Google LatLong

A festive Fourth with Google Maps

2009-07-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'll be heading to the nation's capital to celebrate Independence Day this weekend, so I've been browsing the many maps that the Washington Post has put together to help people take in the festivities. If you'll be in DC too, you can find a map of the various events going on throughout the holiday weekend and a map of fireworks shows throughout the entire region. My friends and I plan to take in the fireworks over the National Mall, so we're consulting this map to determine the very best viewing location.

Of course, DC isn't the only place to celebrate the Fourth. Here's a list of maps of parades, fireworks shows, and events from other places around the country (thanks to the Google Maps Mania blog for finding some of these!):

If your town has a map that you want to share, let us know by sending it to @googlemaps on Twitter. If you're planning your own Fourth of July celebration, you can make your own My Map to show friends how to get to your BBQ or where exactly in the park you plan to meet to catch the fireworks.

Posted by Elaine Filadelfo, Lat Long Blog Team

Featured Modeler: John from Dursley, England

2009-07-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]
John is a retired British architect whose passion for photography and knowledge of his town's architectural history helped shape his beautiful 3D models of Dursley, Gloucestershire in England.

"The alignment of the buildings on Castle Street is a bit on the skew," he said, "but that makes sense if you know there used to be an actual castle in that location. The castle had a moat that the streets were laid out around."

John started using Google Earth and Google SketchUp around the same time. His brother was introduced to SketchUp at a lecture on SketchUp by his SeniorNet group. John's local library had an Internet cafe and, on his brother's recommendation, he took a look at Google Earth. "I was absolutely staggered. And decided I had to put Dursley on the map. There's another chap who does great stuff in Gloucester City called Andrew. He helped me out when I was first getting used to the process, in dealing with stuff like zed-flashing (z-fighting), where two overlapped textures have a flashing problem."

As John explains, an architectural background and access to information on the history of a specific site are both critical to his process for creating a realistic representation of Dursley.

"What's remarkable to me about 3D buildings in Google Earth is that they can combine in a live model all of the detail that is otherwise only available from different books and records. There is a resource in the UK called Buildings of England that describes with great precision the development of different local architectures. That helps me, but so does my knowledge of standard architectural practices that haven't changed all that much through the recent centuries."

John also draws a good deal of understanding about a structure based on the form of its roof as seen in the Google Earth satellite imagery. He is also keen on architectural photography (check out John's photo site).

"Knowing how roofs are built helps you: most roof surfaces have a similar slope and extend beyond the building footprint, but more important, the roof surfaces tell the story of how the walls are arranged. Add to that the fact that string courses have been used right through the centuries, work with some solid photos, and, Bob's your Uncle, you can be successful."

As for inferring building heights, John relies on his photos and makes "jolly well sure" the doors are 2.1 meters high on the textured model.

"You really need to understand how components and move/array can help you in SketchUp. Architecture has always had repeating elements. Once you have created one Victorian chimney, for example, it's likely you can use it for multiple sites. Really the key for repeatable success is to get the hang of working with SketchUp's grid system, setting your point of origin, aligning Red and Green axes to your site, and then drawing on axis. Getting on axis is like turning on the ignition before trying to drive your car."

"I really see a great educational benefit in having architecture available in Google Earth. The models are an encapsulation of so much history, architectural geometry and knowledge. They are especially important for the area of my focus, 'Listed Buildings', what you call Historical Register in the States. There really is no other way to truly capture all the detail of a building so clearly and concisely. " Check out John's site on Dursley.

As a result of his impressive work, John's models have been highlighted in the press. "The BBC was out to see what I was up to for a profile and so were the local papers." So why does he do it? According to John, he and his fellow modelers model their cities in 3D so that the world can experience the places they hold so dear. "What motivates both Andrew and myself is the same kind of interest in our home town or city. Combine that with architecture, history, and a means of sharing it with the world you can see why I get so excited. My brother thinks I should publish a coffee table book called, 'Dursley from All Angles' using screenshots of my models; I just might."

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

More 3D Cities in Europe

2009-06-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Warsaw, Prague and Oslo have joined the growing list of phototextured cities in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth. Like other major cities these 3D models are predominantly autogenerated, yet they also contain a number of Google SketchUp models generated by the user community. While the autogenerated models are good quality, user-generated models are often better because ground-based photos can produce a higher quality model than ones generated using aerial imagery.

Oslo

Warsaw

These new cities join other major European cities viewable in 3D, including Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and Zurich to name a few. If you've never visited these cities in-person, have some fun flying around and exploring them virtually.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Sr. Business Product Manager

Exploring Երևան and کراچی in Google Earth

2009-06-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

Over the past several months, the Google Earth Vector Team has been updating the 'Populated Places' and 'Alternative Place Names' layers in Google Earth. The alternative names show a place name in the local language and script. You can view Greek cities written in the Greek alphabet, Armenian in the Armenian alphabet, and Bulgarian in Cyrillic. Try flying to Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, India or Pakistan. You'll see cities written as they are on local maps. This greatly enriches the browsing experience in Google Earth by showing part of the unique regional culture. This feature becomes a valuable asset when planning travel or trying to find your way around abroad.

