My Google Map Blog

Google has just released some imagery of the northeastern United States post-Hurricane Sandy, and it includes many miles of shoreline in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

The imagery is remarkably sharp and covers quite a lot of area. You can view it yourself on the Superstorm Sandy Crisis Response page, or grab this KML file to view it for yourself in Google Earth.

(via Google Maps Mania)

Hot on the tail of Google Earth 7, it appears we have some fresh imagery this morning! Thanks to GEB reader 'sladys' for letting 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!

Some of the updated areas include:

• Japan: Kure, Hiroshima, Shimonoseki, Wakamatsu, Onga, Fukuoka, Miho, Osaka, Kobe, Shiogama, Shinchi -- thanks 'Munden'
• United States: Kansas (Ottawa), New York (southern part of Manhattan), Oregon (Medford), Pennsylvania (Centralia, Clearfield, Pittsburgh, Reading, Scranton) -- thanks 'sladys' and 'Munden'

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

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Google has just unveiled Google Earth 7, packed with great new features.

First, as promised, the new "3D Imagery" is now available on the desktop. As expected, the imagery looks amazing when viewed from above, but kind of messy when you zoom in tight. This is something that will certainly improve in future releases.

For example, here is a high view of Austin, TX:

Here is a lower-level view inside of Austin. Trees seem to have the most issues, but it varies quite a bit from area to area:

As a nice touch, Google allows you to disable the new 3D imagery if you'd prefer to view the older 3D models. To do that, go into [Tools] --> [Settings] and uncheck the box for "Use 3D Imagery" as shown here:

In addition to releasing this feature on the desktop they've unveiled fresh new 3D imagery for Avignon, France; Austin, Texas; Munich, Germany; Phoenix, Arizona; and Mannheim, Germany.

They've also added the tour guide, very similar to what we saw released on Android earlier in the year. It flies you through famous landmarks, offers stats and info from Wikipedia, and you'll find quite a few to choose from. The tour guide can be enabled and disabled by using the [View] --> [Tour Guide] option in the menu bar.

All in all, it's an awesome update. The tours are fun and the new 3D imagery is stunning -- though it's nice to be able to toggle the old imagery for close-up shots. Go download Google Earth 7 here and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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