This is pretty cool to check out - earth.google.com. It's a beta version - much of the same stuff that you see if you go to maps.google.com and check their sattelite imagery out. But this is in globe form. 10 meg download and it streams the rest in from their server. Will be really cool when they get really high res stuff on it - Morgantown already looks pretty decent.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I am in awe...
Complete awe...
Amazing... Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I played with this a bit last year when it was Keyhole (Google bought it and made it free, yay Google!).
I love the e-mail function! Had a blast e-mailing various friends pictures of the roof of their house...
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
Sweet, didn't get to that part yet. Been finding new trails around my area so far. Wow....
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
It gets even cooler when you start using the overlays. It'll show you where restaurants are, ATMs, all kinds of stuff, and if you're creative (and skilled) you can make your own. I love this thing.
I wish there was a more recent shot of my area. Still pretty undeveloped out here, and the most recent shot was taken before my house was built.
Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
Gah. I switched over to my PC so I could download it, and in the short time I was gone they disabled downloads.
edit: Well, that's weird. I can still download it on my Mac. I guess I'll just transfer it to my PC.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I downloaded it, but when I ran it it said that it couldn't read a flie.
I got owrried and ran visus scan and deleted it right away.
My computer is more than fast enough, and with plenty of memory, so I don't know what the problem was, but if McAfeee clears it perhaps I will try again tomorrow.
Thanks for posting the link though, it sounds cool!
Kwea
Posted by KrabbyPatty (Member # 7055) on :
Cool! I found my house, place of employment and lots more. But I have work to do, so it's time to stop playing.
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
First one to post a link to OSC's house wins!
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
It won't let me download, wah! :-P This sounds very cool.
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
Yep, the resolution was that good on that last one...from space.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
hahahah, uh huh!
Has anyone tried tilting the landscape upwards? I do it by holding my center mouse button down and moving the mouse up and down (holding the center button and moving the mouse left to right rotates north to whatever orientation I want on the screen (usually up)).
Anyway, my neighborhood is shown in the exact correct relief. They must include information from topo maps somehow. But what's cool is that the hills are there but buildings don't poke up, just landscape features. So I'm looking at an oblique view of my neighborhood, and it's exactly correct, just like being here, except where the hospital buildings stick UP in real life, they're just like flat pictures painted on the landscape in Google Earth. It's really cool looking.
[ July 03, 2005, 06:48 PM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
This is so incredibly cool, by the way! I spent a few hours browsing around my city last night, then another hour visiting everyone I know around the country. Finally I just dove into Iraqi neighborhoods in Baghdad and Mosul, then jumped over to St. Petersburg in Russia for a while. Did a lightning tour of a few of the capitals of Europe; Moscow, London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Brussels. After that I wandered around Sri Lanka and Indonesia for a while, then headed over to northwestern India just to take a look around.
The world is small, guys. We're all really close to one another. Isn't it awesome? <pokes head up and waves to friends on other parts of the planet>
This changes everything!
[ July 03, 2005, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Wow, fun! They still don't have good pics of Connecticut though. Grrrr.
I tried looking at some places in the Philippines. I found San Mateo just fine. But then something went weird when I tried typing in the following: "caloocan philippines".
Go ahead! Try it. Not what you'd expect. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Google earth abstract art.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
It's really annoying when the resolution is so low that you can't see individual trees and buildlings and cars. Many of the extremely podunk places which don't have good resolution pictures are exactly the extremely podunk places I'm interested in wandering around in.
Tonight Grisha and I went sightseeing together in Moscow. Then we headed to Chernobyl only to find it's one of the low-res backwaters.
I want to be able to google earth in chat mode, networked with friends, so we can show each other stuff. I haven't found a way to do that yet, but I discovered the extremely helpful street names overlay as well as water, volcanoes (helpful in Guatemala) and other landscape features. When you click on Tools->Web you get a very nice control panel with buttons to true up back to north or vertical after rotating or tilting. Also a slider bar to zoom in and out just a smidgen, if you need to (which isn't possible using my mouse wheel).
I've now got pushpins all over the freaking planet. Taking the grand tour is exhilirating. What other cool features have I not discovered yet? I'm getting to be a google earth addict. I can't stop.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
More google earth abstract art, this time from Chandler, Arizona.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Hey, Jorge! I think I see your glasses.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
DOOD. Go to:
28 degrees, 58 minutes, 43 seconds N 103 degrees, 8 minutes, 34 seconds W
It's along the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.
Move the camera around. It's in freaking THREE DIMENSIONS. I want an entire globe like this.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Visible from space, my butt. I found the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Aswan High Dam, the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal with no problem. The Great Wall of China? Can't tell it from a highway.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
parts of Washington DC ans Moscow seem to be whited out, covered, or otherwise censored.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Dog, how would an entire globe work if you can't zoom way in like this? To be this cool a globe would have to be so big you'd need a room of magrithean proportions to keep it in.
The section of the picture around Human's house is all spotted with black spots like it has a rash or something.
And, yeah, it's very weird how they've whited out certain buildlings. I don't understand the reason for that at all. It seems to be severe paranoia, and I find the fact that there's censorship much more frightening than any terrorists could be.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
yeah.
Also it would be so cool if the whole globe on this program were as 3D as that part was though.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
From what I've seen, landscape is in 3D, it's just buildlings that aren't.
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
quote: parts of Washington DC ans Moscow seem to be whited out, covered, or otherwise censored.
The whited out areas of certain buildings in D.C. are to cover up the air defenses that are installed on their roofs.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Thanks for the tip! I've been looking at the Grand Tetons in 3D. Cool!
Posted by TheHumanTarget (Member # 7129) on :
I want this program. Does anyone still have the original installation file? I don't want to wait until Google decides to allow downloads again... Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
::Jealous of people who has Google Earth::
Any ideas on how long it will be until it's open to the masses?
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Download NASA's World Wind instead. I've had it for awhile now and it works great. I've never tried Google Earth (it's still unavailable) so I don't know how the two compare. World Wind is pretty awesome, though.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Lyrhawn, I just kept trying every day until I finally saw it was available. It took only a few days for me. So keep trying!
THT, nope, I didn't save the original installation file, sorry!
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I got it! Pretty neat. Search features are better than World Wind (it's Google after all). I still like World Wind better, though. Among other advantages it's open source and constantly updated. There are tons of plugins designed by users, too - even one for Mars.
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They still don't have good pics of Connecticut though. Grrrr.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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