Mickey Mellen

Repin Like Comment

We shown you how environmental groups have been using Google Earth for more than six years, how it's been used to fight against rainforest logging, and Google Earth Outreach consistenly showcases many other amazing organizations from a variety of countries. Similarly to the others that have used Google Earth to fight against deforestation, the Philippine

Repin Like Comment

Last week we showed you the excellent "Hangout on Air" (multi-user video chat on Google+) that a few members of the Google Earth team participated in. It was quite informative, and a great way to interact with users. Later today, at 10:30am PDT (1:30pm EDT), the Google Earth Outreach team will be hosting a Hangout on Air to discuss the Google Maps Engine, formerly known as Google Earth Builder.

1 like

Repin Like Comment

Earlier this month we told you about Meograph, the "four-dimensional storytelling" engine, and they've been hard at work improving the system.

1 like

Repin Like Comment

I've long said that 3D models are one of my favorite aspects of Google Earth. From cities to universities to cathedrals to even my own house, I love exploring the 3D world of Google Earth. The tool behind these great models, of course, is Google SketchUp. You can view thousands of those models in the Google 3D Warehouse. Now they have a new tool to make it even easier to find excellent 3D models -- the new SketchUp Showcase.

Repin Like Comment

While Google updates their results many times each day, from time to time they unveil a major algorithm change.  The most recent change, code-named “Penguin”, occurred on April 24 and it caused some major changes in the search results.  The main story that you’ll read about is that Penguin has hit small businesses very hard.  While that may be true, the great thing is that search results are a zero-sum game; if some sites are going down, the

2 likes 3 repins

Repin Like Comment

If you are new to Google Earth (GE), or looking for ways to improve how you interact with GE, then this entry may be of help. Learning to manipulate the mouse and keys to control GE is crucial to getting the most out of sightseeing the Earth.

Repin Like Comment

Dr. Andrew Shears is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin - Fox Valley, and this past semester he led a great project in his GEO 106 class - modeling the entire campus! He first divided the campus into five sections for his 20 students to tackle. The end result is an excellent model of the campus that all of us will get to enjoy:

Repin Like Comment

Less than two weeks after their previous update, it appears that Google has just pushed out some more fresh imagery to Google Earth. Thanks to 'Munden' for letting us know about it!

Repin Like Comment

We've talked about Pedro Domecq Aguirre, better known as "PeterG", quite a few times on here. Most recently we showed you his amazing 3D model of Saint Basil's Cathedral. He recently got some big news, and him and his teammate Josetxo Perez Fernandez were announced as the winners of Google's 2012 Model Your Town Competition!

Repin Like Comment

We often get questions from users wondering how to access the "real-time Google Earth imagery". As you probably know, that doesn't yet exist. In fact, if you understand how Google Earth imagery works, you'll realize that we're a long way from a real-time version of Google Earth. However, we're a small step closer to that goal with the release of a 121-megapixel image from a Russian satellite, the highest-resolution non-stitched image of the earth that has ever been captured.

1 repin

Repin Like Comment

We've talked a bit about Google's Fusion Tables product before -- a great way to turn a table full of data (such as an Excel spreadsheet) into a fully functional map! The maps can easily be shared through a Google Maps interface or even in Google Earth, but the mobile support for Fusion Table projects has been pretty weak. That's where the folks from Build-A-Map have stepped in, with a new product called My Fusion Tables.

Repin Like Comment

We get a lot of emails from users asking us to correct data errors in Google Earth -- incorrect road names, mis-marked addresses, etc. We can't do that directly, but fortunately Google has a great solution to help you out.

Repin Like Comment

Historically, 360cities has only supported fully spherical images for use in panoramas. This means that the image must not only have a 360 degree view, but must include imagery when looking straight up or down. That's no longer the case.

Repin Like Comment

We've shown you work from 3D modeler 'PeterG' quite a few times here on Google Earth Blog. He built one of the first great 3D interiors that we saw, some nice 3D tours of Mount Urgull, and quite a few other models. His latest work is the remodeling of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow, Russia. It's a stunning model that you need to see to believe.

