My Google Map Blog

Archive for October, 2014


The best of Google Earth for October 2014

by Timothy Whitehead on Oct.31, 2014, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA

The biggest story of the month was the release of Google Earth for Android version 8. Find Frank’s review of the changes and new features here. The most notable feature is a complete rewrite of the 3D engine.

Google have continued to add 3D imagery, the most notable additions being Berlin and Madrid. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to download the KML of 3D areas from this post. A big thanks to all the GEB readers that continue to contribute towards it.

Berlin and Madrid
Berlin and Madrid get the new 3D.

Although, as of this writing, Google’s map of imagery updates has not been updated since the 4th of October, GEB reader ‘munden’ has told us that a number of imagery updates have been made, including:

Bahrain: Manama
China: Dalian, Xiaoping Island.
Denmark: Rosensgade, Aarhus.
Russia: Severormorsk.
Estonia: Tallinn.
Egypt: Port Said, Ismailia, Cairo, Alexandria.
Turkey: Izmir, Körfez, Tavşanlı, Maltepe, Çayırova, Adana.
Guam: Barrigada.
Iran: Bandar Abbas, Tehran.
Japan: Soma, Izumi, Sendai and a strip of imagery along the port of Himeji.
New Zealand: Glorit, Hobbiton (search will show it at Matamata, Waikato).
Russia: Bukhta Krasheninnikova.

[Update: see comments below post for additional areas found by GEB readers. ]

My favorite stories of the month were:

Google’s Skybox for Good program, which provides nonprofits with access to satellite imagery from Skybox Imaging’s satellites.







The Seti Institute’s maps of various planets and moons, which allow us to transform Google Earth into a solar system explorer.



The USGS 3D Elevation Program that promises significantly enhanced elevation data for the US.



What were your favorite stories?

The post The best of Google Earth for October 2014 appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Comments Off :, more...



Animating historical imagery using the Google Earth plugin

by Timothy Whitehead on Oct.30, 2014, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA

Earlier this month we showed you a gif animation of the historical imagery of Europe. It was created by taking screenshots of Google Earth then combining them into an animated gif. However, doing that for every continent would be tedious, so instead we have decided to do it using the Google Earth plugin.

Although we have expressed concern about the future of the GE plugin, and a number of sites that used to use the plugin are starting to move to alternatives, it is, nevertheless, still a very useful tool.

If you have a browser that supports the Google Earth plugin you should see the Earth below. Rotate it to your favorite continent and click start. You should see the historical imagery toolbar in the top left corner of the plugin. If nothing happens, try refreshing the page and clicking start again.


The animation starts in this year. Each step will be a decade:
When this year is reached each following step will be a year:
When this year is reached each following step will be a month:
Length of each step in milliseconds:

 

For most parts of the world, the above settings will work fine, but we included them in case you wish to tweak them a bit for specific locations. Also try zooming in to see effects reminiscent of Google’s Timelapse.

If your browser does not support the plugin then you can see the results in the YouTube video below.

The post Animating historical imagery using the Google Earth plugin appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Comments Off :, , more...



Halloween Earth

by Timothy Whitehead on Oct.29, 2014, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA

With Halloween on Friday, this is a good time to get your pumpkin decorations finished. If you are having trouble covering your house with pumpkins, then why not cover the whole earth with one instead? Back in 2006, Frank created an Earth sized pumpkin that you can download here and view in Google Earth.

Since most of our regular readers will have already seen the Pumpkin Google Earth before, we thought we would add a little extra this year, so grab this KML as well for a bit more Halloween atmosphere. For the best effect be sure to turn off the “Atmosphere”. There are four backgrounds included so try them all out. It is relatively easy to modify the KML and put in your own background images. If you use an image with writing on, be sure to save it as a mirror image.

Halloween Earth

Images obtained from:

http://www.worldwidewallpapers.com/

http://www.123rf.com/

http://www.wallpapervortex.com/

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Halloween-Haunted-Mortuary-184555172

The post Halloween Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Comments Off : more...



Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:

Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Visit our friends!

A few highly recommended friends...