Learning to use the Viewer is a little like learning to fly. There are many varied tasks that pilots must learn while earning their "Wings". Learning can be accomplished in a variety of ways; the two most popular are self-taught and instructor-taught.

You could teach yourself. This is how the Wright Brothers learned. You might be surprised at the number of times they visited doctors and hospitals. But once they had the basics mastered, they started to teach others. Their students learned much faster and didn't hurt themselves as often.

TEACH YOURSELF TO FLY!

Your instructors, who know something about flying, create these tutorials and we will be teaching you the right stuff. So, let's get started and learn a few things about flying from one place to the another and landing at a destination.

Before reading any further, you should have read, Advice For New Members, and you should be comfortable using the Google Earth program. You should have found your house and/or where you work. If you don't live in or near a 'Higher Resolution Area', I hope you have at least looked around some of the major cities of the world.


GET A REAL INSTRUCTOR.


My first flight instructor gave me a little black book, (No not that kind of black book!) for keeping track of my flights. It is called a Logbook. With this book, I can create pointers to each and every flight I take. I can use this book to revisit any previous flight. The Viewer allows us to do the same. It lets us make pointers to the world. The Viewer's logbook is called "My Places" and we will examine it in just a bit. But, first we must create some pointers.

A Placemark is a place we make a mark. And it is not just a simple pointer, but also a snapshot of how we viewed that point. The next time we go back, the Viewer will remember the direction we faced, the height above the ground of our eyes, the angle we were looking, what we named the place, and even the style of pushpin we stuck into the earth. So, take your Viewer and fly to some point, zoom in, rotate some, and when you have the spot you like, click the Placemark (pushpin) icon on the navigation panel. It's just above the view screen. You could also right click on the 'My Places' icon in the 'Places' window and click on 'Add'. Now select Placemark from the pop-up menu, and two distinct things will happen. A new window will appear on the screen and a Pushpin icon will appear in the center of the view with a flashing box around it..

Are we having fun yet? Lets move our mouse around the view; notice it is a hand with outstretched fingers. When you move it over the pushpin, it becomes a pointing finger. This means you can drag the pushpin, use the Left mouse button to drag the pushpin around, you don't want it to hide your new find. If you want to move the entire view around some, you can do that when the hand has outstretched fingers and Left mouse dragging. The Right mouse drag will zoom in and out. Also the navigation keys work as well. When the placemark and view are where you want them, head over to that other window, it's called 'New Placemark'.



At a later time you can edit the placemark and the window will be called... what else 'Edit Placemark'. Give it a name; please don't let it remain 'New Placemark'. Next we need to pick an icon, click on the pushpin icon and find one that matches the type of place you are marking. At the very bottom is one called 'None', in case you don't like making a lot of holes in the earth. Our next choice is where to put it, for now just single click on the 'My Places' folder. One more step to go, and we are done. Just click on 'OK'. The window will close, the new name will appear next to your new marker and the 'My Places' folder will contain your new placemark. Just to prove to yourself that this really worked, move your view a few miles. Now double left click on the name of your new placemark in the 'My Places' window. Zoooom... you are flying.



In the next lesson, we will look at organizing these treasures.