Discussion: Google Earth

http://earth.google.com/
Hours of map fun for the whole family. Make sure you play with the 'tilt' feature.

Too late. Beta release is suspended, or something. Not available for now.

It is way cool though, I tried it last night. What does the tilt feature do?

What it sounds like. It tilts the viewing angle. It's a lot better with topography than with buildings (try tilting the Eiffel Tower which your eye recognizes as tall from the shadow when viewed from nearly above, but which becomes bizarrely flat as you tilt).

It seems that the angled views are constructed from a combination of height data and color data from (obviously roughly vertical) satellite and aerial photos. (duh - how else?).

it also has data on actual building geometry, so you can turn on extruded buildings and then tilt it, and you'll get a 3d city view. for example, who can find my house here? hint: is the grey one.

That's awesome.

Can they render trees? I think I'll stay at home this weekend, and rather than Orienteering, just fly around the world.

Check out the Nepal region using the the tilit feature.

Anyone want to play guessing games? Does anyone know where this is?

Looks like an LAOC map.

Here's a slightly zoomed-out view.

Oh. Its Boston Common.

Thanks Eddie... :)
Nile delta? Death Valley?

Namibia's skeleton coast.

Not bad: actually it's Sossusvlei. Here's more zoom, out, and at this zoom level it's obvious where we are.
Someone else's turn.

Here's one showing the limitations of the algorithm: the south pole.

The penguins have invented some sort of satellite-disrupting technology to protect their privacy.

I just got a copy yesterday. It seems they are intermittently allowing new users...
Where is this? # 2

Newark

it's friggin' amazing!!!

It would appear that the CF map of MIT is well out of date!!!!

SLC

Hint 1: There's an O'map of this area too...

It is the much detested Fallen Leaf area. Notice Mount Doom off in the distance. I am surprised Google permits this to be viewed--probably their stock is taking a massive hit even as I write.

Score 1 for the fox. The view is south east from roughly above the start/finish area, toward the hill we ran around on Day 1. Who'll post screenshot # 3?

It appears the top Canadian orienteer, and top American orienteer have answer the first two questions posed... coincidence?

Newark

How far did you go?

(Note that the default location is Hoboken... So you were very close Eddie... :)

Oh that is GOOD.

Yeah, annerism pointed me at this last night. Its very convenient. I had been measuring all my routes using Street Atlas or Maptech. This one combines all the niceties of the google maps. Still they need to get the elevations added so we can have profiles and climb included. I re-measured my 13.75 km loop today because despite busting my butt for the past 3 days trying to get under 4mins/km I just couldn't do it. Well, it turns out the loop is actually 14.4km long! Doh!

For Mac users: this doesn't work on Safari, but it does on Firefox, which is a free download.

Also Netscape on the Mac works.

As does Camino for Macs users. Wow, very cool. Was looking for just such a tool not a week ago. Thanks for the link.

The download site says this works with Win 2000 or XP. I'm still in the dark ages with 98. Anyone got it to work on 98?

Eddie's wishes have been answered. They only have a plot, not the integral, but I don't see why that wouldn't be forthcoming. Compare with yr Polar, Suunto, Avocet... and cry. Or rejoice.

That rocks the house! (Or it could with a few tweaks...)

Well that is just too cool! Here is my standard hill loop -- takes about 43 minutes. Long runs are 2 or 3 loops.

Very, very nice.

What is right at the center of Google Earth? Lawrence, Kansas, according to this news story. Cool. And for serious O' trivia geeks, the center point is in Meadowbrook Apartments, where Peggy Dickison lived when she first moved to Lawrence.


http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/dec/21/lawrence_...

Well the center of Google Maps is just North of Coffeyville country club, about a mile east of Dearing, KS, 3 miles north of the Oklahoma border. So apparently the suggestion that they intentionally put Lawrence at the center isn't so outlandish.. It's certaintly a change from the G Maps center. And it kinda makes sense for people who simply start G Earth and then click Zoom to actually zoom in on a city with roads and other recognizable features, rather than East Dearing KS which is mostly low resolution forest(?)...