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February 27, 2010

Satellite images from Chile earthquake and ways you can help

The first satellite images from the earthquake in Chile are starting to roll in. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, has been sending back images today. They're not high-res, but they're still quite stunning. In the image below, you can see what appears to be silt and dirt in the water, apparently as a result of the quake.

We've put together his three images into a single KMZ file so you can take a look using Google Earth. I'd expect Google will release some images within the next day or so, but no word on that yet.

In the meantime, Google has started putting together some information about the quake. They encourage users to contribute data via Map Maker, and they've created a special version of the Person Finder tool to help loved ones locate each other.

In addition, they've set up an earthquake relief page, which allows you to easily contribute a donation to the cause.

If you're aware of other resources we should mention, please leave a comment and let us know.

[UPDATE 28-Feb, 4:54pm EST]

Astronaut Noguchi has sent back another image, this time of Santiago, the capital city of Chile. You can download the KMZ file here or check out the image below.

Still no word on any official imagery from Google, but I suspect it's coming soon.

Posted by mickmel at 3:48 PM | Comments (4)

February 26, 2010

The Scariest Airports in the Caribbean

Google Sightseeing has just posted a near article about the Top 3 Scariest Airports in the Caribbean.

The three airports they've chosen are:

• Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten
• Gustaf III Airport, Saint Barthélemy
• Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba

They would all certainly be crazy places to fly into. Here's what the airport on the island of Saba looks like:

For more, read their full article or download the KML file to view them for yourself.

Have you flown into any of these airports? Or do you know of others that deserve to be on this list?

Posted by mickmel at 8:54 AM | Comments (8)

February 25, 2010

Smarter 3D Buildings

For a while now, you've been able to click on many of the 3D buildings in Google Earth and get more information about them. Now when you click on them, you'll have even more data in there: "Photos of nearby places" and "Nearby places". It's a nice little tweak. More info on it can be found on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Posted by mickmel at 9:28 AM | Comments (3)

Antarctic Iceberg Collision

Earlier this month, a massive (400 million ton) iceberg crashed into an Antarctic ice shelf. Oceanographers captured audio of the crash, and satellite images are also available. GEB reader 'Armin' took some of that imagery and created a nice image overlay showing the collison. You can download the KML file here.

Posted by mickmel at 9:06 AM | Comments (0)

New Building Maker Cities

Google has just added a few nice updates to Building Maker; 8 new cities (Seville, Berlin, Jacksonville, St Petersburg, Clearwater, Raleigh, Memphis, and Houston) and support for 25 additional languages. They continue to add new cities at a nice pace, but none have had their area expanded recently, so hopefully that will happen soon. In any case, Building Maker has proven to be a huge asset to Google, as it's helped contribute thousands of new 3D buildings to Google Earth.

How many buildings have you created in Building Maker? Have any been approved for Google Earth yet?

Posted by mickmel at 8:40 AM | Comments (3)

February 24, 2010

Upload your Picasa Web Albums to Panoramio

Google has just released a simple but very useful new feature -- one-click upload from Picasa Web to Panoramio. If your photos are geo-tagged and in a public album, simply click the "Upload to Panoramio" button and off they go.

The great thing about this is that it's fast. Since it's sending directly from one server to another, it goes very quickly. However, they have a few improvements that could be made.

1) Be able to upload more than one at a time. Right now, you need to click that link and upload each picture individually.
2) Even better, be able to flag photos for Panoramio while you're uploading them to Picasa, saving a step in the long run.

I would expect both features to eventually make it in there. In the meantime, this is just another way for users to add photos to the already massive collection on Panoramio, making the site more useful for everyone.

Frank has already pushed a bunch of his photos over using this system, and he's quite pleased with how well it works. More info about this new feature can be found on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Posted by mickmel at 6:25 AM | Comments (1)

February 23, 2010

New Google Earth Imagery - February 23

It seems that Google has just pushed out some fresh imagery for Google Earth. We've only found a little bit of it so far, but there's certainly more out there.

[UPDATE 24-FEB -- The "updated areas" KML file is now available. Download it here.]

