Google Earth Blog

Awesome 3D Building: The Evansville Central Library

Google Earth Blog — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:16:44 -0500

As Google Earth continues to get more realistic with improvements such as new imagery, new ocean bathymetry and 3D trees, 3D buildings remain a huge part of what makes Google Earth feel so real.

While it might not be exciting, the buildings around your town are what help bring it to life. The new 3D model for the Evansville Central Library (created by della) is a perfect example of that. It's a well constructed model with excellent textured images on every surface of the building.

Della even took the time to carve out the covered entrance area, which looks great!

The model hasn't yet landed in the base 3D buildings layer in Google Earth, though I expect it will soon. In the meantime you can download the model from its page in the 3D Warehouse.

We love to share high-quality 3D buildings, so if you've built a great model that you'd like for us to show off, just contact us and let us know!

(via SketchUp Island)

Stay connected with Google Earth Blog

Google Earth Blog — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:49:54 -0500

We've just crossed the 10,000 "like" milestone on our Facebook page, so thanks to all of you that follow us there!

Of course, we try to make it easy to stay informed no matter how you prefer to connect.

If you're a Twitter fan, you can follow us @gearthblog. You can also follow Mickey (@mickmel), Frank (@franktaylor) or follow Frank's sailing adventures (@GoTahina). I've also created a list of other geo-related people to follow on Twitter that you might want to check out.

If Google+ is your thing, come connect with Google Earth Blog over there. You can also connect with Mickey, Frank, Tahina Expedition, the Official Google Earth page or check out this shared circle of other geo folks.

Of course, we also push out a daily email of new posts or you can grab our RSS feed.

However you prefer to stay in touch, we try to offer a solution for you. If you'd like to see our content available in other formats, just let us know!

The Costa Concordia 3D tour is now stunningly realistic

Google Earth Blog — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:53:32 -0500

A few weeks ago we showed you Peter Olsen's 3D tour of the Costa Concordia. It was a very impressive file, showing a 3D model of the ship as it progressed through its fateful voyage.

Peter has been hard at work since then, and we simply had to show you the file with his latest updates. He has rebuilt the ship model from scratch, added much more data to the timeline, built 3D lifeboats (which slowly descend into the water), and even a 3D helicopter to show how the rescue operation unfolded!

As you may recall from Peter's work on Stone Mountain and the MLK Memorial, his attention to detail is incredibly high. If you're curious where he got some of the data used in this animation, here is a list:

• The general conversation between ship and harbour master and times is from here.
• The specific conversation between the captain and coastguard is here. (his version is slightly abridged)
• Some of the timeline is from here.
•The AIS track data is from here.
• The list of dead and missing came from here, which is now a dead link, as well as here.
•The chaotic way the lifeboats departed is from here.
• The helicopter is an exact replica of the real one used in the rescue - call sign VF-57. It is an Agusta Bell ab412SP Air Ambulance, based on the Bell 412. It was manufactured under license by Agusta for the Italian Rescue Service. The photo at the end just before the list of names shows the actual helicopter hovering over the ship. The general line of Bell helicopters of the family, including the Agusta's is here.
• The Bell 412, with size specifications, is here.
• The shape of the helicopter is here.
• The actual VF-57 helicopter is here.
• A video of an identical model (call sign VF-67) is here.

To see it for yourself, you can download the file from the 3D warehouse or watch the video below:

The tales of the Arctic Tern and the Sea Grapes

Google Earth Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:44:14 -0500

Last fall we showed you a great file from the people at Encyclopedia of Life that tracked Bluefin Tuna across the Atlantic. They're back with a few new files that show how a type of sea algae (known as "sea grapes") and Arctic Terns travel across the world as part of their annual migrations.

Ari Daniel Shapiro has worked with others, including Marie Studer and Eduardo Garcia Milagros, to put together some remarkable new tours. Ari's background is in radio, so the audio narrative on the tours is excellent. Combine that with the images, video and Google Earth content and you've got a very engrossing and educational result.

The tours are available below, both in KMZ format and also as embedded YouTube videos for you to enjoy:

Sea Grapes Tour | KMZ

Arctic Tern Tour | KMZ

For more, you can view all of their tours on the Encyclopedia of Life site.

All Streets: Highlighting terrain by only showing the roads

Google Earth Blog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:39:07 -0500

What if someone were to create a map that showed every street in the country and nothing else? Fathom Information Design did just that, and the results are amazing!

It feels kind of like the city lights of Earth that we recently wrote about, as you can clearly see cities form without any kind of borders or other overlays in there.

What's even more remarkable about the "All Streets" map is how clearly the mountain ranges are defined. Simply by drawing in the roads, you can see them without any difficulty. A great example is the Appalachian Mountains, seen here:

You can view and/or purchase the map over on the Fathom website.

(via +Adrienne St. Aubin)

Improved imagery of the Google Earth seafloor

Google Earth Blog — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:46:28 -0500

To celebrate the three year anniversary of the release of the 3D Ocean in Google Earth, they've just released a major update to their bathymetry (underwater terrain) and it looks great!