1 repin

Repin Like Comment

The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has been mentioned on Google Earth Blog quite a few times. They make excellent use of Google Earth as a way to visualize the vast amounts of data that they process. They've recently released a collection of nearly 8,000 shoreline surveys that have been collected over the past 171 years. Using Google Earth, you can preview and overlay any of the surveys in a very intuitive manner.

Repin Like Comment

Cute little house!

1 like

Repin Like Comment

This one is pretty awesome too.

Repin Like Comment

Great looking house!

1 like

Repin Like Comment

While I was at Where 2012 last month, I sat down with Misha Leybovich to discuss a new product he was working on called Meograph. At the time there wasn't anything to show, but they've just launched their first demo and it's looking quite impressive. They call it "Four-dimensional storytelling", adding geospatial information to go along with photos, audio, video and text. The result is a very compelling way to share a story.

Repin Like Comment

I was cruising around on Google+ when I came across these great pictures from Artur Mazur, comparing a 3D model of his in Google Earth to the real-life location.

Repin Like Comment

This Saturday is the start of the 2012 Giro d'Italia bicycle race in Italy. It'll be the 95th edition of the race and should be an exciting event. The folks at CyclingTheAlps.com, who have created excellent tours that we've shown you before, have created some great resources to help to follow the race.

1 like

Repin Like Comment

The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world following its completion in 1931. It lost the title in 1972 to the World Trade Center, but regained its status as the tallest in New York following the horrible terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Yesterday it was again demoted to being the second tallest in the city when the new One World Trade Center building surpassed its height of 1,250 feet tall.

1 like

Repin Like Comment

Last summer we told you about Data Appeal, a company that helps you easily visualize your data using Google Earth. It was a nice product back then, but some recent updates have made it even better.

Repin Like Comment

Over the years we've seen some great 3D towns in Google Earth. Thanks to contests such as Google's Model Your Town, the number of small cities with impressive 3D coverage continues to grow.

4 likes

Repin Like Comment

As a way to highlight some of the work that Google Earth Outreach has done over the years, DiscoveryNews has built a great photo gallery showing some of the things they accomplished. Not only can you see the great work done in Google Earth, but each image has a very detailed caption to explain what was accomplished in each slide.

1 like

Repin Like Comment

This Sunday is Earth Day, a time to sit back and think about our wonderful planet, and some of us will be out picking up some trash, or just enjoying nature.

Repin Like Comment

Google has just released Street View imagery in Ukraine (Kiev, L'viv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Donets'k) and Israel (Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv), and it looks very sharp.

2 likes 3 repins

Repin Like Comment

Earlier this month, NASA released a very popular animation titled "Perpetual Ocean", which showed the ocean surface currents from June 2005 through December 2007. I felt that Google Earth would clearly be a great way to view this kind of information, but NASA didn't release it in any kind of Earth-friendly manner. Fortunately, Paul van Dinther from PlanetInFaction figured out a way to make it happen!

by dinther

Repin Like Comment

$100.00

Earlier this month during day two of the Where Conference, I saw a presentation from Matthew Lippincott and Stewart Long (of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science) where they showed off how easy it can be to capture aerial imagery from a tethered balloon. In fact, they have a kit that you can assemble for around $100 to do it yourself!

1 like 2 repins

Repin Like Comment

Thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader 'Andre', it appears that Google has just pushed out another imagery update!

1 like 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

It may seem hard to believe, but this year marks the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. The "Diamond Jubilee" is being held in her honor, and it includes a procession through some of the most famous areas of London. To help celebrate, Google has created a great little video to show off the route and some of the highlights along the way:

by googleearthweb

1 like

Repin Like Comment

NOAA has just released a collection of photos into Panoramio that are quite amazing. You can view the photos online here, or explore them via this KML file.

1 repin

Repin Like Comment

When Google Earth 5 was released three years ago, it included the new ocean features with undersea terrain. As part of that, Google built a 3D model of the wreck of the Titanic and put it at the bottom of the ocean where it lies today. You can view that model by loading this KML file -- be sure to have the "3D Buildings" layer turned on.

