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Google Earth - Google Wiki

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc. a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded company acquired by Google in 2004. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery. aerial photography and GIS 3D globe. It was available under three different licenses, two currently: Google Earth, a free version with limited function; Google Earth Plus (discontinued), [1] [2] which included additional features; and Google Earth Pro ($399 per year), which is intended for commercial use. [3]

The product, re-released as Google Earth in 2005, is currently available for use on personal computers running Windows 2000 and above, Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, Linux kernel. 2.6 or later (released on June 12, 2006), and FreeBSD. Google Earth is also available as a browser plugin which was released on May 28, 2008. [4] It was also made available for mobile viewers on the iPhone OS on October 28, 2008, as a free download from the App Store. and is available to Android users as a free app on the Android Market. In addition to releasing an updated Keyhole based client, Google also added the imagery from the Earth database to their web-based mapping software, Google Maps. The release of Google Earth in June 2005 to the public caused a more than tenfold increase in media coverage on virtual globes between 2004 and 2005, [5] driving public interest in geospatial technologies and applications. As of October 2011 Google Earth has been downloaded more than a billion times. [6] [7]

For other parts of the surface of the Earth 3D images of terrain and buildings are available. Google Earth uses digital elevation model (DEM) data collected by NASA 's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). [8] This means one can view the whole earth in three dimensions. Since November 2006, the 3D views of many mountains, including Mount Everest, have been improved by the use of supplementary DEM data to fill the gaps in SRTM coverage. [9]

Many people use the applications to add their own data, making them available through various sources, such as the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) or blogs mentioned in the link section below. Google Earth is able to show all kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the earth and is also a Web Map Service client. Google Earth supports managing three-dimensional Geospatial data through Keyhole Markup Language (KML).

Google Earth is simply based on 3D maps, it has the capability to show 3D buildings and structures (such as bridges), which consist of users' submissions using SketchUp. a 3D modeling program software. In prior versions of Google Earth (before Version 4), 3D buildings were limited to a few cities, and had poorer rendering with no textures. Many buildings and structures from around the world now have detailed 3D structures; including (but not limited to) those in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, India, Japan, United Kingdom, [10] Germany, Pakistan and the cities, Amsterdam and Alexandria. In August 2007, Hamburg became the first city entirely shown in 3D, including textures such as facades. The 'Westport3D' model was created by 3D imaging firm AM3TD using long-distance laser scanning technology and digital photography and is the first such model of an Irish town to be created. As it was developed initially to aid Local Government in carrying out their town planning functions it includes the highest resolution photo-realistic textures to be found anywhere in Google Earth. Three-dimensional renderings are available for certain buildings and structures around the world via Google's 3D Warehouse [11] and other websites. Although there are many cities on Google Earth that are fully or partially 3D, more are available in the Earth Gallery. The Earth Gallery is a library of modifications of Google Earth people have made. In the library there are more than just modifications for 3D buildings there are models of earth quakes using the Google Earth model, 3D forests, and much more.

Recently [ when? ]. Google added a feature that allows users to monitor traffic speeds at loops located every 200 yards in real-time. In version 4.3 released on April 15, 2008, Google Street View was fully integrated into the program allowing the program to provide an on the street level view in many locations.

On January 31, 2010, the entirety of Google Earth's ocean floor imagery was updated to new images by SIO, NOAA, US Navy, NGA, and GEBCO. The new images have caused smaller islands, such as some atolls in the Maldives. to be rendered invisible despite their shores being completely outlined. [12]

Google Earth is useful for many day-to-day and other purposes.

• Google Earth can be used to view areas subjected to widespread disasters if Google supplies up-to-date images. For example after the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake images of Haiti were made available on January 17.
• With Google's push for the inclusion of Google Earth in the Classroom, [13] teachers are adopting Google Earth in the classroom for lesson planning, such as teaching students geographical themes (location, culture, characteristics, human interaction, and movement) [14] to creating mashups with other web applications such as Wikipedia. [13] [14]
• One can explore and place location bookmarks on the Moon, and Mars.
• One can also get directions using Google Earth, using variables such as street names, cities, and establishments.
• Google Earth can also function as a hub of knowledge, pertaining the users location. By enabling certain options, one can see the location of gas stations, restaurants, museums, and other public establishments in their area. Google Earth can also dot the map with links to images, YouTube videos, and Wikipedia articles relevant to the area being viewed.

