Google Earth Blog

June 18, 2009

Gimme Shelter Campaign via Google Earth

Google has announced a very powerful Google Earth file for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR organization provides shelter and assistance to millions of people forced from their homes - mostly by political circumnstances. With a staff of only 6500, the organization is helping millions of desperate people. The evidence of just how bad the plight is for refugees can be seen right in Google Earth. The file will fly you to many refugee camps so you can see what is happening, and learn about the challenges people are facing in remote places around the world (it used to be "out of sight, out of mind", but times are changing).

June 20th is World Refugee Day, and to help send out word about the plight of refugees to the world, Google has added recent imagery of refugee camps - and created a very dramatic tour of just a few refugee camps. The UNHCR got permission to play the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" song to help their campaign starting last December. So, the Tour has the song playing in the background. You can watch the Google Earth Gimme Shelter Tour Google Earth 5 Required. You must have GE 5 installed. in the full desktop app (free GE 5 required), or you can watch it right here (via the embed a tour tool). Note, you can pause the tour at any point and zoom in to see more details - or read the placemarks. And, more importantly, you can click at the end to the "Donate" button. Watch and listen to it below - it only takes about 4 minutes:

In honor of World Refugee Day, all proceeds from Google Earth Blog from June 20th will be donated to the UNHCR. $100 can buy a survival kit for a refugee family. I hope other blogs will both embed this tour and donate their proceeds as well.

In 2007, Google did something similar by creating a layer highlighting what was happening to refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan through Google Earth. But, the technology of Google Earth has greatly improved since then. The tour above is broadening the scope of the message to include refugees around the world.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:52 AM | Comments (1)

June 17, 2009

More Embedding of 3D Warehouse Model Views

Google has enabled another feature in 3D Warehouse to make it easy to share a specific 3D model. You can now embed your choice of either just an image, 3D view, or a Google Earth browser plugin view for any specific model (the latter only works if the 3D model is a GE placed model). You look below the model for the button "Include" to get your choice of embedding and the code snippet you copy/paste to your web site/blog (more instructions in link above).

The "3D View" option gives you a quick low-resolution look at the model. It loads fast, but doesn't have much of the detail of the original model. The interface is very simple - drag mouse to rotate left or right, and use mouse scroll wheel to zoom in/out. That's pretty much it. The view also doesn't show the terrain or imagery from Google Earth. The "Google Earth" view uses the browser plugin to show the model in its saved geographic location (this option won't appear for models unless they've been placed in GE). You could already choose the option to view the model in Google Earth, but now you can embed this way of viewing on your page through this simple option. One suggestion I've made to Google: I think they need to include the navigation gadget. Some people aren't familiar with the basic mouse navigation moves to view a 3D model in GE.

For example, here is a model from 3D Warehouse of the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico by 'mark s'. First see it with the "3D View":

And now with the "GE View" (which happens to show how accurate the 3D terrain is now in Puerto Rico):

Here are some tips to looking around in the GE view: Use the scroll wheel by itself to zoom in out. Hold CTRL key down and use the arrow keys to turn your view around. Hold SHIFT key down and arrow keys to rotate your view. Or better yet, click and hold the middle mouse button (or scroll wheel - if you have one) to rotate/tilt around the model.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:06 AM | Comments (3)

June 16, 2009

Memorial to UTA Flight 772 Visible from Space

(En Español) - GoogleSightseeing.com has written an excellent post about a unique memorial to UTA Flight 772 in the desert of Niger. This tragic flight ended when a briefcase bomb exploded while the DC-10 was enroute to Paris back in 1989. The bomb was placed by Libyan terrorists. In 2007, some family members of the 170 fatalities went out to the crash site and created a huge memorial made out of dark stones placed in the sand. The memorial shows a silhouette of a DC-10 seen from above. Amazingly, a 2007 GeoEye satellite photo shows the memorial shortly after it was finished in Google Earth. Now millions of people can see the memorial for the first time. See the location here Google Earth Required. You must have GE installed. now visible in Google Earth.

