Google Earth
 

Do you remember that flying dream? It was sooo cool, but you couldn't always fly where you wanted to. Well now, thanks to the wonderful minds at Google, I happily announce Google Earth. Take a heaping helping of the brainiacs at Google, mix in generous portions of too much time on their hands, (no, wait, that's me, sorry), plentiful satellite imagery and map data, top it all off with a double fistfull of computer horsepower, especially video hardware, and serve on a big fat broadband connection, and, Voila! Fly anywhere your heart desires.

<faulknerisms>

Mega cool....better than a video game....been flying to places ...seeing things from afar..(like me parked at work 3 years ago... and shit like that)..

Been plotting my running routes around then neighborhood. New running route is a quarter mile longer than the old one (thought I was cheating myself last 6 months...) Did a few sanity checks .. measured my sidewalk width...it was right give or take 1/2 a foot..can see my sago palm from 300 ft up....

Wondering why Indiana ( and mass...) is all high res... nothing too spectacular there afaict...might just have to zoom in


</faulknerisms>

Another favorable review. Just in case you didn't believe me.

I've been playing around with it. It really is incredible. Check out 35o38'14.07"N, 139o45'22.96"E

It works on my machine, but I don't get all of the gee-whiz flying...it just backs off from a spot, blurs, and goes to another spot.

Not enough horsepower.

I've been playing around with it the last couple evenings too. Very cool.

It's so frustrating that so little of the earth is at high res. At least my town is.

It's fun going to all the exotic vaction locations I've been to in my life, and flying around.

Here's a little comparison I made of the mountains north of Innsbruck. The version on the left is generated by Google Earth. The version on the right was taken by me from my parents' apartment in the hills south of Innsbruck.

Google did a pretty good job.
http://photos22.flickr.com/27321231_ac2a2a04d8_o.jpg

Wow, glatt. That's really cool. So, did you enter the address into the Google Earth gadget, then adjust the heading and altitude to correspond to the snapshot to get this comparison?

I actually found the place manually, and then did the adjustments you mention. It was hard to match the existing photograph's perspective perfectly, because my monitor isn't big enough. I couldn't see both images at once. I only spent a few minutes on it. If I spent longer, I probably could have made a better match. The hill in the foreground doesn't match up perfectly with the mountains in the back to be identical to the real photo.

Mostly, I did this to see if Google Earth exaggerates the elevation. So many times it seems like they do. Various mountians I've seen have been so dramatic. Like the hill leading down to the George Washington Bridge in NY. But this picture comparison shows that they don't exaggerate the elevation at all.

Under tools-preferences-view you can set the elevation exageration ratio manually. The default is 1:1. Cool.

What, did you read the instructions?

GoogleEarth rocks for checking out my old childhood haunts in the woods. There is nothing like growing up in the middle of nowhere...and then being able to see em again.

Just did something neat, put in your ancestors town and fly to your town. It gives some perspective on their travel back in the day by blowboat or whatever. Killaloe, Ireland to Grifftopia, PA quite a trip.

I don't get to see my city at all. It looks like some scary pixelated thingy.

Type in Sitka Alaska and see what I mean.

Some parts of the world don't have as good coverage as others (New York City, for example).

I would actually prefer to live in one of those parts of the world with poor coverage.

I think I read somewhere that the data they use is at least several months old generally - probably older if somewhere more sensitive - so you can't check up on wife/hubby to see if she/he was where she said she was last night! (well not straight away anyway....)

All I get for the whole of Leicester is a mess of colour :(

I kept staring in case it was a Magic Eye type picture & eventually the city I recognise would spring out at me. But I guess I'd have more luck swivelling in my chair to see the window behind me!

I figure I'd resurrect this thread to mention the newest version of Google Earth. It's been out for a while now. They have bundled in Google Sky so you can see the stars too. That's neat and all, but not all that exciting.

Then last week, I read on Boing Boing about the latest. You may have heard it already, but there is a not-so-secret easter egg of a flight simulator in Google Earth now. Make sure you have the latest version, and type Ctrl+Alt+A and it opens a flight simulator. You get to choose between an F16 and a prop plane. This thing is very very fun. For the last few days, I've been flying through the Grand Canyon, under the Golden Gate bridge, through the canyons of the Himalayas. It's a blast. Check it out if you haven't already.

I really love Google Earth. To be able to see places that I haven't been to for years, and to really be able to see where places are in relation to each other, I find that sort of thing amazing. Also if I'm listening to music it's weirdly relaxing.

Grifftopia actually showed up on Google Earth late last year. I have been assimilated.

It's interesting to see Google Earth's 5-year history on The Cellar... so it's worth re-reading the previous posts

I've been messing about with GE-3D too, and am fascinated by their "new" feature called 3-D Buildings.
In flying around Portland OR, I could not imagine how all 4 sides of a building could be captured via satellite imagery in such photographic detail.
(Odd note: buildings and cars, but no human beings on the sidewalks.)