Similar to their recent update "Pretty Earth" update, this one does quite a lot to help clean up stray artifacts and images visible in the ocean. A great example of that is Guam, seen here alongside the Marianas Trench, the deepest trench in the world:

Another noteworthy change is that "Atlantis" is now gone. A few years ago some people thought they had found the lost city of Atlantis, but it turned out to simply be sonar tracks from a ship. While that was a reasonable and accurate explanation, the sonar tracks were still pretty ugly on the surface of the ocean. They're now cleaned up as part of this update and the area looks as clear as it should:

To see more of what's changed, Google has created this short video to give you a tour:

Combined with the new patchless imagery, the earth is suddenly looking remarkably better all the way around. For more, check out this entry in the Google Lat Long Blog.

The city lights of Earth

Google Earth Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:08:11 -0500

First released in 2007, the "Earth at Night" layer remains a very unique way to view the earth. Captured on the "dark side" of the planet, depending on the time of day, the images are a striking visual of the more urbanized areas of the planet.

However, the images were not easy to capture. For years, astronauts would try to capture the bright lights and only have blurry photographs to show for it, as the earth travels beneath them at 4.4 miles/second.

In 2003, Don Pettit developed an innovative system for capturing these images and he went on to capture over 2,500 photos, with thousands more captured in subsequent missions. You can read more about Don and his technique in this article at Air & Space Magazine.

To see the lights for yourself, simply click on the [Layers] in Google Earth, open [NASA], then [Earth City Lights] and click the button in there.. For the best results, disable your other layers and places to get a nice clean view of the earth. You should likely disable the atmosphere as well (under [View] --> [Atmosphere]), but I kind of like the glow it gives. It's a neat effect.

A big thanks to Don for pioneering this amazing technique, and hopefully as time goes on this imagery will become even higher-quality and more striking.

Monster Milktruck is a great way to play in Google Earth

Google Earth Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:45:08 -0500

We first showed you the Monster Milktruck API demo nearly four years ago, but thanks to a reminder from the Google Earth page on Google+, I went back and played it a bit more. What a fun little game!

If you're not familiar with it, it's difficult to call it a "game" because it's actually just a tech demo; there is no objective, no scoring, and no way to lose a life. That said, it's remarkably fun to drive around various places in the world with just a few presses of your keypad. As long as you have the Google Earth Plug-in installed (which you most likely do), you can play the game here.

If you enjoy driving around in the milktruck, you'll really enjoy Paul van Dinther's Drive the A-Team van" game from a few years ago. It's the same basic idea, but with 3D trees, collision detection on the buildings, and missions to accomplish.

This is one of the great things about Google Earth; old games/files will automatically improve over time as better imagery and new 3D buildings are released!

Geocaching with Google Earth

Google Earth Blog — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:03:57 -0500

We took our daughters (ages 5 and 8) on their first geocaching adventure this weekend and it was great! We used the very popular Geocaching.com website, which had quite a few Google Earth tools to make our adventure easier to plan.

In particular, they have a Geocache Google Earth Viewer that you can download and use. It's essentially a network link that shows all of their geocache locations in Google Earth -- over 1.6 million of them!

It was quite handy to fly around in Google Earth, find local caches, then click to see if they were worth checking out. We eventually stumbled upon a local "challenge" (10 locations to find, including this one) and had a good time.

While the icons are clickable, I would like to see them have a bit more info. In particular, the "last found" date would be helpful, so you could quickly see if a cache was likely to still be in place.

They also integrate Google Earth by allowing you to create "routes" that are generated by uploading KML files.

For all of you geocachers out there, what is your favorite way to search for new caches to find?

Google SketchUp for Game Design

Google Earth Blog — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:03:08 -0500

We talk about Google SketchUp quite often on here, and for good reason. It's an amazing piece of free software that allows you to create 3D models for use in Google Earth and other places.

We've shown you a few SketchUp-related books in the past (such as "SketchUp for Dummies"), but Robin de Jongh of sketchupuser.co.uk has written a book that might be of great interest to some of you: "Google SketchUp for Game Design".

The book covers some SketchUp basics, such as texture creation and modeling, but then gets into some cool game-specific sections such as:

• Sketching out the level.
• Importing to a professional game application (Unity 3D).
• Setting up your character controller.
• "Fencing" areas of your creation.
• Creating a realistic car with SketchUp.
• Exporting your game for others to play.

The book is full of screenshots and step-by-step tutorials to help make things as clear as possible. If you've ever had an interest in developing 3D games, this book would be a great way to get started.

You can pick up a copy of "Google SketchUp for Game Design" from Packt Publishing or on Amazon (including a version for Kindle).

Also, as always, if you build a noteworthy 3D model in Google Earth using SketchUp, please let us know about it so we can check it out for ourselves and perhaps feature it on the blog.