Memorial site to UTA Flight 772 in Google Earth

The families also took one of the wings and placed it vertically in the sand with a plaque listing the names of the deceased on the side. You can see this part of the memorial in a Panoramio photo which appears at the site if you turn on the "Geographic Web->Panoramio" layer as seen here (click the photo for larger version):

Make sure to read GoogleSightseeing's post which has more details and links. Not only that, but one of the family members of the crash victims has left comments about how wonderful it is for them to see the memorial is now visible in Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:06 AM | Comments (1)

June 15, 2009

Using Google Earth to Review Urban Development Project

Gerardo brought to my attention a post at the GEC about a proposed bridge construction project at the Columbia River in the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington region. The author, Nick Falbo, has produced some excellent Google Earth visualizations in opposition to the project. The visualizations use the new Tour function of Google Earth 5, and he's created embedded versions of the Tours on his blog. You can watch the three tours here Google Earth PLUGING Required. You must have GE PLUGIN installed. - using the GE plugin in your browser, or visit his blog page to download the GE content directly. The tours include narration, 3D models of proposed bridges, and overlays to illustrate possible effects of the road project.

This is not at all the first time Google Earth has been used to visualize urban projects. Check here for some others:

Posted by FrankTaylor at 7:33 AM | Comments (1)

June 12, 2009

Google Reveals Details on 3D Buildings Layer Process

At the SketchUp Blog, Google has written an excellent post describing how they've changed the process for handling the pipeline of new 3D models posted to the 3D Warehouse for inclusion in the Google Earth 3D Buildings layer. Since this involves a community of 3D modelers around the world donating their time to provide quality content for Google Earth, I'm glad to see Google providing details on what they are doing to streamline the process so contributions are visible more quickly.

The process is not simple, and humans have to be involved. Judging the quality of 163 different versions of the Eiffel tower is not something easily left to a computer. Google chooses to show a user-generated model over an "auto-generated model" if the user-generated model is better. The process had been losing ground (i.e. models were being created more quickly than they could be reviewed). So, Google has streamlined the process. They have also modified their acceptance criteria so it is more lenient (meaning more models will be accepted). The article tries to explain their rationale for balancing quality verses their desire to accept as many models as possible.

I'm sure there will be models included now in the layer that some people won't like. But, the 3D Warehouse provides feedback mechanisms for both rating and providing comments on models. So, hopefully the user community can help provide data to help in the judging process.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2009

Notes from Twitter

Here's a couple of notes from my twitter feed (follow my twitter) with further elaboration:

Tweet1: Found location of Street View bike trail in Monterey, CA..

Explanation: The USA Today published a story about how Google is now taking Street View photos of bike trails and paths with the Google Trike. The article indicated only one bike path has been mapped so far. So, I went hunting in Google Earth and found the trail. Here is the location:

View Larger Map

I'm a little disappointed because much of the bike trail is along a road which also has Street View. So, you don't get a very unique experience for much of the trail. But, maybe this isn't the only trail. The Google Trike is actually a 3-wheeled vehicle of substantial size. I don't think they'll be taking it on the more rugged mountain bike trails.

Tweet2: Finally released my Google Earth file & photos of Arizona vacation.

Explanation: About a month ago I went on a vacation to Arizona. This was the last chance for a big backpacking trip with my buddies before leaving on the five year sailing circumnavigation - the Tahina Expedition. You can view a Google Earth travelogue of the trip including GPS tracks, photos, and placemarks and a description of the trip in this post.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 8:15 AM | Comments (4)

June 10, 2009

Lots of New 3D Content Added in Google Earth

Google has added thousands of new buildings to the 3D Buildings layer including 4 cities in Japan with dozens of city blocks where all the buildings are rendered in 3D, more Disney content for Orlando, nearly 4000 new 3D Warehouse models all over the planet, and more! The new coverage in Japan include: Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto. The new 3D buildings are covered in photorealistic textures using some automated method. (NOTE: most Japan cities were already rendered with gray non-photo-textured buildings, the new buildings replace those in the areas where they have coverage.) You can see samples of the new cities here (I recomment watching it in HD):

In Orlando, Disney has added the Wide World of Sports complex to the already huge number of 3D models for the main DisneyWorld in 3D.

Google has been slowly adding cities using an unpublished methodology where vast numbers of buildings for large areas of cities are being rendered in 3D with photorealistic textures. The photos appear to be aerial in some cases, in others they seem to be from the ground. But, they are using an at least semi-automated process judging from the cases where some buildings are not properly "dressed" with the photo textures. In December Google added New York City in 3D. Here's a round up of cities which have the photorealistic 3D treatment, with the exception of these two which were added later.