With the success of Google Map Maker in many countries of the world, users have created an enormous amount of accurate city, town, and village names (not to mention roads and points of interest), and this user generated data is being used by both Google Earth and Google Maps. We treat you as local experts, who provide names in many scripts and languages. The result is a detailed and enriched map that benefits everyone. Our place names for India, Pakistan, and Armenia have all come from Map Maker. With Google Earth's multilingual support, you copy and paste the place names in the blog post title and see where you land.

We recently added a large number of Chinese small town and village names in English as well as the Simplified and Traditional Chinese languages. This brings in the high quality and coverage of Google Maps - China to Google Earth for the first time. We also updated Egypt and Jordan with Arabic names to match the quality we have in Lebanon.

It is important to Google to have the best possible data for our geo products like Google Earth and Google Maps. Keep updating Map Maker with the places you know, and revisit Google Earth for more updates coming soon!

Posted by Kailen Wright, Geo Data Specialist

Tips and Tricks: Set up shop in the Local Business Center

2009-06-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

When I'm hankering for a bite to eat in my neighborhood, business listings on Google Maps are one of the first places I look. Whether I'm checking the opening hours of my local coffee shop, or finding a phone number to make reservations at a new restaurant, I rely on Google Maps for accurate and up-to-date information about local businesses -- especially when it comes to picking a good place to grab dinner.

When a business owner has added and verified with the Local Business Center (you can tell, because the phrase 'Provided by the business owner' appears in the listing), I can find find plenty of additional details, photos and video that the business owner adds can help sway my choice of dining spot. And for business owners, there are obvious benefits: adding a verifying a business listing is the best way to help Google users find and connect with your business.

In addition to the Local Business Center User Guide, which is your one-stop shop for information about putting your business on Google Maps, the Local Business Center folks have recently put together a new list of tips and advice for tailoring your business listing to help even more users find you. It's a win-win situation: adding and verifying your business listing with the Local Business Center gives you control over the way your business appears in Google Maps. And, particularly in my case, it connects your business with customers who may be hungry for what you have to offer.

To get started, simply visit the Local Business Center (make sure you're signed in with your Google account) and click Add new business. If you already see your business listing in Google Maps and want to claim it as your own, follow the instructions here.

Posted by Posted by Sarah Gordon, Tips Guru

Keeping track of hurricane season

2009-06-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

The 2009 hurricane season has begun. Tropical Storm Andres is brewing off the coast of Mexico, and other storms are sure to follow. As we did last year, we've created a "Hurricane Season 2009" folder under "Weather" in Google Earth. This folder contains data that allows you to watch the storms develop and follow their progress.

Within this folder, you'll find hourly-updated storm tracks courtesy of the National Hurricane Center, which include forecasted storm center positions and storm track areas. The forecasted center positions of each storm are represented by hurricane-like icons and correspond in size and shape to the intensity and type of storm. The current position of the storm is shown, along with the predicted storm track swath, which is outlined in red. These are areas most likely to be affected by the storm at a given time 12-hour interval. Inside each balloon you'll find an overview of the storm, its official NHC advisory, a near real-time news gadget, and reference information.

Tropical Storm Andres off the coast of Mexico

Posted by Pete Giencke and Cris Castello, GIS Data Engineers

Imagery update for Tehran

2009-06-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

Many of you have been letting us know through Tweets, emails, blog posts, message boards, and even an online petition that you're very interested in seeing recent satellite imagery of Tehran. Well, we've heard your requests and over the past few days have been working with our satellite imagery partner GeoEye to make this possible. We just received updated satellite imagery of Tehran, taken on Thursday the 18th at approximatly 11:18am local time. Below are some screenshots the updated imagery, you can view the entire image in Google Earth with this KML file.

The images above were taken from GeoEye's IKONOS satellite, which images at roughly 1-meter per pixel. We are continuing to work with GeoEye to see if we can provide a higher resolution update from the GeoEye-1 satellite, which would be at 0.5-meters per pixel, but this is subject to weather constraints. We'd like to thank GeoEye for making this imagery available to us and to thank our users for their advocacy.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

How to find out "What's here"

2009-06-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

On Google Maps, we try to label important places directly on the map tiles. But sometimes, it seems more helpful to just click on a point and ask "What's here?". Now you can do exactly that with an option we've added under the right-click menu. When you click on "What's here?", we give you the most relevant result representing that location, whether it's a specific address, a natural entity, or a place name.

This feature takes into account the zoom level you're looking at, and gives you the most appropriate geographical entity at that point. For example, if you're zoomed in closely on Manhattan, you can get the full address of a point by clicking on "What's here?". Additionally, by combining this with the "At this address" feature that you may have seen in the left-hand panel, you can also see a list of the businesses located at that place.

If you're a bit more zoomed out, you can get larger features, such as the names of the different Islands in the Galapagos Archielago - Isla Fernandina, Isla Isabela, Isla Marchena, Isla Guy Fawkes, and so on.

In the technical world, this feature is known as "reverse geocoding". It has been available in the Google Maps API for a couple of months now, so you can also put it to use if you're a developer.

Posted by Fernando Delgado, Product Manager and Diana Stroe, Software Engineer

Dump the pump with new transit agencies in Google Maps

2009-06-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

Did you know:

Individuals can achieve an average annual savings of over $8,000 by taking public transportation instead of driving and by living with one less car?
For every $1 invested in public transportation infrastructure, $6 is generated in economic returns to communities?
Public transportation saves 900,000 automobile fill-ups each day – or 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline per year?
Switching to public transportation can reduce individual carbon emissions by 20 pounds per day or 4,800 pounds per year?

