Brass Monkey
September 28th, 2005, 09:17 PM
*Warning: Do not download this program if you do not have some free time to burn!
Has anyone else here gotten to download and play with Google's new toy, Google Earth? I got it last week and have been blown away by this. For those who don't know it is bascially a 3D virtual Earth with very high resolution (in major cities, for the time being).
Then not long after I came across Google Earth Hacks. This is basically a community site where people can create and submit their own placemarks, overlays, and data streams into Google Earth.
(now many of you are probably thinking 'what the hell does all that mean?')
One example of how this can be used is traffic reports. I live in Los Angeles, traffic sucks, but thankfully there is a cool site called Sigalert.com which gives up to the minute reports on all the freeways in the area. Now someone figured out how to take the data stream for the traffic maps from Sigalert and overlay it into Google Earth so I can then view real time freeway traffic status while using it.
Another example is someone using the data from the USGS, so now I can click a button and now see every earthquake that has occured (over 2.5) anywhere on the planet over the past 7 days.
Another is a program that tracks the Internation Space Station's current position and it's orbit for the past couple of hours.
Another shows all the filming locations across New Zeland for all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.
Another adds placemarks and wikipedia links for all the 7 wonders of the world.
Or maybe you just want to browse the globe looking for cool sites. Heck, you can even take a look at Area 51.
I'm gonna stop raving and let you go try it out now...
http://earth.google.com
http://www.googleearthhacks.com
Has anyone else here gotten to download and play with Google's new toy, Google Earth? I got it last week and have been blown away by this. For those who don't know it is bascially a 3D virtual Earth with very high resolution (in major cities, for the time being).
Then not long after I came across Google Earth Hacks. This is basically a community site where people can create and submit their own placemarks, overlays, and data streams into Google Earth.
(now many of you are probably thinking 'what the hell does all that mean?')
One example of how this can be used is traffic reports. I live in Los Angeles, traffic sucks, but thankfully there is a cool site called Sigalert.com which gives up to the minute reports on all the freeways in the area. Now someone figured out how to take the data stream for the traffic maps from Sigalert and overlay it into Google Earth so I can then view real time freeway traffic status while using it.
Another example is someone using the data from the USGS, so now I can click a button and now see every earthquake that has occured (over 2.5) anywhere on the planet over the past 7 days.
Another is a program that tracks the Internation Space Station's current position and it's orbit for the past couple of hours.
Another shows all the filming locations across New Zeland for all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.
Another adds placemarks and wikipedia links for all the 7 wonders of the world.
Or maybe you just want to browse the globe looking for cool sites. Heck, you can even take a look at Area 51.
I'm gonna stop raving and let you go try it out now...
http://earth.google.com
http://www.googleearthhacks.com