Posted by FrankTaylor at 3:27 PM | Comments (1)

Links: Disneyland Paris Street View, GE on TV, 3D from 2D Tech

Disneyland Paris Street View - Yesterday Google released a new special Street View update which covers the streets of Disneyland Paris. This follows the amazing update in Google Earth showing you Disneyland Paris in 3D with amazing detail. You can turn on the Street View layer in Google Earth and visit Disneyland Paris that way. Or, here's a sample view in Google Maps:

View Larger Map
Google Earth on TV - Someone uploaded a few examples of Google Earth being used by the news media. This happens every day I think. I rarely watch TV, yet I often will see GE appear in the news reports, and even in popular TV shows.
3D from 2D Technology - someone pointed out this cool technology that meshes 2D photos with 3D terrain dataset and uses computervision to match the photos to the 3D. Then they overlay the photos as textures over the terrain. They also can create stereoscopic 3D views with the imagery. Watch this video from when they meshed a single 2D landscape photo to mountain terrain. I would like to see this kind of technology to automatically match Panoramio photos to where they were taken so you can view them in PhotoOverlays in GE. [UPDATE 1550 ET: The authors of this technology wrote in the comments they have posted on their blog some examples of Google Earth PhotoOverlays aligned using their system. They also have a gallery of examples (just look for the KMZ link to view in GE).

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:15 AM | Comments (3)

June 9, 2009

Air France Flight 447 - Google Earth Map

Yesterday I decided to check the Google Earth Community to see what kind of maps had been created for the location of the crash site of Air France Flight 447. There's an active thread on the crash in the Current Events forum. There are several useful maps like this one Google Earth Required. You must have GE installed. by 'rafaelds' which shows the approximate flight, when radar contact was lost, and the position when the last signal was received.

The map I found most useful to explaining what probably happened to Air France 447 is this image overlay of a weather map Google Earth Required. You must have GE installed. at the time of the crash (post by 'smokeonit' who is a GEB regular).

Map of Flight 447 crash location and weather

Download the maps and zoom in a bit to see the weather conditions the plane decided to go through. Dark on a radar map like this is very bad weather. The pilot of Flight 447 took the plane through the absolute worst part of a very big storm. He had radar and could have diverted. The question is, why didn't he divert around it? My condolences to the families of those lost in Flight 447. [UPDATE: GEB reader 'Alex' left a comment about some analysis of the weather system. It appears some reports did not show the bad weather, and analysis shows it developed suddenly. Further, the area the pilot flew through may have been a collapsing megacell which appeared safe up until the moment they went through. It can be hard to predict mother nature!]

Posted by FrankTaylor at 9:03 AM | Comments (12)

June 8, 2009

World Oceans Day, 3D Design Competition, Britain Archeological Site, New Imagery Tour Idea

World Oceans Day - This is a good thing - the UN has declared today World Oceans Day. I like the idea of "Wear Blue Tell Two" - wear something blue and tell two people something about the oceans they don't know. Google is doing their part at least by releasing a cool collection of Google Earth files telling people about the ocean. I like the one that shows you where plastic trash would end up if you dropped it somewhere in the ocean (based on currents/winds). And, if you haven't loaded Google Earth in a while, Google Earth 5 came out in February with a wealth of information about the oceans and lets you see the oceans like never before.
Did you know the world's coral reefs are dying? Read more from NASA here.
3D Design Competition - Today is also Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. In honor of this, Google and the Guggenheim have announced a new 3D competition called Design It: Shelter Competition. According to Google's announcement: "...the competition is inspired by Wright's assignment for his apprentices at Taliesin: If you wanted to study to be an architect with Wright, you had to design and build a shelter in the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Then you had to live and study in it." Deadline is August 23rd. Watch the video for an overview. Speaking of 3D - Google also featured another modeler who has contributed to the 3D Warehouse.

By the way, it would be cool if someone created a collection of placemarks of locations where you can see 3D models of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Google Earth. Here's a thread of placemarks showing locations.
Britain Archeological Site - Stefan read about a new archeological find near Stonehenge, and set out to do some sleuthing to discover the location. He found it and explains how at his OgleEarth post.
New Imagery Tour Idea - Last week Microsoft came out with a slick tour of some of their latest new imagery for Virtual Earth ... err I mean Live Local Maps... err I mean Bing Maps (the latest name). As soon as I saw it, I realized Google should be doing tours of their new imagery (like the one that came out Saturday). Using the new Tour mode in Google Earth, you could really show off new imagery (and 3D Terrain) in a snazzy way - you could even add some nice background music while you watch GE fly from place to place. It could be even cooler than Microsoft's! :-) Google recently started doing 3D tours for 3D models - so why not the imagery and terrain?

Posted by FrankTaylor at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)