Google Earth is Free

[aussiemac]

You can get it here
http://earth.google.com/product_comparison.html

Competiton is healthy - for all of us
Worldwind's going down a different track.

[Beansprout]

As expected, they've left just the images for free and added in the real functionality for $.

WW is catching those features, slowly but surely :)

[TomServo]

It's interesting.. though I am not keen on the interface.. I found using it clumbersome... and it actually uses MORE resources than WW does.. never once saw it below 150mb ram use.. where WW is 80Mb average.

The 3D models are interesting.. if a bit bland and cold feeling.

[Julio.tx]

Originally posted by aussiemac@Jun 28 2005, 08:01 AM
You can get it here
http://earth.google.com/product_comparison.html

Competiton is healthy - for all of us
Worldwind's going down a different track.
Quoted post

Hey dudes, what the fuss about it?
NAsa WW is customizable, and fun to play with, but will google earth play the same way?

[bull]

Thanks for the tip aussiemac, downloading it now.

[withak]

Some of their 3d models could use a little work. :)

http://www.supload.com/thumbs/default/arch-porblem.jpg (http://www.supload.com/pictures/arch-porblem.jpg)

[TomServo]

What? Looks like an arch to me ;)

I have noticed buildings are off in some areas.. look down in NYC in the World Trade Center area and the buildings are off from where they should be.. same with a lot of road markers.

[SkyNet]

It's a nice program to have in addition to WorldWind.

I'll use Google if:
- I want to zoom in on New york and find a Starbucks.
- Zoom in on international cities and towns that are not available in WW.
- Zoom in on certain landmarks that are'nt available in WW.

I'll use WorldWind if:
- I want to look at the daily MODIS imagery.
- Get 3D views and examine the surface with Landsat/SRTM.
- Examine scientific things.

Therefore, I use both depending on what I want to do. I use WW more though because I love the MODIS feature and NLT Landsat7. I also really enjoyed the Astrobiology Field Guide too. Obviously I'm biased more towards WW because I like the scientfic aspects better.

[Darksun]

I'm not all that impressed with GE. I find it a LOT slower than Worldwind in downloading and displaying images, and I also don't find the control asnice (it seems backwards to me for some reason, and it's motion isn't as fluid).

Being able to locate restaurants and such could be considered a useful feature, but I can just use Google's web-based searchs, and probably be able to do it faster. Besides, that can be added to WW, if someone was bored enough to collect the data.

Pros of GE are, obviously, their better data resources (although it's still lacking in places where I know there are images - I wish people wouldn't be so stringent with their image copyrights :(). I also quite like the 3D buildings.

Other than that, though, I think Worldwind is superiour. Now, do you think Microsoft are going to release their offerings for free?

[Darksun]

(Sorry for the double post)

I just discovered the direction/route finder feature. Pretty damn groovy, but without decent maps of the UK it's not really competing in clarity with other software I use for that.

[gisuser]

I have tried both products and can't recommend WW for students. Google Earth is easy to use and can be extended to display a variety of information. I would suggest the WW community take a closer look at the google offering and figure out how to work with google to extend their product. As an educator, I plan to recommend my students download the free Google Earth program.


Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 03:20 AM
It's interesting.. though I am not keen on the interface.. I found using it clumbersome... and it actually uses MORE resources than WW does.. never once saw it below 150mb ram use.. where WW is 80Mb average.

The 3D models are interesting.. if a bit bland and cold feeling.
Quoted post

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by gisuser@Jun 28 2005, 10:04 PM
I have tried both products and can't recommend WW for students. Google Earth is easy to use and can be extended to display a variety of information. I would suggest the WW community take a closer look at the google offering and figure out how to work with google to extend their product. As an educator, I plan to recommend my students download the free Google Earth program.
Quoted post

Why do you feel WW can't be extended?

Please talk more about what you feel....otherwise we can't improve :)

[withak]

I think the most useful difference between the two is the ability to put the map data and street names over the satellite pictures.

