My Google Map Blog

Last week we showed you some ways to view U.S. National Parks on Google Earth during the U.S. Government shutdown.  With the government still not back in order yet, this map of “Places affected by the 2013 U.S. Government Shutdown” from MyReadingMapped is quite handy.

It’s a very comprehensive map, showing hundreds of locations that are directly affected by the shutdown.

In the words of George, creator of the map:

On one hand this map shows you just how large the government has grown. On the other hand, it shows just how much of government regulates and/or services the needs of business. Thus, you can see how much influence big business has in intervening in government, to get government to intervene in business, to the advantage of the politically influential business over its competition, consumers, taxpayers, employees and small business. Thus, your job and income are entwined in how big government has grown either because your employer intervened in government on your behalf, or because it services a government program, or because your employer sells product and services to the government, or because your customer works for or sells product and services to the government. Or, because your employer receives a government subsidy, bailout or tax break. We have the world’s largest economy in part due to the fact that we have the world’s largest government.

You can view the map on their site, directly on Google Maps, or in Google Earth by loading this KML file.

Great work, George!

The post Places affected by the US Government Shutdown appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Earlier this year we showed you the WiNPT, a visualization that used Google Earth terrain data to help plan wireless networks.

WiNPT has rebraned to become EngineMaps and has released a new visualization for point-to-point radio planning: the Fresnel Zones for Radio Links.

As explained by the folks at EngineMaps:

The Fresnel Zones are 3D polygons which should not be obstructed by anything. With this solution, the wireless communications operators can easily check the existence of obstacles, like buildings and terrain elevation inside the zones and analyze which frequency achieves a better signal strength without obstacles losses. The Fresnel Zones are created by EngineMaps considering the positions and distance between antennas, the mast heights, and the signal frequency.

Looking at the above image, the red line represents the direct signal link between antennas, and the 3D yellow model represents the Fresnel Zone. As an example, the image shows obstacles due the existence of buildings.

You can view an example of the 3D model in Google Earth by using this KMZ file.

You can learn more about EngineMaps on their website, their Facebook page, or on their Google+ page.

The post Using Google Earth to test Fresnel Zones appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

The people that brought us 3DLocationEarth a few years ago are back with a great new project called 3DKonut. They’ve created the models on the site to show off a variety of construction projects in Turkey, many of which are then linked up on the construction companies own website such as the icon you’ll find on MesaKartall.com.

As you can see from the images below, the models are amazing and very highly detailed.

Check it out for yourself at 3DKonut.com.  The site is in Turkish, but you should be able to click around enough to explore what they have to offer.

All told they’ve created more than 8000 models that can be found in the 3D Warehouse.  While those models won’t be natively used in Google Earth as much in the future, custom uses of the Google Earth Plugin like this will continue to be a great way to show off their excellent work.

The post Konut shows off amazing 3D construction projects in Turkey appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Michele Argiolas at Valuegis has been putting together some great visualizations of housing prices in Honolulu, using vibrant colors and a variety of datasets.  The result is awesome images like the one seen here:

The chart shows the median household available income to purchase a 100 sq meter house at current prices, using a variety of data sources.  You can try it yourself by downloading this KMZ file. You can read a bit more about their Honolulu map on their Facebook Page.

They’ve also done some other great work regarding market offer prices and Capitalization Rate spatial distribution in Italy and Spain.  Their use of bright colors makes the visualizations easy to understand, and the raw KMZ files for each makes them easy to download and use.

The post View Honolulu housing prices in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Our favorite “four-dimensional storytelling” site Meograph just posted a few great new updates:

• Social photos: Import Facebook, Instagram, Flickr images (and do web image search) right within Meograph.
• Improved design: Just got a whole lot more elegant, making stories look awesome.  Much easier on the eyes
• Video preview: Check out video clips without having to leave editing

Here is a Meograph that takes advantage of some of the newest features:

You can try it out for yourself at Meograph.com. Have you created any cool stories on their site? Share your links to them in the comments below.

The post The latest updates from Meograph appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Here in the United States, we’re very fortunate that the inability to find water to drink is an extremely rare event for any of our citizens.  Because of the abundance of water in most areas, we can use it for much more than drinking and irrigation. In fact, there is so much water that we use more of it to help with thermoelectric power production than we do for agricultural irrigation.

