Category: Google Earth

Categories
Data Policy Google Earth

History in Google Earth – Did you miss it ?

With last months launch of Google Earth 5.0 much “mainstream” interest was focused on the capability to view under the ocean, and of course to begin the search for the lost city of Atlantis 🙂

For many however, myself included, the most important new capability is the ability to view historic images from the Google archive of satellite and aerial imagery.

 

Wembley Stadium 1997-2007
Wembley Stadium 1997-2007

Early days of course, but the potential to view history in this way has massive potential as illustrated by this image of Wembley Stadium in London. As you can imagine the back office system needed to deliver this are substantial, but the limiting factor remains access to imagery from around the world. 

As to be expected by now the greatest availability is in the United States where the enlightened federal data policy means that it is possible to view Mountain View Ca. from the late 1940s — fantastic for viewing the development of the city from farmland to Silicon Valley.

Similar imagery of course was acquired at the same time in Europe, if would be wonderful to see it also made available..

 

Written and submitted from the Fira Exhibition Centre, Barcelona, using its public wifi network

Categories
Google Earth Mobile

Palm, Google Earth and storytelling..

I often talk about the use of Google Earth for storytelling, illustrating a story with its geographical context displayed interactively is very powerful, to see what I mean just watch the first few minutes of the launch event for the new Palm Pre at last weeks CES show.

BTW Its great to see Palm that seem to be getting their original mojo back, remember how cool the original Palm V was..

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Google Earth OGC opensource

Looking for a Google Earth Server

Then look no further than the latest release of GeoServer which has fantastic new KML serving capabilities on a par with the Google Earth Enterprise server.

The key new capability here is to stream vector  and raster data to Google Earth as the user zooms or pans  making sure that only just the minimum amount of information is transferred thereby giving the great performance you expect from Google Earth.

This release of GeoServer can also extrude KML with a height attributes allowing users to stream simple 3D model data to Google Earth.

GeoServer 1.7.1
GeoServer 1.7.1 serves 3D KML

 

GeoServer continues to develop into a serious enterprise application which no doubt is getting the attention of the guys in Redlands and is providing much needed competition in the market. From a KML perspective it is now possible for an organisation to self publish almost any type and size of geospatial database using an open technology stack.

And it runs nicely on my Mac !!!

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.