This is why transit agencies around the country are celebrating Dump the Pump day, sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association, today to encourage more Americans to take public transportation. Depends on where you are, you may get free passes from your local transit agencies today!

Now, you may wonder how you can plan a transit trip easily if you're not familiar with your local agency. The answer is - go to Google Maps. So far more than 100 agencies in the United States have made their data available in Google Maps through Google Transit Partner Program. Recently we have added several new agencies:

Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston, TX
VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, TX (data available tomorrow)
Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, UT
Metro St. Louis, St Louis, MO
Foothill Transit, San Gabriel Valley, CA
Riverside Transit, Riverside, CA
Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, NC
Pinella Suncoast Transit Authority, St. Petersburg, FL

In addition, Los Angeles Metro, City of Edmonton, Houston Metro, and Calgary Transit have released their GTFS data feed to the public so that developers can create innovative transit applications to further promote the awareness of public transportation.

Now go to Google Maps on your computer or your cell phone, plan a transit trip, and go catch a train or bus. I bet your won't miss the congested highway or increasing gas price!

Posted by Jessica Wei, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google Transit

Celebrating the Ocean in Google Earth with our partners

2009-06-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have certainly been busy for the Ocean in Google Earth team. On May 28 in Santa Monica, CA, Heal the Bay held their Bring Back the Beach 2009 fundraiser, supporting work to improve water quality and do beach health monitoring across California. This year, Heal the Bay wanted to celebrate with the theme “A Sea of Possibilities” to recognize those whose thoughts, words, and actions demonstrate the powerful impact of seizing tremendous opportunities for positive change. The Ocean in Google Earth team was honored to be receiving the "Walk the Talk Award" and hope this inspires even more people to use the Ocean in Google Earth to learn about the issues that face this part of our planet. Barry Gribbon, CEO of Homerun Entertainment, produced this great Ocean in Google Earth Awards video - check it out to learn more. You can also have a look at their 19th Annual Beach Report Card, which uses the Google Maps API, to see the most current information about the health of California's coastlines.

Then, this past Saturday, at the Aquarium of the Pacific's Annual Awards Gala in Long Beach, CA, Director Jerry Schubel presented their Ocean Conservation Award to the Ocean in Google Earth. The event honors individuals and organizations that take a leadership role in protecting the environment. In addition, the event raises money to support the Aquarium’s education and conservation initiatives, which include teacher training, environmental education, mobile outreach programs, scholarship funds, and propagation programs.

The entire Ocean in Google Earth team would like to thank our over 100 partners. This includes large media groups like National Geographic and the BBC; researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography; non-profits like the Cousteau Society; aquariums; universities; NOAA, the US Navy, the Australian Great Barrier Reef Park Authority, and other government groups. We've also had individual contributors like Ray Hollowell in Hawaii and Sheila McKenna in Bermuda who have added photos, videos and stories to the Ocean content layers in Google Earth. This also wouldn't be possible without the many Googlers who contributed their time. One of our fantastic engineers, Emil Praun, who was instrumental to solving the ocean and land boundary problem, was fortunate to be able to attend the event.

You may remember the story of how Ocean in Google Earth came to be, following a conversation between Sylvia Earle and John Hanke three years ago. And now, as of February of this year, hundreds of millions of Google Earth users can go take a dive and see the oceans for themselves. As a piece of software, Google Earth is only as good as what you do with it. A number of our partners have used this as a way to tell their stories, and now you can go explore and add your own photos and videos, and share what you find with others. We are very excited to continue to work with the ocean community to enrich this canvas and make it an even more powerful educational tool. The Aquarium of the Pacific is rolling out teaching kiosks which will have the embedded Google Earth plug-in featuring some wonderful ocean content.

As Sylvia always says, "With knowing comes caring, and with caring, there's hope."

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Business Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth

A picture is worth millions of voices

2009-06-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

Every year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gives assistance and shelter to millions of people forcibly uprooted from their homes. Some of them have lived in camps or ghettos for up to 20 years. The upcoming World Refugee Day on 20th June is an important opportunity for everybody to show solidarity.

Marie is a Burundian refugee in Rwanda. As a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, she and her family were attacked by Hutu rebels on several occasions. Now she and her family are waiting to be resettled; as she says, "I plan to work and start over my life with my family. It’s the most precious dream I have… to see them again."

Together with Google, UNHCR is putting refugees on the map - a virtual map - with a new Google Earth tour that shows UNHCR's refugee camps across the globe. Claudia Gonzalez-Gisiger from UNHCR says the tour is a powerful way for everyone to get an insight into the desperate conditions in which refugees live.

The Google Earth tour, set to the Rolling Stone's classic track Gimme Shelter, kindly donated to UNHCR by ABCKO as part of the organization's flagship Gimme Shelter Campaign, gives a human face to refugees from seven different camps across Asia and Africa, allowing you a small insight into the lives of refugees like Marie. Documenting and mapping refugees can help focus public attention on human rights issues worldwide, and hopefully provide a voice for persecuted children, women and men.

