My Google Map Blog

We covered some neat things with Burning Man (a very popular annual event that is "an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance") back in 2006 and 2007, and they've done some more cool stuff this year.

GEB reader Jeff has shared an image that was captured by GeoEye a few days ago that shows many of the participants forming a giant peace sign around the "man" in the center of the city. Here's the pic:

In addition, GeoEye has already published a fresh image to their "Featured Imagery" layer in Google Earth. You can find the layer titled "GeoEye featured Imagery" under the "More" section of your layers. Fly to this KML and turn the layer on, and you'll see something like this:

There will likely be other imagery coming in over the next few days. If you come across anything noteworthy, share your finds in the comments below.

John sent me an email last week telling me about a new project he's working on, and it's quite cool -- he calles it anotherearth. He explains it as follows:

This application gives you a number of tools with which you can easily and comprehensively compare two views of the Earth, using the Google Earth browser plugin. These include the ability to synchronize the movement of two Earths, select layers such as buildings, roads and borders for the Earths, jump to locations of your choice, undo/redo any movements, and save coordinates as a URL.

The controls are very fluid, and there are a lot of excellent potential uses for it. You can try it for yourself at anotherearth.org. What are some neat things you can do with it?

John has plans to add more features in the future, making the tool even more useful. If it were up to you, what kind of features would you add to it?

Paul over at PlanetInAction is at it again. The man that brought us Ships and Helicopters has a new toy for us to play with. This is more of tech demo than a game, but it's quite impressive.

He's simply calling it a 3D sound demo. Here is a brief video of it in action:

You can read the full write-up on his site, but here's the basics of it:

sound3D manages a collection of soundSource objects that have knowledge of the location they are at. A soundSource has a collection of channels. Each channel represents a sound file with associated falloff range. Outside this range the channel can not be heard.

Multiple sound channels per sound source enables you to use different sounding audio files for nearby and far away. The "far" file should sound more muffled and have a longer falloff range. These audio effects can be prepared in a sound editor such as Audacity.

The helicopter on the beach is a great example showing how this works. Move in close and notice how the engine sounds louder but also sharper.

Be sure to check out the PlanetInAction site for more info.

Google's SketchUp 3D Basecamp in Boulder, Colorado has just begun, and they kicked it off with a big announcement -- the release of Google SketchUp 8!

The biggest difference in this version of SketchUp is the amount of geodata that can be pulled into it. They've rewritten the UI for geolocating models, and they'll pull in a patch of terrain data along with color aerial photos via the Google Maps API. Because they're doing that way, Google Earth doesn't need to be open while you're working in SketchUp, saving system resources.

You can also perform geospatial searches from the 3D Warehouse to show nearby 3D models from other SketchUp users. This helps to add context to your project and offers some nice advantages.

Another neat feature is Building Maker integration with SketchUp. You can start Building Maker from within SketchUp, work on your building, and then convert the Building Maker model into a SketchUp model. The model will be cleaned up a bit (removal of unnecessary interior polygons), but it will maintain the imagery that you'll applied to the exterior of the building.

SketchUp Pro has also seen some upgrades, including some new tools and support for boolean operations such as intersect, union and split.

If you're a SketchUp user, this is a great update for you. You can download SketchUp 8 here, or watch the video below to learn more about the new features available to you.

Google has just released a very impressive tour showing the potential repercussions of the proposed Belo Monte Dam Complex on the Xingu River in the Amazon. The tour consists of a handful of 3D models, water animations, and a variety of other graphical elements to show the potential impact.

To be fair, Google makes it clear that they don't necessarily oppose the dam, stating on their blog entry: "This is a complicated issue with many facets, and the views of this poster do not necessarily represent the official viewpoint of Google Inc.; we support the use of Google Earth for visualizations to create dialog."

It is indeed an excellent use of Google Earth to show data in this way. You can download the full tour KMZ file from the International Rivers site, or watch the video below:

For more information, check out the full entry on the Google LatLong Blog, or you can read the press release here:

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Amazon Watch and International Rivers have teamed up to create a state-of-the-art 10-minute Google Earth 3-D tour and video narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver, with technical assistance from Google Earth Outreach, in support of Brazil's Xingu River Forever Alive Movement. Download the tour or view the video on amazonwatch.org. The tour allows viewers to learn about the harmful impacts of, and alternatives to the massive Belo Monte Dam on the Amazon's Xingu River.

If built, the Belo Monte Dam would be the third-largest hydroelectric dam in the world. The dam would divert the flow of the Xingu River, an important tributary of the Amazon River, in order to produce electricity for industrial mining operations in the region. The dam's reservoirs would flood 668 square kilometers and displace more than 20,000 people. Late last week, the Brazilian government signed the concession to build the $17 billion-dollar project, ignoring local, national, and international opposition, proven financial and technical risks, and the ready availability of clean energy alternatives.