Features Edit

Wikipedia and Panoramio integration Edit

In December 2006, Google Earth added a new layer called "Geographic Web" that includes integration with Wikipedia and Panoramio. In Wikipedia, entries are scraped for coordinates via the Template:Srlink. There is also a community-layer from the project Wikipedia-World. More coordinates are used, different types are in the display and different languages are supported than the built-in Wikipedia layer. [15] [16] Google announced on May 30, 2007 that it is acquiring Panoramio. [17] In March 2010, Google removed the "Geographic Web" layer. The "Panoramio" layer became part of the main layers and the "Wikipedia" layer was placed in the "More" layer.

Flight simulator Edit

Downtown Toronto. as seen from a F16 Fighting Falcon during a simulated flight.

• F-16 Fighting Falcon  – A much higher speed and maximum altitude than the Cirrus SR-22, it has the ability to fly at a maximum speed of Mach 2. although a maximum speed of 1678 knots (3107 km/h) can be achieved. The take-off speed is 225 knots, the landing speed is 200 knots (370 km/h).
• Cirrus SR-22  – Although slower and with a lower maximum altitude, the SR-22 is much easier to handle and is preferred for up-close viewing of Google Earth's imagery. The take-off speed is 75 knots (139 km/h), the landing speed is 70 knots () [18]

The flight simulator can be commanded with the keyboard, mouse or plugged-in joystick. Broadband connection and a high speed computer provides a very realistic experience. [19] The simulator also runs with animation, allowing objects (for example: planes]) [20] to animate while on the simulator. Image overlays [21] can also be added to make it look like the cockpit of a plane.

Sky mode Edit

Google Earth in Sky Viewing Mode

Google Sky is a feature that was introduced in Google Earth 4.2 on August 22, 2007, and allows users to view stars and other celestial bodies. [22] It was produced by Google through a partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Alberto Conti and his co-developer Dr. Carol Christian of STScI plan to add the public images from 2007, [23] as well as color images of all of the archived data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Newly released Hubble pictures will be added to the Google Sky program as soon as they are issued. New features such as multi-wavelength data, positions of major satellites and their orbits as well as educational resources will be provided to the Google Earth community and also through Christian and Conti's website for Sky. [24] Also visible on Sky mode are constellations, stars, galaxies and animations depicting the planets in their orbits. A real-time Google Sky mashup of recent astronomical transients, using the VOEvent protocol, is being provided by the VOEventNet [25] collaboration. Google's Earth maps are being updated each 5 minutes.

Google Sky faces competition [26] from Microsoft WorldWide Telescope (which runs only under the Microsoft Windows operating systems) and from Stellarium. a free open source planetarium that runs under Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X. and Linux.

On March 13, 2008, Google made a web-based version [27] of Google Sky available via the internet.

Street View Edit

Main article: Google Street View On April 15, 2008 with version 4.3, Google fully integrated its Street View into Google Earth. In version 6.0, the photo zooming function has been removed because it is incompatible with the new 'seamless' navigation.

Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007 for Google Maps. only five cities were included. It has since expanded to more than 40 U.S. cities, and includes the suburbs of many, and in some cases, other nearby cities. Recent updates have now implemented Street View in most of the major cities of Australia and New Zealand as well as parts of Canada, parts of South Africa, Denmark, Mexico, Japan, Norway, Finland, Spain, Sweden, France, the UK, Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated by using the mouse to click on photograph icons displayed on the screen in the user's direction of travel. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles.

Water and ocean Edit

Introduced in version 5.0 (February 2009), the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D bathymetry beneath the waves. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers. [28] On April 14, 2009, Google added underwater terrain data for the Great Lakes. [29] In 2010, Google added underwater terrain data for Lake Baikal.

In June 2011, higher resolution of some deep ocean floor areas increased in focus from 1-kilometer grids to 100 meters thanks to a new synthesis of seafloor topography released through Google Earth. [30] The high resolution features were developed by oceanographers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory from scientific data collected on research cruises. The sharper focus is available for about 5 percent of the oceans (an area larger than North America). Underwater scenery can be seen of the Hudson Canyon off New York City, the Wini Seamount near Hawaii, and the sharp-edged 10,000-foot-high Mendocino Ridge off the U.S Pacific Coast. There is a Google 2011 Seafloor Tour for those interested in viewing ocean deep terrain.