As always, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

[UPDATED -- 23-Feb, 8:05pm EST]

• Argentina: Just west of Buenos Aires (thanks 'Leonardo') and San Rafael, Mendoza (thanks 'carlos')


• Brazil: Tubarão and Laguna (thanks 'Tiago')


• China: Parts of Hainan Island (thanks 'Munden')


• Croatia: Zadar (thanks 'Nono')


• France: Grenoble (thanks 'yves')


• Indonesia: Western part of Bali, among others (thanks 'okasbali')


• Japan: Sasebo (thanks 'Munden')


• Poland: Warsaw (thanks 'Kaczor')


• Romania: Galati (thanks 'Cristian')


• Russia: North and northeast of Saint Petersburg (thanks 'Rider')


• United States: California (near Bakersfield - thanks 'GT'), Texas (Austin - thanks 'Steven') and along the gulf coast (thanks 'Munden')

As I said, there are likely many other areas with recent updates. If you find any, leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by mickmel at 3:01 PM | Comments (39)

Google Earth on the Nexus One; Hands-on Review

We discussed Google Earth on the Nexus One when it was unveiled last month, but now it's officially been released! Frank has had a chance to play with it, and here are some of his thoughts.

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I was excited to find that Google Earth for Nexus One came out today. I've really been missing having Google Earth on my phone after my iPhone went swimming with me back in December. Now I can use Google Earth as a handheld mapping tool while we're sailing from destination to destination. One thing a lot of people don't realize is that all versions of the Google Earth application cache the most recent imagery and data you've visited. So, you can visit places you're planning to go before you lose cell phone service, and still use Google Earth when off line. This applies to the Nexus One/Android version as well.

Google has already released the major highlights to the Nexus One in their blog post yesterday. The one cool new feature is voice recognition for flying to places. I tried "Cartegena, Colombia" (where I happen to be at the moment), and it flew right there. Cool!

The screen on the Android is higher resolution than the iPhone, so the imagery looks really good. It's one reason why Google was able to add the Roads layer to this version (off by default, look under the "Settings" to turn on the layer), since reading the labels would otherwise be very difficult with lower resolution screens. The other reason is that the Nexus One has a more powerful CPU and graphics rendering capability. The pans and zooms are very smooth on the Nexus One.

There are some things I missed with the Nexus One version:

1) I expected it to take advantage of the motion sensing elements of the phone to allow you to pan or tilt your view. You have to use their "Look around" button and your finger to pan or tilt.

2) They only appear to use the GPS to let you find "My Location". I had hoped it would let you follow your position and lay a GPS track. Maybe a later version?

3) The ocean is still flat on the Android/Nexus One version (like it is on iPhone as well) - i.e. no 3D bathymetry. I think the Nexus One should be able to handle the Ocean (at least as an option). Although, I guess only a small percentage of users would need or want that, so it's a reasonable performance impacting constraint.

4) Another feature I was hoping to see would be the ability to load a KML file so you could put your own content on the phone. I found no way to do this with this version. I suspect the Nexus One could handle most reasonable sized KML files just fine. Since it can do the roads layer, I'm sure it could show GPS tracks and other common KML files. I'm sure a future release will do this.

Despite my hopes for more, I'm thrilled to again have GE available on the phone. GE on a phone can be very handy while traveling!

Posted by mickmel at 7:59 AM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2010

The tallest buildings in the world

With Google releasing new 3D imagery almost every week, urban sightseeing in Google Earth is getting better and better.

Last month we mentioned the opening of the Burj Khalifa, so we thought it was probably time to look at more of the world's tallest buildings.

1. Burj Khalifa: 828m KML - 3DWH
Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m. Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010.

2. Taipei 101: 509m KML - 3DWH
Taipei 101, also known as the Taipei Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building was the world's tallest (with occupiable floors) until it was surpassed in height by the Burj Khalifa on July 21, 2007. The skyscraper was officially the tallest building until the opening of the Burj Khalifa on the 4th of January 2010.

3. Shanghai World Financial Center: 492m KML - 3DWH
The Shanghai World Financial Center located in Pudong, Shanghai, China. It is a mixed use skyscraper which consists of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks, and shopping malls on the ground floors. On 14 September 2007 the skyscraper was topped out at 492.0 meters (1,614.2 ft) and became the second-tallest building in the world; as well as the tallest structure in the People's Republic of China, including Hong Kong.

4. International Commerce Centre: 483m KML - 3DWH
The International Commerce Centre is a 118 floor skyscraper under construction in West Kowloon, Hong Kong; as part of the Union Square project built on top of Kowloon Station. The development is owned and jointly developed by MTR Corporation Limited and Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kong's metro operator and largest property developer respectively. Its formal development name is Union Square Phase 7 and the name International Commerce Centre was officially announced in 2005. International Commerce Centre will be completed in phases: from 2007 to 2010.

