My Google Map Blog

The biggest news for October was the release of Edition 2 of the Voyager layers. This included the introduction of a new layer called ‘Animal View’ and updates to the other layers. We colour coded the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer and talked about what the other layers show and how to access Edition 1.
 
 

Inspired by the new ‘Animal View’ layer we created a JavaScript tool to generate arcs between Placemarks or between points along a Polygon or Path.
 
 
 

There has been quite a lot of new imagery added to Google Earth during the month. Some of it can be found using Edition 2 of the Voyager layer, but there is a lot of imagery not included in that layer. We had a look at the Tianjin crater and a number of other locations that can be seen in the new imagery. More imagery has been released since then which we have not yet looked through.

Thank you to GEB reader Ali Shareef for letting us know in the comments that the crane that collapsed onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca killing 111 people and injuring 394 is visible in the imagery.

We had a look at Google Crisis Response and how to find your way around the different maps. Thank you to Christiaan Adams of Google Crisis Response for providing in the comments a link to satellite imagery relating to flooding in the Carolinas. Some of that imagery has since made it into Google Earth’s ‘historical imagery’.
 
 

Three new countries, Turkey, Ukraine and Macedonia got Street View.
 
 
 
 

Google continued releasing new 3D imagery throughout the month. A significant number of the additions were updates to areas that already had 3D imagery. Since Google does not show dates for 3D imagery nor provide an ‘historical imagery’ option, it can be difficult to identify these updates. We tend to know about them because they do usually show a colour change between the new and old imagery and the borders of the area covered may change. This month we showcased some 3D areas that are not primarily centres of population.

A big thank you to all the GEB readers that have been contributing to our 3D imagery KML file.

We had a look at how Google Earth calculates measurements and how the alignment of imagery may affect this. We also had a look at some locations using historical imagery animation to give you an idea of how far off imagery alignment can be and how it is affected by terrain.
 

We developed some JavaScript tools to aid us in maintaining our KML file of 3D areas. We shared a couple of these tools:

• A tool for merging Polygons or Paths
• A tool for numbering the points along a polygon and displaying the distances between points

The post The best of Google Earth for October 2015 appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

With Halloween this Saturday it is a good time to dress up Google Earth with the pumpkin image overlay that Frank created back in 2006. Download the KML file here, which also includes enhancements we added last year. For best results turn off ‘Atmosphere’ in the ‘View’ menu.

To get into the spirit of Halloween you can also visit a couple of spooky places in Street View:

First, there is the Zombie Manor House.

The blurred faces are because Google respects the privacy of Zombies too.

This is a real place near Manchester, UK, where you could meet zombies and learn how to fight them. It appears to no longer be operating, but there is a Zombie Shopping Mall that is still taking bookings. However, the shopping mall does not appear to have Street View.

You can also view the Zombie Manor House with sound here. Although we could not get the sound to work in Chrome it did work in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The second is Diagon Alley of Harry Potter fame.

To see these locations in Google Earth download this KML file.

We have included a couple of other Harry Potter related placemarks, such as Platform 9 3/4 and a Harry Potter themed shop. There is a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, Florida, but it doesn’t have good Street View coverage, so can only be viewed through user submitted photos that can only be seen in the Google Maps version of Street View

The post Halloween with Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

A couple of weeks ago Google updated the Voyager layers in Google Earth. We have already had a look at the new ‘Animal View’ sub layer and the updated ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer.

The ‘Earth View landscapes’ layer which shows the locations of the landscapes featured in the ‘Earth View’ Google Chrome extension, has not been updated and does not appear in Edition 2 of the Voyager layers.

The ‘Street View highlights’ layer has been updated with all new locations.

The ‘3D cities’ layer only shows recent additions of 3D imagery, rather than the complete set. It also does not include the very latest releases. It covers additions from July 1st, 2015 to about September 22nd, 2015. Edition 1 went up to the end of June.

We have already looked at the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer and noted that it covers recent releases but missed some releases since Edition 1 and there have been more releases since Edition 2.

Although Edition 1 of the Voyager layer is no longer displayed in Google Earth’s Layers it can be accessed by clicking the ‘Download’ link found in the Voyager layer. This copies the Voyager layer into your ‘Temporary Places’ and includes both Edition 1 and Edition 2 of the layers. You can then either save the layers as KML or move them to your ‘Places’. Note that if you wish to keep a permanent record in case Google ever removes them from the default Layers, you should save all the sub layers individually, as the main layer contains network links to KMLs and saving it will not save all the data.

The advantage of downloading the KML version of the Voyager layers is that you can then manipulate them, as we did for the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer or as you can see below, you can easily change the colour of the icons in one of the editions and then view the two editions together for comparison.

‘Street View highlights’ layer. Edition 1: dark purple. Edition 2: light purple.

The post More about the Voyager layers appeared first on Google Earth Blog.