Historical Imagery Edit

Introduced in version 5.0, Historical Imagery allows users to traverse back in time and study earlier stages of any place. This feature allows research that require analysis of past records of various places. [31]

Main article: Google Mars Google Earth 5 includes a separate globe of the planet Mars, that can be viewed and analysed for research purposes. The maps are of a much higher resolution than those on the browser version of Google Mars and it also includes 3D renderings of the Martian terrain. There are also some extremely high resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 's HiRISE camera that are of a similar resolution to those of the cities on Earth. Finally, there are many high resolution panoramic images from various Mars landers, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers. Spirit and Opportunity. that can be viewed in a similar way to Google Street View. Interestingly enough, layers on Google Earth (such as World Population Density) can also be applied to Mars. Layers of Mars can also be applied onto Earth. Mars also has a small application found near the face on Mars. It is called Meliza, and features a chat between the user and an automatic robot speaker. It is useful for research on Mars, but is not recommended for normal conversations.

On July 20, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, Google introduced the Google Earth version of Google Moon. [32] which allows users to view satellite images of the Moon. It was announced and demonstrated to a group of invited guests by Google along with Buzz Aldrin at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. [33] [34]

Google Earth Engine Edit

Google Earth Engine is a separate product, not a part of Google Earth.

Liquid Galaxy Edit

Liquid Galaxy is a cluster of computers running Google Earth creating an immersive experience. It began as a Google 20% project by Google engineers. On September 30, 2010, Google made the configuration and schematics for their rigs public, [35] placing code and setup guides on the Liquid Galaxy wiki. [36]

Influences Edit

Google Earth can be traced directly back to a small company named Autometric. now a part of Boeing. A team at Autometric, led by Robert Cowling, created a visualization product named Edge Whole Earth. Bob demonstrated Edge to Michael T. Jones. Chris Tanner, and others at SGI in 1996. Several other visualization products using imagery existed at the time, including Performer-based ones, but Michael T. Jones stated emphatically that he had "never thought of the complexities of rendering an entire globe. " The catch phrase "from outer space to in your face" was coined by Autometric President Dan Gordon, and used to explain his concept for personal/local/global range. Edge blazed a trail as well in broadcasting, being used in 1997 on CBS News with Dan Rather. in print for rendering large images draped over terrain for National Geographic. and used for special effects in the feature film Shadow Conspiracy in 1997. In 2000, Edge Viewer was made available through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for free.

Gordon was a huge fan of the ‘Earth’ program described in Neal Stephenson 's sci-fi classic Snow Crash . Indeed, a Google Earth co-founder claimed that Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash. [37] while another co-founder said it was inspired by the short science education film Powers of Ten . [38] In fact Google Earth was at least partly inspired by a Silicon Graphics demo called "From Outer Space to in Your Face" which zoomed from space into the Swiss Alps then into the Matterhorn. [39] This launch demo was hosted by an Onyx 3000 with InfiniteReality4 [40] graphics, which supported Clip Mapping and was inspired by the hardware texture paging capability (although it did not use the Clip Mapping) and "Powers of Ten". The first Google Earth implementation called Earth Viewer emerged from Intrinsic Graphics as a demonstration of Chris Tanner's software based implementation of a Clip Mapping texture paging system and was spun off as Keyhole Inc. Earth Viewer was the inevitable ultimate realization of the capabilities of a seamless texture paging system and many of the individuals working on Earth Viewer were Silicon Graphics alumni.

Technical specifications Edit

Detailed release notes/history/changelog are made available by Google. [41]

Imagery and coordination Edit

Hardware and software Edit

As of Google Earth 5, the contents of description balloons, which are created in KML using JavaScript and iFrames. are rendered with an embedded WebKit engine. [45]

Versions and variations Edit

Release timeline Edit

• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.0 - June 11, 2001
• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.3 - January 1, 2002
• Keyhole Earthviewer 1.7 - February 2002
• Keyhole LT 1.7.1 - August 26, 2003
• Keyhole NV 1.7.2 - October 16, 2003
• Keyhole 2.2 - August 19, 2004
• GOOGLE UNIVERSE 1.0 - January 2005
• Google Earth 3.0 - June 28, 2005
• Google Earth 4.0 - June 11, 2006
• Google Earth 4.1 - May 29, 2007
• Google Earth 4.2 - August 23, 2007
• Google Earth 4.3 - April 15, 2008
• Google Earth 5.0 - May 5, 2009
• Google Earth 5.1 - November 18, 2009
• Google Earth 5.2 - July 1, 2010
• Google Earth 6.0 - March 29, 2011
• Google Earth 6.1 - October 21, 2011
• Google Earth 6.2 - January 26, 2012 (beta)