To help operators find additional sources of water for coal-fired power plants, the Office of Fossil Energy (in coordination with various other groups) has put together the Alternative Water Source Information System, a powerful Google Earth-powered app to help find water sources near power plants.

In addition to the map itself, there are some search features on the left to help narrow down your area of need.  The data is fairly simple, but their use of Google Earth helps to present it in a excellent manner.  The application was created and hosted by Tulsa-based ALL Consulting LLC, who focus on “energy, water management, earth science, planning, engineering and technology”.

(via The Daily Fusion)

The post Using Google Earth to find water for power plants appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Running from June 10-24, Google is offering a new online course two geo-related areas: Google Maps and Google Earth.

Google Maps: Explore features of the new Google Maps. Learn to create and share custom maps using Google Maps Engine Lite. Taught by Google Maps Product Managers Daniel Demetri and Beth Liebert.

Google Earth: Discover the world using Google Earth. Learn how to create and share a tour of interesting locations that tells a 3D geographical story. Taught by Google Earth Product Manager Peter Birch.

This video shows a bit more about the courses:

The courses are self-paced, where you can watch videos (or read text lessons) and apply the skills you learn. You’ll be able to connect with experts during the course via Google+ Hangouts.

At the end of the course you’ll have the opportunity to complete a project and earn a certificate. You can learn more about the courses and register now on the Mapping with Google site. As an added bonus, all participants will be given access to preview the new version of Google Maps.

If you’re wanting to learn more about Google’s geo products, this is a great opportunity!

(via Google Lat Long Blog)

The post Check out “Mapping with Google” to learn more about Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

The Urban Planning Department of the Taipei City Government has built some amazing map-based features on their site that are worth checking out. The first is their swipe map, which allows you to select two of 16 timeframes and compare the two by dragging the center bar left and right. The map is similar to what we’ve seen before with items like this before/after comparison of the Tuscaloosa storm in 2011 and it works very well. The Taipei page is only available in Chinese, but it’s easy enough to understand how it works.

Their other noteworthy site is their 3D viewer, which shows the city in the Google Earth plugin, but with many more 3D buildings than can normally be found in Google Earth.

The building creation process for the city was apparently semi-automated, though details are sparse on how exactly it was done. Ultimately I expect we’ll see the new 3D Imagery replace the handful of 3D buildings currently found in Taipei, but for now this is a pretty robust solution.
Thanks to Steven Ho for letting us know about these!

The post Great use of Google Earth by the Urban Planning Department of Taipei appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We've been big fans of Meograph since we first discovered it last May. Their "four-dimensional storytelling" makes it very easy to create digital stories that include audio, video, images, text and map them all as the story progresses.

Since their launch last year, they've added more than 26,000 users to the site who have created over 36,000 meographs. Even more impressive is that it has been used in over 1,300 schools and is growing by 30 percent each month!

To help generate some revenue from the growing service, Meograph is now launching some paid plans for educators, starting at $19.99/year. The plans include features such as ad removal, private sharing, class management and a few other items. Of note is that the free plans remain intact for everyone, whether they're in an educational environment or not.

All in all, it seems to be a nice way to handle the move to paid licenses. The free product remains available and feature-rich, but there are now some nice add-ons for those that use the product heavily in their classroom.

Congrats to founder Misha Leybovich on the continued success of Meograph! Try it out for yourself at Meograph.com, or learn more about these new educational features in this article on TechCrunch.

Without Michael Jones, this blog wouldn't exist. We've mentioned him on here numerous times in the past, as he was a co-founder of Keyhole (which later became Google Earth) and is now the Chief Technology Advocate at Google.

James Fallows of The Atlantic has posted a lengthy interview with Michael discussing how maps have changed over the years and how they're becoming more personal.

Michael has many great insights in the article, even touching on how maps and wearable computers (such as Google Glass) will change things in the near future:

For instance, right now people walk around looking at directions on phones. In the future, the phone will signal you--go left or straight ahead--in words or sounds in your ear, or visually through your glasses, so you can just look where you're going and walk. It'll be like you're a local everywhere you go. You'll know your way through the back alleys and hutongs of Beijing, you'll know your way all around Paris even if you've never been before. Signs will seem to translate themselves for you. This kind of extra-smartness is coming to people.

It's a great read and I encourage you to visit their site and read the full article.