Posted by By Hannah Freya Anderson, UNHCR; and France Lamy, Google.org

Uncovering discoveries

2009-06-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

What do cows, coral, craters, and now chameleons have in common? They all have been part of scientific discoveries made possible with Google Earth (if you guessed the letter 'c', we'll still give you credit). Last year we blogged about some of the discoveries we'd heard about, and now we're adding another one to the file. Two British reptile experts were able to find new species of chameleons and butterflies by scouting their research locations in Google Earth. By looking for mountains taller than 1,500 meters in southern Malawi, they were able to determine patterns in the imagery that indicated where they'd find a rainforest with the right conditions for their research. Over the past year at the site near Mount Mulanje, they've found more than 10 new species. You can read more about their research and see pictures of some of the critters here.

If you have your own story of how Google Earth or Google Maps helped you discover something - whether a new species or just a great picnic spot - let us know!

Posted by Elaine Filadelfo, Lat Long Blog Team

Discovering cities with the Transit Layer

2009-06-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, we announced the launch of the Transit Layer, a feature that makes it easier for citizens and tourists around the globe to access public transportation line information in their cities. We’re continuously expanding the coverage of Transit Layer, and have added support for transit systems in China, Japan and Russia, which are some of the most complex and remarkable metro lines in the world. The Transit Layer is not only useful to plan a visit, but also to see a city's history, structure of transportation systems, and daily life. Let’s take a look at the Transit Layers for Shanghai, Tokyo and Moscow.

Shanghai (China):

China has launched subway layers for 10 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Beijing's first subway line has been in operation since 1969 and Shanghai's subway system opened in 1995. Now, Shanghai has 8 metro lines, 162 stations and 225 km of tracks, making it the longest network in China, exceeding even the Hong Kong MTR. To get a sense of how widely used the subway system is, take a look at this image of the queues that can form during rush hour.

Tokyo (Japan):

Subways are the most popular and convenient transportation method in Tokyo; most of downtown Tokyo is easily accessible via subways.

The Tokyo Metro Ginza line (drawn in orange) was first opened in 1927. There were many trams at that time, but they have since been replaced by subways because of the increase in automobile usage and lack of capacity and speed. Thirteen lines are in operation today and they carry more than 2.9 billion passengers per year, making this the world's largest subway system.

One of the interesting things about the Transit Layer is that you can see the layout of the transit system. In Tokyo, for instance, you might wonder why the subways take a circuitous path around the central area and avoid it. This is because the area contains the Imperial Palace, which used to be the Edo Castle where the Shogun lived during the pre-modern era. Also, many of the subways are located under historically significant roads. Though Tokyo is filled with modern architecture, it has not been built from scratch, but rather it has been built on top of the old city.

Moscow (Russia):

The Moscow Metro is the world's second largest metro system (in terms of passenger rides) and quite possibly the most beautiful. If you ever come to Moscow, you should definitely visit the Metro (but it's best to avoid it during the rush hour if you have the choice!). Meanwhile, you can check out the Metro on the transit layer for Moscow, together with the bus, tram, trolleybus and monorail lines. We have also launched the detailed transit layer for St. Petersburg recently. All in all, we now provide Transit Layer coverage for 90 cities in 26 countries, including many of the worlds largest transit networks.

Posted by Issei Suzuki, Peng Chen and Vladimir Rychev, Software Engineers

Where in the world is ... (answers)

2009-06-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Great detective work, everyone! As always, I am continually impressed by how much of the new data the user community has found with only a handful of hints. Here are the answers:

1) The large 'satellite dish' from Golden Eye is now visible in high res.
-- Puerto Rico

2) Undergoing a name change in 1996, this city is was established in the 17th centry and rapidy grew into a major urban center.
-- Chennai

3)Check out how construction is going on the giant palm tree island
-- Dubai

4) Once a major maritime power, this former republic is now threatened by the rising tides.
-- Venice

5) Now the second largest city in it's country, this city was a major port of emigration.
-- Gothenburg

6) This city holds the Guiness World Record for most remote city from any sea.
-- Urumqi

7) The western most city in Africa has gotten an update
-- Dakar

8) This cosmopolitan and economic power house metropolis started out as a simple crown colony back in 1842.
-- Hong Kong

The following is a more complete version of the updates in this data push:

Updated Imagery:
Americas:
- Canada: Kamloops (BC), Fort St John (BC), Surrey (BC),
- USA: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Champaign County (IL), Bentonville (AR), Harrison (AR), Roswell (GA), Hidalgo County (TX), Willacy County (TX), Greenville (SC), Pierre (SD), several counties in Florida, several counties in Ohio

EMEA:
- France: Finistere, Cotes-d'Armor, Loire-Atlantique, Orne, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Loiret, Loir-et-Cher, Doubs, Cote-d'Or, Nievre, Cher, Creuse, Puy-de-Dome, Cantal, Haute-Loire, Correze, Dorbogne, Lot, Landes, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Gard, Corsica - Italy: Pisa, Venice
- Spain: Costa Brava, Navarra
- UK: Cambridgeshire, Workington, Swanage
- Sweden: Goteborg
- Senegal: Dakar
- Nigeria: Kaduna
- Saudi Arabia: Mecca
- UAE: Dubai
- Central African Republic: Bangui
- Mauritania: Nouakchott
- Sudan: Port Sudan, Juba
- Eritrea: Asmara