Mac version Edit

A version for Mac OS X was released on January 10, 2006, and is available for download from the Google Earth website. With a few exceptions noted below, the Mac version appears to be stable and complete, with virtually all the same functionality as the original Windows version.

Screenshots and an actual binary of the Mac version had been leaked to the Internet on December 8, 2005. The leaked version was significantly incomplete. Among other things, neither the Help menu nor its "Display License" feature worked, indicating that this version was intended for Google's internal use only. Google released no statement regarding the leak.

The Mac version runs only under Mac OS X version 10.4 or later. There is no embedded browser, no direct interface to Gmail and no full screen option. As of January 2009 there are a few bugs concerning the menu bar when switching between applications and a few bugs concerning annotation balloons and printing.

From version 4.1.7076.4558 (released on May 9, 2007) onward Mac OS X users can, among other new features, upgrade to the "Plus" version via an option in the Google Earth menu. [46] Some users reported difficulties with Google Earth crashing in the then current version when zooming in. [47]

Linux version Edit

Starting with the version 4 beta Google Earth functions under Linux. as a native port using the Qt-toolkit. It is proprietary software specifically in order to impose Digital Rights Management [ citation needed ] ; the Free Software Foundation consider the development of a free compatible client for Google Earth to be a High Priority Free Software Project. [48]

Android version Edit

An Android version was released on Monday, February 22, 2010. [49]

iOS version Edit

A version for the iOS. which runs on the iPhone. iPod Touch and the iPad. was released for free on the App Store on October 27, 2008. [50] [51] It makes use of the multi-touch interface to move on the globe, zoom or rotate the view, and allow to select the current location using the iPhone integrated Assisted GPS. This version, however, does not feature layers like computer versions do. Like Google Maps, it only integrates the Wikipedia and Panoramio layers. [52]

Google Earth Plus Edit

Discontinued in December 2008, Google Earth Plus was an individual-oriented paid subscription upgrade to Google Earth that provided customers with the following features, most of which are now available in the free Google Earth:

• GPS integration: read tracks and waypoints from a GPS device. A variety of third party applications have been created which provide this functionality using the basic version of Google Earth by generating KML or KMZ files based on user-specified or user-recorded waypoints. However, Google Earth Plus provides direct support for the Magellan and Garmin product lines, which together hold a large share of the GPS market.

Google Earth Pro Edit

For a $399 annual subscription fee, Google Earth Pro is a business-oriented upgrade to Google Earth that has more features than the Plus version. The Pro version includes add-on software such as:

• Movie making.
• GIS data importer.
• Advanced printing modules.
• Radius and area measurements

Originally, these features cost extra in addition to the $399 fee, but more recently [ when? ] have been included in the package.

The professional version is available for Windows (NT-based versions), Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Linux. [53]

Google Earth Enterprise Edit

Google Earth Enterprise is a version of Google Earth designed for use by organizations whose businesses could take advantage of the program's capabilities. [54]

Automotive version Edit

An automotive version of Google Earth is available in the 2010 Audi A8. [55]

Google Earth Plug-in Edit

The Google Earth API is a free beta service, available for any web site that is free to consumers. The Plug-in and its JavaScript API allows users to place a version of Google Earth into web pages. The API does not have all the features of the full Google Earth Application but enables sophisticated 3D map applications to be built.

The Google Earth Plug-in is currently available for the following web browsers and operating systems:

Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista, and 7)

• Google Chrome 1.0+
• Internet Explorer 6.0+
• Firefox 2.0+
• Flock 1.0+

Apple Mac OS X 10.4 and higher (Intel and PowerPC)

• Safari 3.1+
• Firefox 3.0+

To date the plug-in supports the following layers:

• Terrain
• Roads
• Buildings
• Borders
• 3-D Buildings

It also supports 'Sky Mode', 'Photo Overlays', and provides much of the same controls and information bar as the full application.