The tour and video, called "Defending the Rivers of the Amazon," illustrates the impacts that diverting the river along a 100-km stretch will have on the two indigenous tribes who have lived there for generations. It also animates the flooding associated with the dam, impacts on the region's spectacular biodiversity, and maps over 60 dams planned for the Brazilian Amazon over the next two decades.

The original concept for the Google Earth interactive tour and video emerged when Avatar director James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver traveled to the Xingu River in April, accompanied by Amazon Watch and the Brazilian environmental organization Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). After speaking with some of the indigenous tribes and riverbank families who would be directly affected, Weaver commented that the Belo Monte Dam would be "a disaster for the Xingu River, for the rainforest, and certainly for all the indigenous people and families living along the river. Their way of life will disappear."

Yesterday marked the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in New Orleans, Louisiana, causing over $80 billion in damage and killing nearly 2,000 people. Google Earth Blog offered a great deal of coverage to the event, as Google was able to contribute a variety of imagery updates and other resources to help. I had just started running Google Earth Hacks at that time, and users submitted quite a few KML files related to the hurricane.

Despite only being on the market as "Google Earth" for a few months (it was previously available as "Keyhole", though it was far less popular) many people, such as this couple, were able to use Google's oft-updated imagery of the area to see the condition of their home.

In early 2007, after having posted post-Katrina imagery in Google Earth, they reverted the default layer to pre-Katrina imagery. While this was only done to insure the highest quality imagery, Google caught a lot of flack for this and resolved it a few days later.

Late last week, Google posted a short entry that recognized the anniversary of Katrina. As they mention in the article, Google Earth's historical imagery tool is a great way to look back and see how the city changed from pre-Katrina, after the storm hit, and how it looks today.

We mentioned astronaut Douglas Wheelock (aka @Astro_Wheels) a few months ago, showing off a great photo he captured of an atoll from the Line Islands.

A few days ago, he posted a stunning image of the Great Barrier Reef, just off the east coast of Australia.

As I often love to do, I spent some time to find this location in Google Earth and lay out his image as a Image Overlay. It took a while a to find this precise location, as it's just a small dot in the great Reef, but I was able to track it down. You can download the KML file here or just view the full image on TwitPic (normal - full size).

If you're on Twitter, you should certainly follow him, or you can just subscribe to the feed for his images using Google Reader or similar.

He's posted a lot of great stuff over the past few months. Which image of his is your favorite?

Back in March of this year, Google made some substantial changes to the "Places of Interest" layer. While it certainly had some nice new features, the majority of you weren't very happy with the changes.

A few days later, Google responded to your criticism and a few days after that they replaced most of the original layers.

However, one layer remained missing: Golf Courses. We wrote a blog entry back in June that showcased some alternatives, but none are as easy to use as the built-in layer. As announced in the Google Earth Help Forum earlier this week, the layer has finally returned!

You can access the layer by going to the "Layers" tab on the left side of your Google Earth screen, then choosing [More] --> [Parks/Recreation Areas] --> [Golf Courses].

I'm not sure why it took so long to restore this layer, but it should certainly make golfers happy. Any other major layers still missing, or have they covered all of the layers that you care about?

A handful of nice updates have just come out for Building Maker. The first is something that should help make your buildings look much better; you can use Street View imagery to texture the sides of your buildings.

When SketchUp 7.1 was released it gave you the ability to do this, and Google has been using this technique for some of the "lifelike facades" they've been adding in some cities. Making this technique available in Building Maker was an obvious next step, and it's going to allow many people to use this sharp imagery to create even better models.

Here's a video showing how it works:

In addition to this great new tool, Building Maker is now available in six new cities:

• Edinburgh, United Kingdom
• Florence, Italy
• Vienna, Austria
• Pittsburgh, PA, United States
• Santa Cruz, CA, United States
• Riverside, CA, United States

You can read more on the Google SketchUp Blog, or go try it out for yourself on the Building Maker site.

Google Earth has just rolled out some fresh imagery for us! Thanks to GEB reader 'ChrisK' for being the first to let us know about it.

As is almost always 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 -- 24-August, 10:28pm EST]

• Argentina: Various cities -- thanks 'pertile' and '3done'
• Chile: Puerto Montt -- thanks 'Munden'
• Czech Republic: Most of the country -- thanks 'Dawid'
• Poland: Many areas -- thanks 'Dawid', 'tomcioZG' and 'Chris'
• United States:Pittsburgh, PA -- thanks 'ChrisK'
• Venezuela: Cumanacoa -- thanks 'wroman'

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!