Asia:
- China: Hong Kong, Wulumuqi, Fuzhou, Hegang
- India: Calcutta, Chennai, Patna, Varanasi, Bhiwandi, Veraval, Ambala,
- North Korea: Nampo, Haeju, Kimchaek, Kanggye
- Japan: Mt Fuji
- Indonesia: Makassar
- Vietnam: Phan Thiet
- Tajikistan: Dushanbe
- Pakistan: Jacobabad, Vihari

New 2.5m Spot Imagery for: Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the western half of Egypt

Updated Terrain:
State of Indiana

Posted by Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist

Disneyland Paris in Street View

2009-06-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we were excited to announce one of the most intricate and extensive models ever made for Google Earth. Now anyone can see Disneyland Paris in 3D and explore its streets and buildings in tremendous detail. While the model was under construction, though, we were thinking of ways to make the experience even richer. Street View is one of our newest and most exciting technologies and we are always looking for ways to new exciting places to add to the growing list of destinations. Together with Disney, we thought bringing Street View to Disneyland Paris would be a fun and innovative way to experience a place virtually.

So, last October, as the last few rays of sunlight remained high enough in the sky, Disneyland Paris opened its gates early to our Street View car to capture some of the magic at street-level. We drove up Main Street USA (outside of Paris!), through Adventureland, and around Fantasyland and even in Walt Disney Studios Park.

Some furry friends showed up early too. See if you can spot Buzz Lightyear, Pluto and Baloo, among others! Check out the mapplet we created to walk you through the park as well.

Disneyland Paris was our first "special collection" in France, and we hope to capture more interesting and hard to reach places like race tracks, castles, parks and more.

Disneyland Paris is also the first amusement park in the world to be visible with Street View, and includes both Disneyland Paris itself and Walt Disney Studios Park:

Posted by Liz Ericson, Product Marketing Manager, London & Paris

Where in the world is...

2009-06-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Imagery Team,

We've been hard at work processing imagery for everyone to enjoy, and we've just released a large amount all over the world. To help guide you to some of the interesting places getting updates, here's a short quiz with update hints in it. Stay tuned for the answers and a more complete listing of updates.

1) The large 'satellite dish' from Golden Eye is now visible in high res.

2) Undergoing a name change in 1996, this city was established in the 17th century and rapidly grew into a major urban center.

3) Check out how construction is going on the giant palm tree island.

4) Once a major maritime power, this former republic is now threatened by rising tides.

5) Now the second largest city in its country, this city was a major port of emigration.

6) This city holds the Guinness World Record for most remote city from a body of water.

7) The westernmost city in Africa received an imagery update.

8) This cosmopolitan and economic powerhouse metropolis started out as a simple Crown Colony back in 1842.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Announcing the Design It: Shelter Competition

2009-06-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]

We teamed up with the folks at the Guggenheim Museum to create a design competition that's open to people everywhere. Design It: Shelter Competition challenges participants to create a simple shelter for a specific geographic location anywhere in the world. Entries are 3D models designed in Google SketchUp, geo-located in Google Earth and uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse.

Visitors to the competition website are able to view images, animations and descriptions of entries all in one place. With the help of the Google Earth plug-in, the 3D models themselves are visible right on the page. For the first time, you won't need to download a model to be able to see it "in the round".

The inspiration for 'Design It' comes from Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic assignment for the apprentices at Taliesin, his architecture school in Arizona and Wisconsin. Students design and physically construct shelters – small, simple buildings – as part of their studies. Then they live in them.

This competition coincides with the Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Also on display is Learning By Doing, which focuses specifically on the student-built shelters at Taliesin. If you're in the area, be sure to check them out.

This video talks about what you need to do to get started:

Submission
To enter the competition, you need to fill out the submission form on the Guggenheim website. You must provide:

information about yourself (name, email, country, etc)
a description of your shelter
a link to your SketchUp model on the Google 3D Warehouse
at least one, and as many as four, JPEG images of your shelter
a link to a video of your shelter on YouTube (this is optional, but highly encouraged)

Program
Competition entries should:

provide a place for someone to study and sleep
be sited anywhere on Earth
have no more than 100 square feet (9.3 square meters) of enclosed space
be no taller than 12 feet (3.6 meters) high
not include water, gas or electricity

Timing
The competition starts today, June 8th – Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. The deadline for submissions is August 23rd of this year. Two prizes will be awarded: the People's Prize, decided by public vote, and the Juried prize, selected by the members of a panel of architecture and design experts. Public voting for the winner of the People's Prize runs from September 7th to October 10th, and winners will be announced October 21st – the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum.

Judging
The judges will consider entries in light of five major criteria:

The relationship of the shelter to the built or natural environment around it
Innovative design
Thoughtful use of materials
Adherence to the project specifications
Quality of the SketchUp model

Prizes
Two prizes will be awarded:

The People's Prize: Current students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will select ten shelters from among all of the entries. The public will choose one of these ten to receive the People's Prize by voting on the competition website.

The Juried Prize: A panel of architecture and design experts will choose the winner of the Juried Prize from among all competition entries.