Also, I wonder why they seem to use the b&w USGS imagery for most of Indiana, but the color, lower resolution (Landsat, I suppose?) pictures everwhere else (or everywhere that doesn't have higher res data from somewhere else). I quess they don't want most of the US to appear in black & white.s

[aussiemac]

I agree with you about WW's "bedside manner"
what's up doc? That's no bull!

Now we can see all the "big wheels"

[TomServo]

Originally posted by gisuser@Jun 28 2005, 05:04 PM
I have tried both products and can't recommend WW for students. Google Earth is easy to use and can be extended to display a variety of information. I would suggest the WW community take a closer look at the google offering and figure out how to work with google to extend their product. As an educator, I plan to recommend my students download the free Google Earth program.
Quoted post


Ok.. enlighten us then... I have played with GE off an on today and found the interface kind of clumbersome. and the lack of caching data bad especially on my modem at home.. it is next to unuseable.

But the free version doesn't offer nearly what you can get in WW with add-on data and plug-ins. I didn't see anything showing me where earthquakes have happened in the last 20 minutes.

I don't think your giving WW that fair of a chance to be honest. :) What everyone seems to think, especially people on the GE forums, is that it is all about the imagery and who has more of the higher resolution.

WW is MUCH, MUCH more than just an application to show you imagery. It is a way to also convey other data and information to people.

(And to be honest.. we can add in 90+% of what GE and VE will have into WW)

[aussiemac]

Tom,
WW is great!
But by the time all the features everyone wants are incorporated by the
"magnificient seven". Australia will have won the world cup!

Any realtime data, that is on the web, earthquakes, weather, webcams,
can be overlayed, polled and refreshed automatically - now - on GE.

I'm looking at the radar map with heavy rain for my area now.

In a couple of weeks, the MSN mob ( an aussie word) will come up with
something better.

I bet the Europeans will have some ESA stuff soon too.

WW has to surprise us with enriched content - perhaps live camera from the
space shuttle or something only NASA has access to.

[withak]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 06:06 PM
I don't think your giving WW that fair of a chance to be honest. :) What everyone seems to think, especially people on the GE forums, is that it is all about the imagery and who has more of the higher resolution.
Quoted post


For most people it is. :)

[Guest]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM
minutes.

I don't think your giving WW that fair of a chance to be honest. :) What everyone seems to think, especially people on the GE forums, is that it is all about the imagery and who has more of the higher resolution.

Quoted post

Does it matter either way?
Google earth had even the small road where grandparents house is in their map, they offer much more overlays, they have a blogging feature, show vulcanos and earthquakes, railraods, ect.
Allthewhile WWs "superiour community features" break with every patch, dont even get the name of my hometown, slow the programm down to a crawl with mit than a handfull icons at once and need 10 seconds to draw country boundaries even though they are on harddisk. Not to mention the loading lag causing studdering right and left.

AND they have a vastly superious image quality everywhere outside the USA.

The only downside is the 512MB cache limitation.

[Nowak]

Originally posted by Guest@Jun 29 2005, 02:55 PM
AND they have a vastly superious image quality everywhere outside the USA.
Quoted post


Except for New Zealand :D

[TomServo]

Originally posted by Guest+Jun 29 2005, 07:55 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jun 29 2005, 07:55 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>Does it matter either way?
Google earth had even the small road where grandparents house is in their map, they offer much more overlays, they have a blogging feature, show vulcanos and earthquakes, railraods, ect.
[/b]

Earthquakes - Got and my stuff is better anyway
Volcanoes - Got that
Blogging - meh.. easy enough to add in
Railroads - Working on that

Have you really compared all the add-ons to what you can see in GE? Or are you going by just the default install of WW?

Originally posted by Guest@Jun 29 2005, 07:55 AM
Allthewhile WWs "superiour community features" break with every patch, dont even get the name of my hometown, slow the programm down to a crawl with mit than a handfull icons at once and need 10 seconds to draw country boundaries even though they are on harddisk. Not to mention the loading lag causing studdering right and left.