1 like 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

This weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's collision and subsequent sinking in the North Atlantic Ocean. Today we'll take a look at the journey that led to the iceberg, and tomorrow we'll explore ways to view the ship as she sits today at the bottom of the ocean.

by NationalGeographic

4 repins

Repin Like Comment

A fun jetpack simulator for Google Earth.

1 repin

Repin Like Comment

The University of Missouri's Dr. Robert Benfer has discovered various earth-formed animal shapes in Peru, including an orca, duck, giant condor and a puma monster. GEB reader 'Jorge' has located the area in Google Earth so you can explore it for yourself.

Repin Like Comment

Over the years we've seen a variety of tools to help display graphs in Google Earth, such as GE-Graph and some 3D World Oil Consumption charts. A new product has just been released called GraphEarth, and it's the best looking one I've seen yet.

1 like 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

The final day of _Where 2012_ was full of great information, and you can find an overview of it all at this link.

3 likes

Repin Like Comment

Brand new Google Earth imagery this morning! It seems to be mostly scattered around the United States, but we'll post more updates as we discover other areas.

Repin Like Comment

Day two of Where 2012 featured from great talks from various people in the industry.

5 repins

Repin Like Comment

My day began by going to the Getting Started with the Google Maps API presentation from Kathryn Hurley and Andres Ferrate. While I've certainly used the Maps API quite a bit over the years, a refresher is always a good idea. They've created an excellent Code Tutor to walk through the basics of their presentation. If you'd like to learn more about using the Maps API, that's a great place to start.

Repin Like Comment

As I've done for the past few years (and Frank did prior to that), I'm out in San Francisco at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference. Over the next few days I'll be attending sessions led by people from ESRI, Facebook, FourSquare, Google and many others. I expect to learn many great new things from all of the great sessions they have lined up, and I'll certainly be sharing those with you over the course of the week.

1 like 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

Google Earth is amazing tool for business and for fun, but we've also seen it used to help spur social change a few times. Episode Four of the excellent Geospatial Revolution video series had a segment titled "Mapping Power to the People", which discussed using geo technologies to help map previously ignored areas. A similar situation is occurring in India, where Shelter Associates is using Google Earth to help map and identify slums across the city of Sangli in southwestern India.

Repin Like Comment

Ever since Google Earth was first released, people have been asking how they can access the "live" version. My standard answer is that it's 10-20 years away, and that's still likely the case. However, a company called UrtheCast is trying to make it a bit more of a reality. They'll be mounting two cameras on the International Space Station that will stream live content for people to view.

by Urthecast

2 repins

Repin Like Comment

Just a few days after they released Google Street View imagery in the Amazon, Google has now released imagery of the Swiss Alps aboard a Rhaetian Railway train.

1 like 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

The folks at SES Astra have created a map that displays the locations of their satellites and it's great way to show them off.

2 likes 2 repins

Repin Like Comment

Sightsmap is a neat project that creates a heatmap in Google Maps based on the number of photographs that have been submitted to Panoramio. To see how to build these kinds of maps yourself, Alexander Tchaikin has a great project that shows exactly how it's done. Even better, his project page includes a variety of KML files so you can play with the resulting data in Google Earth.

4 likes 1 repin

Repin Like Comment

Late last year we told you about YoubeQ, a social network that exists inside of Google Earth. It had some interesting ideas, and they're starting to expand out. The latest from them is rally game that runs via the Google Earth Plugin. The game itself is still a bit rough around the edges, but it's very ambitious. They use a very impressive physics engine, and it's certainly the best Google Earth Plugin-based racing game we've seen so far.

2 likes

Repin Like Comment

Last fall we told you about Google's plans to capture Street View imagery in the Amazon Basin, and now the imagery has been released for all to use. One of the great features of this new imagery is that Google was given special permission to capture areas that are protected by the Brazilian government; even if you traveled over there yourself, there are areas in Street View that you'd never be able to see in person.

3 likes

Repin Like Comment

I love hearing about how companies are using SketchUp in their work more and more often, and Alexander James International is a great example of that. Recently featured in the Google SketchUp Blog, AJI is an interior design firm that specializes in hotels and leisure.

30 likes