The Google Earth Sightseer - January 2007
January 2007 Issue

In This Issue:

Highlights:
Google Earth 4 Has Arrived
New Imagery & Improved Terrain
New Layers Added in January
See the New Geographic Web Layer

Explore Further:
Google SketchUp 6 is Released
Virtual Globes Session at AGU
Google Maps Support More KML
Placemarks of the Month
January Calendar

Can you guess where this sunny place by the sea is? Click here to submit your best guess for the city and country. We'll email the winners and post the results here. The first five correct submissions will win a Google Earth t-shirt.

Google Earth 4 Has Arrived

Google Earth (Release 4) is officially released and out of beta. The major new features include (take a deep breath) support for textured 3D buildings, support for time in KML content, new navigation control, improved layer support, support for FIGS (French, Italian, German and Spanish) and Japanese, new icons, improved printing, support for controllers including the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator, and improved performance. We've also changed the feature mix between Google Earth Free, Plus, Pro, and the premium modules: drawing tools are now included in Free, real-time GPS tracking is included in Plus, and the premium printing, GIS data importer and movie-maker modules are included in Pro for no additional charge. Download the new Google Earth 4 (Free) or Google Earth 4 Pro, and have a look at the user guide.

In mid-December, the last GE 4 beta was released with performance-boosting enhancements, especially for 3D models and tiled image overlays. The beta also introduced a new feature to enhance placemark tours; placemark description balloons now open briefly during tour playback (look for the "Show balloon when tour is paused" under the "Touring" options). Here's a summary of changes for the beta release.
New Imagery & Improved Terrain

On December 17th we released another imagery update, which includes new aerial and satellite photos for North America, Europe and Australia; including several cities in Indiana, Delaware, Iowa, UK, Germany and the Canary Islands. We also released new terrain data, including 3-meter resolution terrain mesh for Mount St. Helens. You can use the "Terrain Quality" options setting to view more detail for some areas (higher quality settings will use more memory and can slow down graphics performance). See details here on this update.
New Layers Added in January

We've made substantial updates and additions to the Google Earth Layers (available in the lower left), adding the following new layers:
  • Best of 3D Warehouse - This layer (Google Earth 4 is required) shows some of the best 3D building models from the 3D Warehouse. The layer includes buildings created with SketchUp's photo texturing features. To see the 3D buildings, fly into a major city such as Denver, Colorado . You can still use the 3D Warehouse network link to see the complete list of available models.
  • Roads of Brazil - The roads layer now includes Brazil's streets and highways.
  • Yelp Reviews - Reviews by real people about places in the US you might want to visit.
  • Discovery "Sunrise Earth" - Links to videos of the Discovery Channel's popular HDTV "Sunrise Earth" show.

See the New Geographic Web Layer

In early December we also released new Google Earth layers, the most important being the new "Geographic Web" layers that provide a wealth of useful information (they're turned on by default):

  • Best of Google Earth Community - A selection of some of the best placemarks representing significant places all over the world.
  • Panoramio - A collection of placemarks pointing to photos taken of the location shown from the public picture archives at Panoramio.
  • Wikipedia - Placemarks from Wikipedia with description bubbles showing summary info, photos and links to the Wikipedia pages describing each location.
As you zoom into interesting locations all around the world, these layers show placemark icons indicating layers; you can selectively choose which layer you want to view (or turn off). You can also turn on the Google Earth Community layers containing millions of additional placemarks. The December update also included "Points of Interest" layers (dining, lodging, community services, etc.) for Canada.

The new Wikipedia layer described above points to articles which have been "geotagged," meaning the article has been marked with coordinates showing the location of the content referenced in the article. Google Earth documentation specialist John Gardiner has written an article at the "Using Google Earth" blog about how to make sure a Wikipedia article appears in the new layer. Please note that Wikipedia content updates won't be reflected in the placemarks until we re-process the layer. Currently the layer shows Wikipedia articles tagged as of November 30, 2006.

Google SketchUp 6 is Released

Google has announced the release of SketchUp 6 -- powerful 3D modeling software that's easy to learn, simple to use, and compatible with Google Earth. SketchUp 6 includes a new tool called Photo Match, which lets you create 3D models from photographs and match existing models to background photos. There's also support for 3D text, watermarks and sketchy effects. As with the last version, you can output your 3D models to Google Earth (this is how the 3D buildings in the new "Best of 3D Warehouse" layer were created). You can download SketchUp here to start creating and uploading 3D models for Google Earth.
Virtual Globes Sessions at AGU

Every autumn, over 10,000 scientists and engineers meet at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco and present papers on many topics ranging from Earth's geological formation and the environment to volcanoes and geological conditions on other planets. This year's AGU saw the presentation of dozens of papers regarding the use of virtual globes like Google Earth to visualize scientific analysis and education. Scientists are excited by the ability Google Earth provides to share complex data with a much wider audience than typical scientific publications.

Google Maps Supports More KML

The file format used by Google Earth is called KML, which stands for Keyhole Markup Language, an XML-based specification which includes support for many Earth features such as placemarks, image overlays and the network link (read more about KML). Last month Google Maps began supporting image overlays as well as lines and polygons (see a list of Maps-supported KML features). This increases the range of KML files that can be shown in Google Maps.

As an example, look at this image overlay of a NASA MODIS satellite photo of a hurricane in Google Maps, or in Google Earth (this photo was posted on the Google Earth Community which now supports attachment options for Maps and Earth). Google's Picasa Web Albums and Calendar applications also support the KML file format.

Placemarks of the Month

Native American Listening to an iPod (read story)
Mothballed Ships (read story)
Giza Pyramids

January Calendar

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

January 1 - Ellis Island Opens
January 6 - First Mass in the New World
January 10 - The Die is Cast
January 15 - British Museum Opens
January 18 - Lima, Peru Founded
January 24 - California Gold Rush Begins
January 29 - Battle of Rennell Island


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