See "Archives" for more. | Main | Next 10»
July 29, 2010
New Google Earth Imagery - July 29
It appears that another Google Earth imagery update is underway -- thanks to GEB readers 'Eero' and 'cristi' for being the first to let us know about it.
[UPDATE: Google has updated the official KML update file
, so you can see exactly which areas have been changed with this release.]
As is often the case, 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 -- 29-July, 9:41pm EST]
- Finland: Southern areas -- thanks 'Eero' and 'cristi'
- Nepal: -- thanks 'Steven'
- Netherlands: Various areas -- thanks 'Maarten'
- United States: San Jose and Sacramento, CA (thanks 'Steven'), Des Moines, IA (thanks 'cristi), Boston, MA (thanks 'Kevin') and Las Vegas, NV (thanks 'cristi')
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 5:09 PM | Comments (30)
July 29, 2010
Biking across Poland
GEB reader 'fjk' has recently completed a bicycle trip across much of northern Poland, and he did a great job of tracking the journey and augmenting it with photos and other information.
A group of four of them completed to the trek to Swinoujscie, and they used a Garmin 60CSx to track their route.
To view the trip in Google Earth (as seen above), you can simply load this KMZ file. To see more of his adventures, check out his website.
It's great to see people sharing their journeys using Google Earth. If you missed it last month, a few GEB readers used the new "track" feature in 5.2 to show the progress of a 23km race that one of them participated in.
If you've created an interesting track in Google Earth recently, let us know about it and we may feature it in a future post.
Posted by mickmel at 7:49 AM | Comments (3)
July 28, 2010
More building maker cities added; Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile
It's been a while since Google has added any new cities to their Building Maker tool, but now two more have joined the mix - Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile.
These two cities bring the total available in Building Maker up 94. I'm always happy when they expand the coverage to more cities, and I look forward to seeing them expand the coverage area for existing cities a bit further.
Google has pointed out that a few users have been building a lot of models in the area over the last few years. In particular, 'gananunez' has created over 50 models in Valparaiso and users 'GecKo StuDio' and 'Sergio' have been creating various buildings in Santiago for the last few years. Having their buildings in the area will be a great start as other users start to fill in the cities with new Building Maker cities.
You can read more about the new cities in the Google Lat Long Blog. To try it yourself, simply visit the main Building Maker site.
Posted by mickmel at 8:01 AM | Comments (1)
July 27, 2010
The Geospatial Revolution Project
The folks at Penn State Public Broadcasting are in the middle of creating a series of videos showing how geo-spatial technology is changing the world we live in.
They've released a five-minute video showing some of the content that will be in the series, and it's a great little video. Check it out:
According to their website, they have a list of problems that are aided heavily by geospatial information, such as:
- fight climate change;
- map populations across continents, countries, and communities;
- track disease;
- strengthen bonds between cultures;
- defend the nation;
- assist first responders in protecting safety;
- enable democracy;
- navigate our personal lives.
They plan to release the first episode in mid-September of this year, and we'll certainly be keeping an eye out for it. In the meantime, check out their site or follow them on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates on the status of the project.
Posted by mickmel at 8:30 AM | Comments (2)
July 26, 2010
One of the youngest craters on Earth
A recent story by National Geographic highlights how researchers used Google Earth to discover one of the newer craters on Earth; only a few thousand years old.
As Stefan at Ogle Earth notes, the findings of some researchers were recently published in the journal Science, they require a subscription. Fortunately, he was able to grab the coordinates of the crater so you can see it for yourself. Simply fly to 22º 01' 06" N 26º 05' 15" E or use this KML file to take you there.
Of course, there are hundreds of known craters all across the planet. One of Frank's oldest posts showcase them, and you can download this KML file to view them all in Google Earth.
What is the most interesting crater that you've found in Google Earth?
Posted by mickmel at 8:03 AM | Comments (8)
July 23, 2010
Interactive multi-layered Google Earth map of 4 degree temp rise
Regardless of your views on climate change, Google Earth has proven to be simply the perfect tool to lay out the various scenarios that we are facing. In the past, we've shown you items such as the Climate Change Tour of Cold Places and various tools related to the COP15 conference in Copenhagen last year.
The latest tool to be released comes from the UK Government, with data from the FCO (British Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change), showing the potential impact of a 4 degree rise in global temperature. They believe that global warming must be contained to 2 degrees Celsius, which this project illustrates.
Here's what they have to say about it:
On 14th July, the FCO and DECC launched an interactive map showing some of the possible impacts of a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. It underlines why the UK Government and other countries believe we must keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. The map includes videos from the contributing scientists, led by the Met Office Hadley Centre, talking about their research. It also includes examples of what the FCO and British Council are doing to build understanding globally of the urgent need for all countries to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.
To check it out, you can visit www.fco.gov.uk/4degrees and view it using the Google Earth Plug-in or by downloading their KML file to your computer.
Posted by mickmel at 9:35 AM | Comments (1)
July 22, 2010
Louisiana Earth
In an effort to help residents with emergency planning assistance, the state of Louisiana has launched "Louisiana Earth".
As explained in the Google Lat Long Blog, the program is designed to help with the following:
Louisiana Earth was released as part of the state's "Get a Game Plan" campaign, to assist citizens in creating evacuation plans by providing access to all of the states evacuation routes, sheltering points historical hazard data and other information that is essential during an evacuation such as locations of and available occupancy of hotels, gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, veterinary clinics and banks.
More info about Louisiana Earth can be found in this short video:
As Brant Mitchell, Louisiana's Deputy Director of Homeland Security, mentions in the video, this is based somewhat off of Virtual Alabama which was released a few years back. Both programs are essentially a large new group of default layers to help provide a large amount of data to the end user -- evacuation routes, oil spill updates, and even festivals and events occurring across the state.
It seems to be an excellent tool, and could be of great value to the residents of Louisiana.
Posted by mickmel at 9:07 AM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2010
Google increases border accuracy in Google Earth
One thing that I've seen a lot of emails about over the years is border issues; borders that aren't quite accurate enough, or (most often) borders that are in political dispute. People didn't like that Google was seeminly "taking sides", even though they were really just trying to make them as accurate as possible.
With some nice new changes, borders are now much more accurate and disputed borders are indicated as such. Here's a great example of a disputed border, where it is unclear who this island belongs to:
The accuracy of borders is also greatly improved. Google has some great examples on their blog that you should check out.
The new updates are live in Google Maps, and will be coming very soon to Google Earth.
Posted by mickmel at 8:03 AM | Comments (2)
Seville, Spain goes 3D
Google's latest 3D city has just been released -- Seville, Spain!
Like all of their recent cities, this one looks phenomenal. Thousands of beautifully rendered buildings. Check out the video below for a quick fly-through:
For more information about the new 3D buildings in Seville, check out the post on the Google SketchUp Blog.
Posted by mickmel at 7:49 AM | Comments (3)
July 20, 2010
Exploring the set of "Wipeout"
As the third most popular game show in the world, many of you have probably seen an episode of "Wipeout". For a while the the filming location had been a secret, but recent satellite imagery has revealed it and Google Sightseeing has written a great post to show it off.
Google Sightseeing does a nice job of exploring the entire set, such as the rotating planks, the spinning platform and the "Wipeout Zone".
For the full write-up, check out the post on Google Sightseeing.
Posted by mickmel at 8:12 AM | Comments (5)
Links marked with this icon are Google Earth files. You must have Google Earth installed to use these links.
