Google Earth Launching For Free 405
Nathan Weinberg writes "Google launches Keyhole 3 today, rebranded Google Earth, and are dumping the subscription rate (except for a $20/year "plus" versions with prettier pictures) available soon at earth.google.com. The program lets you fly around a 3D globe, with overhead satellite photos, tilted 45-degree photos, 3D rendered buildings, and overlays that display everything from roads to hotels to bike routes. I have a lot of info and screenshots at InsideGoogle, and Search Engine Watch has a big writeup. With yesterday's Google Video release, this is shaping up to be a major week for the search giant."
Better (Score:5, Informative)
No linux interface.. (Score:2, Informative)
This is amazing (Score:5, Informative)
Been using often this morning.... (Score:5, Informative)
It totally blows away any geographical user interface ESRI or Autodesk or anyone else has. They should be embarrassed with their current ArcIMS and MapGuide products - such rudimentary interfaces and poor performance.
Whats even more interesting is the Google Earth Enterprise suite. Being able to load my own satellite data and GIS data into this would be interesting. But like I've said before in other posts about google maps, the biggest problem for GIS groups would be the lack of an "Identify" tool (perhaps its there but I havent seen it in any of the screenshots). And still no scale bar at the bottom either, though they do have a north arrow.
Yet again no *nix version. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:examples of 3D buildings? (Score:3, Informative)
Bill
Re:No Mac support? (Score:2, Informative)
For this and other google news... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yet again no *nix version. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Better (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:3, Informative)
The installer failed with regular Wine, with WineX 3.3-1 it installed but still wouldn't run.
Since they are working on a Mac version I imagine they will also at least look into releasing a Linux port.
Re:Now all I need... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:examples of 3D buildings? (Score:4, Informative)
Also, after installing it, it seemed that 3D Buildings is turned off by default. Make sure that option is checked in the left-hand option pane.
You dont need google for that (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/area51/Area51-072503-L
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/area51/Area51-4M072503
You can compare them with google maps, it was posted yesterday.
Google offers a refund to Keyhole subscribers (Score:3, Informative)
Here [google.com]
Edit (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Terrorism??? (Score:2, Informative)
Since you posted this as a reply to the What about Linux? thread, it seems reasonable to assume that Google has already thought of this and they deduced that terrorists don't use Windows.
Re:M O O N, that spells "moon" ... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nerfed! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:examples of 3D buildings? (Score:2, Informative)
I found Vegas by accident and compiled this list from previous answers.
Las Vegas
New York
San Francisco
Boston
Cleveland
Denver
Atlanta
From Google:
Google Earth has 3D buildings listed in a number of major US cities including Boston, MA; Cleveland, OH; and Washington, D.C. to name a few. To view these:
1. Turn on the 3D building layer by selecting the check box in the dashboard.
2. Position the viewer within a reasonable viewing altitude over a major city such as San Francisco. The 3D buildings start to appear from an eye-elevation of 10-12,000 feet. Check the eye-elevation meter on the lower right of the 3D viewer to determine your current viewing height. The 3D buildings appear as light grey objects over the imagery of the city. As you zoom in, more details will appear until you can see the entire shape of a building.
3. Use the tilt and rotate tools to get the best view of the buildings.
Re:Better (Score:2, Informative)
...could be a bit of the slashdot effect too.
Google kinda made it worse.. (Score:5, Informative)
As nice of an improvement the Google Earth software is, overall the product has become worse since google bought it.
The overall resolution has been decreased from many covered areas and super high-res areas have been removed entirely.
You used to be able to clearly make out the exact shapes of cars in the SF Bay Area, now they are blurry colored blobs. In the super high res areas, you could pretty much identify the model of most cars and sometimes even make out individual people.
If you are a long time subscriber like me, google placates you with an option to login to the 'legacy' database.. but if you are new.. no dice.
Doesn't that seem strange? I really hope they reintegrate the higher res data, it is profoundly better.
I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that when they increased their coverage area they had technical issues with the highest res data, but it's been awhile now and they havn't changed their stance of "Oh.. umm yea..login to legacy.." since the new primary database came out.. so I'm fairly worried.
Re:Better (Score:3, Informative)
Once you have the cache on your computer, this program is great... especially for free.
Remember... this is free... you can't get everything for free.
Re:Better (Score:2, Informative)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-23.547585,-46.665
I'm not sure how high is the resolution of this, but I imagine it's a couple of meters. WorldWind only had 15-meter stuff for those locations... A *huge* difference.
I've been told that these Google images are a lot newer, too.
Obviously those are only available in *very* selected areas, though.
Re:Google kinda made it worse.. (Score:5, Informative)
Plus Just Prettier? I don't think so... (Score:3, Informative)
Dear Linux users... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Better (Score:3, Informative)
Except for one tiny little issue that I'm surprised no one on this site has picked up on: World Wind is open source, whereas Google Earth is not.
I've been playing around with World Wind for a while, and it's just fantastic stuff. I'll take the OSS solution any day
Re:Untethered Version?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Better (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux (Score:1, Informative)
Here is the relevant AppDB entry with instructions and screenshots:
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=325
Re:Flight Simulator (Score:2, Informative)
GE Downloads closed - Mirrors available (Score:4, Informative)
See http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4659.html [majorgeeks.com] for mirrors.
Not sure which version is the latest, but MajorGeeks have "Google Earth 3.0.0336 Beta"