My Google Map Blog

The release of Google Earth 7.1 brought with it a number of nice enhancements, including the new starry sky, but the best-looking might just be the new experimental “photorealistic atmosphere” option, seen here:

(screen capture submitted by Dimitris Manias)

It looks amazing!

The new feature is still being tested and may be a bit buggy, but can be enabled on your computer right now if you go to [Tools] –> [Options] –> “Use photorealistic atmosphere rendering“.

To get a view similar to the image above, you need to do a few things.  First, of course, enable the photorealistic atmosphere.  Next, you’ll need to turn on the sun by using the [View] –> “Sun” option (or by clicking the sun icon at the top of the screen).  Lastly, to enable the sun to reflect on the water you’ll need to have the water surface enabled by going to [View] –> “Water Surface“.

Here are a few more screenshots taken using the technique above.  Wow!

The post The photorealistic atmosphere in Google Earth 7.1 appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Frank Taylor here, and I’m writing today to share my happiness of a feature in the new Google Earth 7.1 released on Monday. It contains a new feature I first suggested to Google many years ago (around 2006). To Google’s credit, they finally implemented a more realistic, pretty version of the night sky which not only includes brighter looking stars, but also a nice backdrop of the Milky Way. The stars’ positions, and their position in the sky appear to be correct in the new sky. Here’s what it looks like from deep space with the “Sun” option turned on to darken the appearance of the Earth:

The new night sky also appears from the ground if you turn on the “Sun” option (“View->Sun”) and use the time slider to make it night. This assumes you have the atmosphere turned on (more on a new feature for the atmosphere in this post). Here’s a view from St. Louis just after sunset:

Way to go Google! It’s really great to see a better rendition of the starry skies!

Google did do a really cool night sky for GE in a different way starting in 2007 – a feature which is still supported in 7.1 by selecting the “Planet” icon and choosing “Sky”.

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