Both prizes include:

airfare and two nights' accommodation for two in New York City
behind-the-scenes tours of both the Guggenheim Museum and the Google office in NYC
complimentary admission to selected NYC museums
a Google SketchUp Pro 7 license

The winner of the Juried Prize will also receive USD$1000.

Questions? Check out the competition FAQ. Good luck, and have fun.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

Why we need to see the sea

2009-06-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

The ocean is a vast, deep, dark place. It has long been a source of mystery and fascination, inspiring epic tales. Early attempts to measure and better understand its depths involved dropping a rope overboard until the end hit bottom, then hauling up the line hand over hand, counting the lengths. The length of rope between a person's hands when outstretched - roughly six feet - was known as a fathom, and the verb 'to fathom', as a result, came to mean to measure the depth of something and ultimately, to comprehend it. After all, once we measure something, we immediately know something about it and can start to understand it.

But can you imagine measuring the entire ocean with lengths of rope, when some parts are nearly seven miles deep? Not only would it be practically impossible, but it's a project that's difficult to even imagine pursuing. You might even say it's unfathomable. The truth is, even with the help of today's satellites, the most sophisticated global maps of the ocean floor are really just guesswork. Satellites can hardly see past the surface of the water, let alone the ocean floor, and so the ocean remains relatively opaque to our eyes, our technology, and for the most part, our understanding.

Given how hard it is to study the ocean, it's important to make the most of what we do know. We believe a key step in understanding is visualization - this is one of the main reasons we added the oceans to Google Earth. Miles of rope, and the mysterious depths they measure, now fit on a small computer screen. Maps are, of course, just one form of visualization. Sometimes it takes a piece of artwork, something less literal and more symbolic, to make that which might seem overwhelming easier to understand. No matter what form a visualization takes, it offers promise as a starting point for comprehension, which hopefully will lead to more informed choices.

Visualizing the ocean is especially relevant today, the first UN-recognized World Oceans Day. The UN's chosen theme is "Our Oceans, Our Responsibility," which might seem like it ought to read "big oceans, big responsibility." To help get our heads around the watery part of our planet, we've collected a few visualizations of both issues facing the ocean and cutting edge science. Have a look at the problem of plastics in our oceans, find out about where currents might take your trash, the health of the world's fisheries, and what the latest satellite data says about the state of the ocean. If you find yourself wanting more, you'll also see a ticker at the bottom of the page with World Oceans Day news, and a custom search box in the upper right to help you navigate through the rich content on some of our partner sites.

Ready? Go see for yourself.

Posted by Steve Miller, Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth

Featured Modeler: Newfangled

2009-06-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]

Newfangled is a 3D Building pioneer. From the earliest days of modeling with SketchUp for Google Earth, Christian (aka "Newfangled") started creating the buildings in his home town of Edmonton, Alberta in the Great North of Canada. In fact, part of his motivation for modeling was to put North America's most northern city on the map. To date, he has placed over 150 models in the 3D building layer of Google Earth and Edmonton's metropolitan status is easy to see.

"I got started after a trip I took to Calgary," Christian said, "I was actually looking for a place for dinner, and when I searched in Google Earth all these buildings started popping up. I thought it would be cool to have the same thing in Edmonton. I actually got in contact with IntoTheWest, who put up the buildings in Calgary." You may remember that Andrew (aka "IntotheWest") was our first Featured Modeler.

"The first model I created was my apartment building," Christian continued, "and once that was done I realized how easy it was and started doing the surrounding buildings. I walk to work, so I took pictures along the way, modeled those buildings, and from there I figured I might as well do the whole downtown."

Having Edmonton on the map remains a prime motivator for Christian, but he also enjoys the process of modeling in its own right. "It's relaxing. I'm a Gen-Y guy, so a lot of my friends play XBox or World of Warcraft, but what I do for fun is make buildings."

Christian is a mechanical engineer so he was familiar with CAD before he got started. After watching some of our online video tutorials and getting some hands-on practice, he was up and running.

"I picked up SketchUp pretty quickly. And once I got the hang of taking pictures that would make good textures, the process was pretty smooth, although some of my earliest buildings make me cringe a little now. Getting around trees and power lines with the camera isn't easy, so I use GIMP (a free image manipulation tool) to edit the photos before I apply them to my models in SketchUp. And I also use repeating textures to cover tall buildings."

In addition to modeling Edmonton as it exists today, Christian has begun reconstructing historic locations.

"I like the idea that I can reconstruct something that is no longer there. Using historic information I am able to bring buildings back to life." His collection on Historic Edmonton can be found on the Google 3D Warehouse. Along with a collection of proposed structures in his Future Edmonton set. "You guys should allow Google Earth to show past, future in addition to current buildings." He's right, we should.

"Recently I completed a local River Boat attraction and our Convention Center. It's great that someone planning a trip here could do a search and get informed about what's around." Christian is planning to keep on building, in fact, the mission statement on his blog is "Edmonton - one building at a time... Or maybe sometimes two."

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Introducing smart navigation in Street View: double-click to go (anywhere!)

2009-06-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Street View is a great way to see panoramas of streets from all over the world. We've launched some great improvements to this tool, including most recently overlaying user photos and the ability to view Street View in fullscreen. Until now though, the usual way to navigate through Street View has remained the forward and backward arrows along the roads which move you to the next immediate panorama.

