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Google Earth Nokia N95 Technology

Put your pictures on the planet..

After the buzz has died down about the new sky feature in Earth, I personally think one of the most useful new features is the ability to place images in the landscape, matching the perspective of the location from which they where taken.

The new photooverlay element in KML 2.2 is used to great effect with the gigapxl images, which you just have to try out to really appreciate.

Gigapxl in Google Earth

You can just keep on zooming into these amazing images..

Gigapxl in Google Earth zoomed

And these are taken with a single exposure, so they are very useful for analysis of the images.

For me the most exciting development is the potential now for those millions of geotagged photos already online to be placed in the locations from where the pictures were taken, this would provide another great way of representing the “sense of place” of a location.

Phone pic in google earth

As a simple example, this is a picture of the Google Office in London, taken with the Camera in my Nokia N95. With its GPS, and the additional of a simple compass to provide the bearing of the shot, you have all your need.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

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Google Earth Technology Thoughts

Ogle Earth TV

Stefan Geens the man behind the fantastic Ogle Earth blog, has put together an amazing DIY TV show using Google Earth and Wirecast.

Everyday the tools that where once only in the hands of the professionals are now available to the professional-amateur, although I think Stefan may have another career on IPTV waiting for him! 

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

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Google Earth Thoughts

How to get Kids interested in Geography

This week I sat in on a course run by the Royal Geographical Society to train teachers to use Google Earth in their classes. The course was excellent and will run again in October and is highly recommended. In talking to some of the teachers we soon got on to the topic of the impact that Google Earth has had in exciting their students, and the extent to which their preferred images to Cartographic view of the world.

As a teaching tool just creating a tour and visiting places without any labels displayed is very powerful, asking students to describe the shape of the landscape, patterns of settlement and of course trying to recognise the locations is fascinating.

Last week I saw this same effect in a different environment visiting the Swiss Museum of Transport Swiss in Lucerne. For an aviation anorak such as myself, this is well worth the visit, but for all geographers you must visit the swissarena, a 1:20 000 scale photo mosaic of all of Switzerland on the floor of a dedicated building.

Swissarena

This is just amazing.. constructed from nearly 8,000 images and detailed enough so that you can see individual buildings it is a huge hit with children visitors and is a brilliant tool to understand the geography of Switzerland.

We really must make the most of this opportunity, new technology has made geography interesting again.. lets make the most of it and move beyond the LandRanger extract !!!

Written and Submitted from the Terminal 2, Heathrow Airport, London using the BTOpenzone wifi network.