The Sightseer is a free monthly newsletter emailed to Google Earth users that allows them to get updates on Google Earth's monthly highlights, tips, and update news. If you wish to subscribe to The Sightseer, click here. Enjoy!

August 2006 Issue

In This Issue:

Highlights:
Google Earth 4 Beta - New Features and Tips
Weather in Google Earth
Google Earth Data Layers

Explore Further:
Environment and Conservation Forum
The Tour de France
Google Earth Links
Placemarks of the Month
August Calendar

Can you guess this beautiful location? Name the beach and the landmass. Click here to submit your best guess. We'll email the winners and post the results here. The first ten correct submissions will win a free subscription to Earth Plus.

Google Earth 4 Beta - New Features and Tips

As we mentioned in last month's Sightseer, we released a beta version of Google Earth 4 in June (go to the download page to make sure you have the latest version). Google Earth Free, Plus and Pro are now available for both the PC and Mac; the Free version is also available for Linux. The interface now sports a new tool for manipulating the scene in the upper right corner and enables you to show photo textures on 3D models. You can read more about the latest features here and check out this example of a building with photo textures.

The improved interface for the Places and Layers panes allows you to see everything or just a portion of the items in a selected folder. If the box has a check mark, all items are selected. A "dot" in the box means only some of the items in the folder are selected. An empty box means no items are selected.

New features in the Tools --> Options include:
View > Terrain Quality - Improves the resolution of 3D terrain
Navigation > Mouse - Change direction of zoom with mouse wheel
General > Language Settings - Set language to English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

Weather in Google Earth

It's late summer in the northern hemisphere, which means it's time to be ready for tropical storms. Google Earth is an excellent tool for viewing weather information, and many Earth enthusiasts and professionals have created weather tools that help you do just that. Here are some of the best tools we've found:

Hurricane Tracker - If you want to follow tropical storms, this tool posted on the Google Earth Community is for you. The Hurricane Tracker displays storms' current position, past history, forecasted tracks and satellite photos. It even links to webcams from nearby locations and indicates storm strength via the placemark color/icon.
Weather Forecasts for Central and South America - Weather data automatically retrieved from the Weather Channel in a network link created by Google Earth Community members.
Global Cloud Map - Satellite photos for the entire Earth updated every three hours. The image has been enhanced with transparency to still show the Earth's surface where no clouds appear. This overlay was posted on the Google Earth Community.

Google Earth Data Layers

People new to Google Earth sometimes overlook the Layers in the left sidebar which contain a surprising amount of information in a variety of categories. These layers are continuously growing and were recently reorganized. You probably don't want to turn everything on at once, but you can selectively turn on and off any portion of the layers to see that specific information. Some will even show more information when you zoom into an area. Here's a sample of available data layers:

National Geographic Magazine - Links to articles, photos and videos in Africa. The layer now has a sample of articles from the US as well. The "Africa Megaflyover" layer will lead you to very high resolution photos (for example, these camels in Chad).
Transportation - Location and names of most airports in the world, and a sub-layer showing layouts of airports in the US. Layers showing railroads and local/subway trains are also available in some areas.
Geographic Features - This layer contains the names of many mountains and water bodies, and even the outlines of lakes and rivers for some countries. You'll also find historical earthquake data (you may need to zoom in close to see this) and a new volcano layer from the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.
Google Earth Community - These layers show placemark locations and posts by many contributors from the forums organized by categories.

Environments and Conservation Forum

The Google Earth Community now has a forum dedicated to Environment and Conservation subjects. Examples of interesting Google Earth files shared and discussed include:

Greenpeace Ship in the Bering Sea - Follow a ship as it explores this area for signs of overfishing. (see post)
Satellite Detection of Environmental Damage - Relevant locations found by readers.
Poison Places - Placemarks showing Superfund clean up sites in parts of the US. (see post)

The Tour de France

The Tour de France 2006 was followed closely by many fans with Google Earth, and you can fly around the route yourself. The Tour de France KML

file is available on the official Tour de France website and lets you see the entire course overlaid on satellite imagery for Google Earth. Try out the tilt feature to see the truly daunting magnitude of all of those climbs where riders were battling it out in this year's wide-open race. Make sure you have a look with GE 4 at stage 20 in Paris; you'll see a nice model of the Arc de Triomphe near the stage track.

Google Earth Links

Google Sightseeing

Google Earth Hacks

Juicy Geography (for the classroom)

Deutsche Google Earth Community (unofficial)

Placemarks of the Month

Arecibo Radio Telescope (see Wikipedia)
KC-135 Refueling C-5 (see blog entry)
Tiny Great Lakes (see blog entry)

August Calendar

Click on the links below to fly to places associated with this month's events. Don't forget to click on these Placemarks in Google Earth and read the descriptions.

August 1 - London Bridge Opens
August 4 - Louis Armstrong Born
August 8 - Dino De Laurentiis Born
August 9 - Jerry Garcia Dies
August 11 - Alcatraz Becomes a Federal Prison
August 15 - King Duncan I Dies
August 16 - Davy Crockett Born
August 19 - Google Goes Public
August 24 - Mount Vesuvius Eruption
August 28 - Midway Island Annexed
August 31 - Trinidad and Tobago Independence

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