Today, we are really excited to introduce a new mode of navigation which liberates you from the road arrows and gets you where you want to go in just a few clicks. You can now use Street View's smart navigation to travel to a new place just by double clicking on the place or object you would like to see. We have been able to accomplish this by making a compact representation of the building facade and road geometry for all the Street View panoramas using laser point clouds and differences between consecutive pictures.

As you move your mouse within Street View, you'll notice that the cursor now has lightly-shaded geometry attached to it - it will show an oval when your mouse is following a road and a rectangle when moving across the facades of buildings. We affectionately refer to this cursor geometry as the "pancake" because it has the appearance of a pancake laying flat to the object where the mouse is pointing. By giving you a sense of depth,it makes the flat image almost feel three-dimensional!

Double clicking on the pancake transports you to the best panorama in that direction. For instance, if you pick the front door of this church, you will be taken to the view shown below. Sometimes the pancake shows a little magnifying glass in the bottom right to indicate that double clicking will zoom in on the current image rather than transport you to a closer location. This happens when we've determined that the current panorama has the best view of the selected location.

And in case you changed you changed your mind about the place you jumped to, you can hit the return arrow shown in the Address Box to get back to the previous location. Now you can wander through Street View imagery and not worry about getting lost!

The Googlers who have been playing with and testing smart navigation have found it completely addictive. Not only is it an easier way to browse cities in Street View, it allows you to do superhuman things like jump from one side of a river to another to see a faraway building. Here are some examples of places that are fun to browse:

View Larger Map

Grotere kaart weergeven

We hope you find it just as fun and useful, so to get you started we have put together a video to show you all the things you can now do with smart navigation. Enjoy!

Posted by Daniel Filip, Computer Vision Tech Lead, Google Zürich

Your country on Google

2009-06-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

You've heard it before: Google is interested in partnering with government agencies to include specific types of mapping data in Google Maps and Earth. We've recently been focusing this partnership effort on national governments of developing world countries as well as international organizations active in these countries. We hope to complement the work of Google Map Maker's users, now rapidly mapping many developing world countries, by incorporating the authoritative data - such as political boundaries, aerial imagery and road centerlines - that governments and other public sector organizations are well positioned to provide.

If you belong to or are involved with one of these public sector organizations, our message is simple enough: Hundreds of millions of internet users have turned to Google Maps and Google Earth to better understand and navigate their world. We know that these users expect to find a complete and accurate map, whether they're looking for the location of a store in a major city in Europe or the route to a village in a corner of Africa. And so our goal is to provide accurate mapping data all over the world and present it in the world's most common langauges.

If you find that we don't offer a complete or accurate map of your country or a country where your organization operates, and if you have better data to share, we want to hear from you. Some concrete examples of the benefits of sharing your mapping data:

Tourism and economic development: high-resolution imagery and vector data exposes your country's diverse landscape to the rest of the world on Google Maps and Google Earth, encourages visitors, and improves our existing data. One popular way users interact with Google services is by posting photos of places they have traveled to so that others can see pictures of interesting places they'd like to visit, such as Machu Picchu in Peru, or the Sphinx in Egypt.

Trade: high-resolution imagery of modern, urban and commercial areas as well as imagery of natural resources can encourage interest in foreign direct investment. Vector data of populated places, points-of-interest, roads and other important data gives investors valuable information about how to navigate your country. For instance, in Panama, the recent promotion of Panamanian real estate to the international market could be supported by geographical data and visibility to the targeted audience through Google products.

Emergency services coordination: accurate mapping data like roads and place names is crucial for relief aid work in times of crisis and emergencies, such as natural disasters, and civil and international conflicts. For example, when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar, Google was able to publish data on Google Maps that helped disaster response teams quickly provide aid to the regions that needed it the most.

Cultural heritage promotion: sometimes place names are in two or three different languages, dialects, or scripts; we can display them in each. Some examples are Belgium and Thailand.

It's also simple to work with us. In some cases, we are able to communicate with you in your local language and we may be able to work under local law when entering into a content license agreement.

If your organization or government agency has high-quality basemap data that you're interested in contributing to Google to improve the coverage and accuracy of geographic information available for your country, contact us and tell us more about your organization and your data. Help us give the world the opportunity to discover and understand your country as well as you do.

Posted by Naureen Kabir, Strategic Partnerships

Bringing the power of Google's data to local businesses

2009-06-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Today the Local Business Center team is rolling out a new feature: a dashboard that will provide you with information on how Google users are interacting with your local listing in Google Maps and Google Search.

We're pretty excited about this new feature. If you're a local business, you probably already know that Google Maps drives traffic to your website and to your business. While you may be tracking usage metrics on your website, you don't always get as much information from that as you'd like. For example, a user may search for "pizza," click on your business listing, look at the reviews, and decide to pay a visit to your Italian restaurant without ever visiting your website or calling you. The new LBC dashboard feature will change all that, making this data easily accessible to business owners by introducing a new "dashboard" tab in your Local Business Center (www.google.com/lbc) account. So if you're a business owner who maintains one or more physical locations, and you're curious about what people are searching for when they see your business listing and where your customers are coming from, the dashboard will answer many of those questions for you. Data available in the dashboard will include the following:

Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.
Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee"?
Zip codes where driving directions come from: Which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

So how will you use the dashboard? The first thing you'll need to do is make sure that you've claimed your listing in the LBC. Even if you hadn't claimed it until today, you'll be able to use the dashboard, since we're automatically populating it with data from the past month. When you log in to the LBC, you'll notice a new "View report" link right under the statistics that we provide:

Clicking on the link will take you to the dashboard page, where you'll find several features. At the very top, you'll see a timeline tracking the number of "Impressions" and "Actions" that your business received on Google. "Impressions" refers to the number of times that users saw your listing appear as a local business search result; "Actions" refers to how many times users interacted with your listing. You can change the date range selected to view more or less data.