Then I found this (10 minute) link on YouTube that shows how it is done.

The online CAD technology used is impressive, and I can't believe so many buildings have already been entered into the Google 3D Warehouse.

Here is a portion of the Portland waterfront via Google Earth 3D Buildings:

Cool. I was not aware of this thread.

I just helped my parents get a new computer. It's a Gateway all-in-one. It has a multi-touch screen, and it came with Microsoft's version of Google Earth, with multi-touch controls. It's neat, but the rotation gesture seems to get confused sometimes.

If you are talking about using a scrolling-mouse to control the rotation and angle of view, I agree with you... it is awkward.

On a Mac you can use the right/left and up/down keys to control the directions of flying (right/left/forward/back).
Then by pressing the Apple key, these same keys control the rotation and view angle. On the PC, I would think the ALT key should do the same thing. With these keys, control is much easier.
HTH

No, it's using two fingers on the touchscreen itself. Sometimes it seems to have problems figuring out clockwise vs counter-clockwise.

Yes, the same is true with the mouse, where the rotation is controlled by moving the mouse to the right or left. If you are simultanteously changing the angle (with the mouse up or down) from the guide, this can easily seem to get out of control. Maybe that's also true with the touchscreen.

Google has updated the satellite views of our area.
The "street views" are much sharper in focus, and the 3D effect is neat.

I noticed some visitors in the side yard of our house.
It looks like there are 2 kids, an adult, and a dog, so it is probably our G-daughters and their Mom.

A moment of minor fame.

I can do without Youtube, but it is a shame that dial-up modems and Google Earth don't work too well together.

I've seen this too Lamplighter,I also like the 3d effect and the rotation too. Electric Eye in the sky.

It ain't G'Earth, but: Fun With Google Maps!

He ain't lyin'! I tried it...

:thumb:

VERY funny!

Here is my Dad getting out of his (previous) car.
The white window to the left of the conifer is my bedroom :)

Now if you want to follow my journey to school, here it is.

street view?

My daughter

Hi Sundae Dad! Hi Sundae Room!

(Actually, I have no idea what you mean by a conifer. But there are a bunch of white windows there. You mean the one between the two bushes?

A conifer is a type of tree - for example pine trees are all conifers.

That's my understanding of conifer as well. But in the picture, I see no trees. Just a couple of leafy bushes. I assumed it was a Brit/American thing.

To the right of her dad - The large pine tree to the right ------>
Her window is the smaller single one on the second floor sort of right above the green car.
(I think) ya know women and directions .... J/k

I don't see any of that at the link.

To see street view, you have to click on the little dude she placed on the map.

OK, I went back and clicked on the link, and this time it took me right to a picture of the house. :facepalm:

The page linked to jumped up and down and all over the place for me. Acted 2 or 3 kinds of crazy. Kool that Pop got captured, though.

Google Maps is just apeshit for me today...Tried to find one of the uncles, it's still going apey.

ETA: Google Earth ain't working right either. It infuriates me when the VERY FIRST FUCKING THING I TRY TO DO FAILS IN EVERY FUCKING ATTEMPT.

Goddammit.

Ah - sorry, after all this time I still have no idea how to grab a screen link, or post it. If you zoom out of that shot (as shown kindly by Glatt) you will see a large pine-type tree - just visible in the above picture - to my Dad's right. In a larger picture you can see a window to the right of that tree, which is mine.

So Classic was correct in that I still struggle with the concept of left and right, but incorrect about the window - the house in front of Dad is one of the new houses, built about 20 years ago :) We live on a path and this is our nearest parking.

Oh and hello Spexx's daughter!

Hi Sundae Window!

Hello!
The squarish one is the bathroom, the long one divided into five panes is Diz & me.

anyone know how to print a historical aerial from Google Earth filling a full-size sheet of paper? I can only print a 4x6

Hit the "print screen" button, go to an image program like Paint and click "paste" to copy that information from your clipboard and into the program. Print from the imaging program.

okay, thanks. hmm.

Saw this the other day, checked it out. It's there. Turn on '3D Buildings'.

It's the Blues-mobile from The Blues Brothers.

BTW, anyone used the new StreetView in GE 6? Tis the suck. Image quality has gone out the window.

Ditched GE6 for GE5.2, from filehippo.

There is joy in Gravdigrville.

¾-mile south-east of Nashville Int'l's eastern-most runway, is this giant peace symbol.

It's over three hundred feet across. That's bigger than a football field.

I found this the other day while looking at maps of Tottenham... where the first London riots kicked off last saturday ....

I'd be bloody mad too if I had a 767 right over my head.


http://maps.google.com/maps?q=totten...fox-a&t=h&z=16

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.58....panoramio.all


oops.. something gone wrong there.