An amazing 3D tour of the Costa Concordia

Google Earth Blog — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:09:26 -0500

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!

Google Earth 6.2 Released with Google+

Google Earth Blog — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:51:31 -0500

Google not only released all new more beautiful imagery of the Earth today, but they also released a whole new version of Google Earth - version 6.2. You can download it here. The biggest news is the integration with Google+:

Here is a quick list of the new features:

Integration with Google+ - you can now sign into your Google+ account and you can Share your current view with Google+. This feature could have meant that your "My Places" content would be shared on different machines, but apparently they have not implemented that capability yet.

New Search Interface - Google has made substantial changes to the way searching is done in Google Earth. The results look more like Google Maps. You can also now get walking and biking directions just like in Google Maps. Search results also happen dynamically. They have put a lot of effort to updating the search capabilities in Google Earth to bring it in line with Google Maps. The font is much bigger - actually, it seems a bit too big. You may need to increase the width of your sidebar to be able to read the results better. See screenshot below.
New graphic rendering - Google has made changes including turning on anisotropic filtering by default.
New Imagery in Google Earth Mobile version - The new version of the imagery of the Earth also appears in the mobile version of Google Earth.
Improvements to Network Links - better handling of parallel loading of network links.

We will keep adding to this list as we find significant new features. More details from Google are available in the release notes.

Here is a screenshot of the new search results:

Google Releases Pretty Earth

Google Earth Blog — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:01:29 -0500

Google has just this morning released a new, prettier, version of the Earth for Google Earth. The short version is that it now looks much more Earth-like and less like a bunch of satellite and aerial photos patched onto a sphere. And, it really does look MUCH better!

Since Google Earth was first released in 2005, Google has made thousands of changes to their imagery. Changes to how the imagery looks (colors, contrast, lighting) when combined so it has a more pleasant look from space. One of the most frequent comments about Google Earth is "why are these ugly patches of rectangular images on the Earth?". Well, Google has released today a new attempt to address the problem.

Some of the changes Google has attempted to its imagery were not successful. For example when they attempted to cut images that showed away from the coastlines which removed a lot of valuable information. Google later provided access to that valuable imagery in in the historical imagery layer. Or the time they tried changing the colors in a detrimental way, which they quickly removed a few days later.

Today, Google has finally combined many different attempts, and suggestions from the Google Earth user community, and implemented a major change to the imagery that greatly improves the look of Google Earth. The most obvious change is that the "patchwork" of random-looking rectangles of imagery from different sources is no longer obvious. But, Google's new imagery is much more dramatic than is obvious. They have altered nearly all the imagery of the Earth and made major improvements to the contrast, lighting, and consistency of the imagery at all levels. And, they have used features inherent to Google Earth's abilities to transition at different zoom levels to smoothly move between imagery that is very pleasing to the eye.

These changes are subtle if you don't have access to the way things looked before.
Here are some comparison shots showing the dramatic change before and after in just a few places:

Before/After USA

Before/After Africa

Before/After China
As you can see, the improvement is dramatic when you compare the old to the new. But, once most people start using this, they'll probably quickly forget how it used to be and just accept the new look. However, we should really appreciate the huge effort Google has made to pretty up the Earth, and thank them for a job well done!

Google Earth 6 now required for Street View

Google Earth Blog — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:28:28 -0500

When Google Earth 6.0 was released, it completely changed the way that Street View worked. However, Google kept the older layer active for previous versions of Google Earth so that those users could continue to use Street View. Not anymore.

Sometime in the past few weeks, Google has turned off that old layer. If you're wanting to use Street View in Google Earth, you're now required to be using version 6.0 or higher.

Here's a quick look at how to use Street View in Google Earth 6:

In addition to that video, I've built a few other Google Earth tutorials to help explain some features, including how to use historical imagery, elevation profiles and a few more.

Beyond that, Google has just released Street View imagery in South Korea, primarily in Seoul and Busan. As you can see from the screen shot below, the imagery in those is very sharp.

You can read more about the new South Korean Street View imagery on the Google Lat Long Blog.

If you still need to upgrade to Google Earth 6 to get the new Street View features, you can always download it (for free!) from earth.google.com.

100 years since the Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica

Google Earth Blog — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:57:49 -0500

100 years ago saw two very ill-fated attempts to explore Antarctica; Robert Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole and Sir Douglas Mawson's 1912 Eastern Expedition.

In honor of those events, Peter Olsen has built a handful of 3D models in Antarctica and they look amazing. You may remember Peter from his excellent models of the MLK National Memorial and Stone Mountain, among many others.

Here is a look at Robert Scott's hut at Cape Evans on Ross Island in Antarctica:

Peter has a a total of nine models available in his 3D Warehouse collection, with more on the way.

To learn more about these expeditions, you can check out this Wikipedia entry about Robert's Scotts "Terra Nova" Expedition or visit MawsonsHuts.aq for the story of Sir Douglas Mawson and his crew.

Great work, Peter!