notes on the Earth to send to others. Performance was not to bad, though navigation was a bit touchy and took some getting used to. It seemed to me to be a bit like ArcGIS Explorer, but without the extensibility.

Leica TITAN is available for download.

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Google Earth 4.3 was released on Wednesday, April 15. The biggest changes for most people (not power users of course) is a revamped navigation control and much different lighting on the planet.

The new lighting makes the Earth look much brighter, and the orientation of the light can be changed by moving the position of the Sun based on the time of day. This does not really make Google Earth better, it just makes it look different than in the past.

The new navigation control takes some getting used to, but it does let users move in ways that were not really possible before. There is more of a hover mode that makes is easier to move around when you are zoomed in close to an object, such as a model. This is a much bigger deal to me. Google Earth has always been good for navigating on a global scale, but needs some better controls for moving around a regional or smaller scale.

I had some problems with Google Earth locking up on me. I am staying with 4.2 until the next release, which typically cleans up a lot of issues.

Much better write ups on new functionality and a video can be seen at Google Earth Blog, and at Google LatLon , with some nice general thoughts at OgleEarth.

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