Right under the graphs, you'll see a summary for the date range you've selected, along with a breakdown of the various types of "Actions" that users took:

Below that, you'll find a list of the top search queries people are using when they discover your business listing. For example, do people tend to find your Italian restaurant more by looking for "pizza" or "pasta"? Do more customers seem to find you because of your reputation as an affordable hotel, or as a quiet hotel? This gives you valuable insight into the ways that your potential customers are looking for you, and what terms are associated with your business. To protect any potentially personally identifiable information, queries with a very low search volume are put into the "other" category, and we filter addresses out of the queries (for example, if a someone searched for "bakery near 5873 Maple Ave," you would only see the "bakery" term.)

Finally, you'll also be able to see a breakdown of zip code starting points for driving direction requests to your business. To protect privacy, we aggregate these requests at the zip code level. If you hover over the counts inside the map, we'll highlight the area represented by that count. This lets you find out where there's an interest in your business, which can help inform advertising strategies or future growth.

~~As we mentioned above, your dashboard will be populated with data for the previous 30 days at launch. After that,~~ we'll add fresh data daily, so you'll want to be sure to check back often to see how things are going and how various strategies (like your latest offline ad campaign or the addition of a photo to your listing) affect your traffic.

If you want to learn more, you can read our post on the Official Google Blog or watch the video below. Otherwise, head to http://www.google.com/lbc to dive in to your new dashboard!

Posted by Amer Shahnawaz, Software Engineer, Local Business Center

3D tours added to the Google Earth Gallery

2009-05-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]

If you're a 3D enthusiast, then you'll probably enjoy the latest addition to the Google Earth Gallery: 3D Buildings. This new category provides a number of self-running tours on various themes. The tours showcase some fascinating 3D buildings (along with bridges and statues and other structures) around the world, most of which were built by our passionate Google SketchUp users who model buildings for Google Earth. Whether your interest is castles, bridges, museums, baseball stadiums or skyscrapers, I think you'll find a self-guided tour that is of interest to you.

The tours were developed by geo-modelers Adam and Jordan, both of whom are 3D experts who really know their way around Google Earth.

To play a tour, simply click on the "Open in Google Earth" link to download the KML file. Then click the "Start tour here" link in the "Places" panel in Google Earth (download the latest version of Google Earth). Make sure the "3D Buildings" layer is checked in the "Layers" panel. The tour will pause at each location to ensure the 3D building is fully loaded. Click the play button to continue the tour. Enjoy!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Sr. Business Product Manager

Businesses layer for Google Earth on your iPhone

2009-05-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Since we announced the Google Earth for iPhone application, I've been enjoying my virtual trips around the globe. However, what I find it especially useful for is putting search in a local context.

The Google Earth application shows great satellite imagery, which is always handy to get a first impression of a neighborhood. But imagine having businesses displayed on the screen - how helpful could that be to get to know your location better?

Today, we added a "Businesses" layer to Google Earth on iPhone, as well as to the "Geographic Web" folder in the desktop Google Earth version. To make them easily discoverable, you'll see them by default when you start the application next time. You'll find businesses like restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and grocery stores all just a touch away. By clicking on the icons, you'll get additional information like the telephone number, reviews, hours, and much more. And don't forget, as you zoom in further, more businesses become visible.

Have fun exploring your current location - and let this virtual world help you discover new things in the real world.

Posted by Carmen Erni, GIS Specialist, Zurich

Map Maker Graduation: Part II

2009-05-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Most of our lives are local. Google has rarely been more challenged in its mission than in providing maps and local information to users in countries where there has never been any detailed digital map.

NGOs will tell you that they need good maps to help develop many of these regions but traditionally, great maps are only created once a place is already developed.

This was the motivation behind the launch of mapmaker.google.com almost a year ago, giving users the power to solve this problem for good. Today, we see that promise fulfilled as Google launches the first generation maps for the following 64 new countries and territories on maps.google.com:

American Samoa, Anguilla, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Malawi, Martinique, Mauritania, Mongolia, Montserrat, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Pakistan, Reunion, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan, Wallis and Futuna, Zambia.

On behalf of the millions of people who can now use these maps, we extend our thanks to those exceptional people who selflessly and tirelessly continue to build these maps. To get an idea of who those users are go to mapmaker.google.com and peek at the bottom right of any viewport. And if you are from one of these places, do edit the map and make it a little better for you and your neighbors.

To celebrate these maps, here are a few snapshots of before and after the Map Maker data launch:

Lahore, Pakistan

Western Africa

Posted by Anand Srinivasan, Lakshminath Bhuvanagiri and Jessica Pfund, Map Maker Team