5. Petronas Towers: 452m KML - 3DWH
The Petronas Twin Towers, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are twin towers and were the world's tallest buildings before being surpassed by Taipei 101. However, the towers are still the tallest twin buildings in the world. They were the world's tallest buildings from 1998 to 2004 if measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural top, the original height reference used by the international organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat from 1969 (three additional height categories were introduced as the tower neared completion in 1996).

6. Nanjing Greenland Financial Center: 450m KML - 3DWH
The Nanjing Greenland Financial Center is a 450-metre (1,500 ft) supertall skyscraper currently topped-out in Nanjing, China completed in 2009. The 89-story building features office space and retail space in the lower section, and restaurants and a public observatory near the top, which is topped off with a spire. The tower's stepping is functional, helping separate these sections.

7. Willis Tower: 442m KML - 3DWH
Willis Tower, formerly named Sears Tower, is a 108-story 1,451 feet (442 m) skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. At the time of its completion in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world, surpassing the World Trade Center towers in New York. Currently, Willis Tower is the tallest building in the United States and the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world as well as the fifth tallest building in the world to the roof.
Although Sears' naming rights expired in 2003, the building continued to be called Sears Tower for several years. However, in March 2009 London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., agreed to lease a portion of the building and obtained the building's naming rights as part of the agreement. On July 16, 2009, at 10:00 am Central Time, the building was officially renamed Willis Tower.

8. Guangzhou West Tower: 440m KML - 3DWH
Guangzhou West Tower is a 103 story supertall skyscraper under construction at Zhujiang Avenue West in Tianhe District at Guangzhou, China. The building was topped out on 31 December 2008. Construction of Guangzhou West Tower, designed by Wilkinson Eyre, broke ground in December 2005. When complete in 2009, the building and its twin will become one of the tallest highrise buildings in Guangzhou and China, and will be used as a conference centre, hotel and office building. Floors 1 to 66 are planned to be used as office, floors 67 to 68 are mechanical equipment, floors 69 to 98 as hotel and in floor 99 and 100 there will be an observation deck. There is a hotel lobby on the 70th Floor.

9. Trump International Hotel and Tower: 423m KML - 3DWH
The Trump International Hotel and Tower, is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named after real estate developer Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 92-story structure, which reached a height of 1,389 feet (423 m) including its spire, its roof topping out at 1,170 feet (360 m). It is adjacent to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. Trump announced in 2001 that the skyscraper would become the tallest building in the world, but after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the building plans were scaled back, and its design has undergone several revisions. When topped out in 2009 it became the second-tallest building in the United States after Chicago's Willis Tower. It is expected to be surpassed by the 1 World Trade Center in New York City in the middle of 2013, and by the on-hold Chicago Spire if completed. Trump Tower surpassed Chicago's John Hancock Center as the building with the world's highest residence above ground-level and held this title until the completion of the Burj Khalifa.

10. Jin Mao Tower: 421m KMLKML - 3DWH
The Jin Mao Tower is an 88-story landmark supertall skyscraper in the Lujiazui area of the Pudong district of Shanghai, People's Republic of China. It contains offices and the Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel. Until 2007 it was the tallest building in the PRC, the fifth tallest in the world by roof height and the seventh tallest by pinnacle height. Along with the Oriental Pearl Tower, it is a centerpiece of the Pudong skyline. Its height was surpassed on September 14, 2007 by the Shanghai World Financial Center which is next to the building.

It's quite a collection of buildings, and all of them look amazing in Google Earth. What your favorite man-made structures in Google Earth?

Posted by mickmel at 8:46 AM | Comments (5)

February 19, 2010

A bit more 3D to play with

A couple of noteworthy 3D-related items:

• Beautiful 3D model of the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort: CyberCity 3D, who we mentioned yesterday for their 3D coverage in Chula Vista, has revealed a 3D model of the Sheraton Resort in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The quality of the building is quite remarkable. I like that they include trees in there, and I hope that someday soon Google will find a way to put 3D trees all over the earth. You can view the resort by using this KML file.

• Weekly 3D release from the 3D Warehouse: It doesn't appear that there are any new cities this time, but they've added more models that users have built using SketchUp and Building Maker. Check and see if your creations are in there!

Posted by mickmel at 6:14 AM | Comments (0)