My Google Map Blog

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When Google unveiled their new 3D imagery technique a few months ago, they promised that they'd be able to quickly roll out new areas and hoped to cover "communities of over 300 million people" by the end of the year. With yesterday's release of 3D imagery in Denver, Colorado and Seattle, Washington, we're one step closer to that goal.

The new imagery is available on Android, as seen in these screenshots, and just recently became available on iOS as well.

We're still expecting the 3D imagery to be available on desktop versions of Google Earth before the end of the year, and we're hoping it will be available through the Google Earth Plug-in at that same time.

In the meantime, have fun exploring Seattle and Denver and look for more new cities soon! You can read more about this release on the Google Lat Long Blog.

We often get emails asking how to record video of your actions in Google Earth to share with others. There are a number ways to do it, and we'll show you a few of them here.

Google Earth Pro

It comes with a price tag of $399/year, but Google Earth Pro offers some great features. Not only does it allow you to export movies, it gives you quite a few other data and visualization tools. Please note that it does not provide newer or better imagery -- simply better tools to use when exploring that imagery.

Fraps

My favorite tool for recording Google Earth is Fraps, as it does a great job and only costs $37. They even offer a trial version (which includes an ugly watermark) so you can try it out and make sure it works before you shell out the money.

Most of the videos I've created on the site, as well as other places like the Google Earth section on A Brighter Web, were created using Fraps.

Jing

I use Jing many times every day for sharing screenshots and short tutorials with clients. Jing tends to capture a lower framerate than Fraps in Google Earth, so I typically use Fraps for those kinds of projects. However, Jing certainly has some awesome features and is well worth trying out.

Ultimately, any screen capture tool will be able to help you capture video in Google Earth, but the tools listed above are great ones to try out.

Permissions

All of that said, you need to watch out for copyright issues when posting video from Google Earth. Use the handy Geo Guidelines Permissions Tool to make sure your use of Google Earth imagery is acceptable with them.

Have you made any great videos using Google Earth? Share them in the comments below.

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One of the greatest things I love about my Android phone is the navigation system, and the ability for it to see current traffic conditions and adjust my time (and even my route) accordingly. They've taken it even further with "Google Now" on newer Android phones, and they'll proactively tell you when it's time to leave for an appointment, based on your current location (via GPS), destination location (from your calendar) and the current traffic along the way. Kind of scary, but amazingly cool!

Those systems have just become more useful thanks to 130 new cities that Google has added traffic data for, including locations in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and the United States.

Since 2007, Google has had real-time traffic information in Google Earth. While it's certainly more useful on mobile devices, the data in Google Earth is much more detailed then you'll find on Google Maps. Google Maps takes all of their points of data and generalizes the conditions on each road. This is a great way to do it, as it shows you the overall traffic situation at a glance, but doesn't give you the exact details.

By turning on the traffic data in Google Earth (found under the "More --> Traffic" area of your layers, you can see amazing amounts of details. You'll see hundreds of individual dots along the roads, and each can be clicked to see the exact speed captured at that location.

I'd like to see Google include a timestamp with each, as it's impossible to know how fresh the data really is. In my experience it tends to be remarkably fresh, but a timestamp in the info window there would be great.

Most of this data is collected from Android users on the road, and as more Android devices continue to be activated this data will only keep getting better. Be sure to read the post on the Google Lat Long Blog to learn more about the new cities that now have traffic data.

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