Which are in ALPHA and BETA tests. Not production version. :) Alpha and Beta are expected to break and change. :)

As for the slowdown and everything.. that is system related more than WW related. The min-specs for the system are posted. I load up 2400 Earthquake markers without a blink.. largest image load currently in WW.

<!--QuoteBegin-Guest@Jun 29 2005, 07:55 AM
AND they have a vastly superious image quality everywhere outside the USA.

Quoted post
[/quote]

And they paid for it, and you pay for it (if you use the non-free version) ..

We can go round and round on this.. but as it has been said.. each has it's market and we are not worried about WW's place or even about falling behind feature wise as there is nothing really orignal in GE or VE.

The only area to work on is imagery and as soon as Bill Gates loans us the money for our own sat... ;)

[TomServo]

Originally posted by Nowak@Jun 29 2005, 09:01 AM
Except for New Zealand :D
Quoted post


And /when/ will that imagery be comeplete? :)

[Jaimera]

I don't want do defend WW or GE but both has its advantages:

- WW were made as free source code - it give us the chance to create our own addons and add our own imagery. The satelite imagery had taken from public access galleries.

- GE has excelent imagery especialy around the world. The imagery is paid (not in free edition, but in other versions it is), because they have their own satellites or had bought imagery from satellites companies.

So we can decide what is best for our use.

I use both - GE to world and WW for USA or vice versa.

What we must to do is what TomServo said: Let's ask Bill Gates to donate a powerful imagery satelite to WW project. Or we can save money to buy one (wow, we need lot of money!).

[theborghomeworld]

Looks like GE (the free version) is holding off on its downloads for now. As of 6/30/05, you'll get a message:

. . . . .

Google Earth downloads temporarily delayed

Thanks for your interest in Google Earth, but we're sorry we can't offer you a download right now. As you know, Google Earth is in beta, and we're still building out our ability to take on new users. We're making good progress, and expect to be able to accept new downloads shortly, so we recommend you check back daily at earth.google.com. We hope to be able to welcome you and other new planet surfers soon.

We appreciate your patience,

The Google Earth Team

. . . . .

Maybe those legendary google server farms aren't enough for now...


Thus, I havn't tried GE yet, but in any case, I love WW since I can visualize all the scientific data. =)


PS: I tried to post this earlier, but I have no idea where it went...hopefully a moderator can delete it if it's in some wierd spot...

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by theborghomeworld@Jun 30 2005, 11:23 PM
PS: I tried to post this earlier, but I have no idea where it went...hopefully a moderator can delete it if it's in some wierd spot...
Quoted post

Dunno, I can't see it. Infact, you've apparently got 3 posts but even I can only see 1.

Spooky! :P

(Unless my memory's going bad, but I don't remember deleting any. I'd blame that dodgy-looking Bull character if I were you.)

[bull]

Yup it was me, :P

[XSTREM]

I just love WW. I havent tried GE yet, but I will do it now :)

[pronvit]

GE's imagery is much better (for outside of USA and I'm from Russia so I'm not interested much in images of USA) and it works much faster however it doesn't have so large placenames database and other [user-defined] layers.
Also big plus for it is that (according to dlls in installation folder) it uses cross-platform libraries (Qt, CURL, expat, OpenGL) so I think they will make Linux/Mac version soon.

[SkyNet]

Originally posted by pronvit@Jul 4 2005, 11:19 AM
GE's imagery is much better (for outside of USA and I'm from Russia so I'm not interested much in images of USA)Â* and it works much faster however it doesn't have so large placenames database and other [user-defined] layers.
Also big plus for it is that (according to dlls in installation folder) it uses cross-platform libraries (Qt, CURL, expat, OpenGL) so I think they will make Linux/Mac version soon.

They said they are working on a Mac version.

As far as placenames, you can add a layer that displays all the places found by the keyhole community. Go to Tools > Layers and the check off the Keyhole community BBS. There are tons and tons of placemarks and locations and when you click on them it will open the thread in the keyhole forums pertaining to what you clicked on.

[pronvit]

Originally posted by SkyNet@Jul 5 2005, 05:22 AM
They said they are working on a Mac version.

As far as placenames, you can add a layer that displays all the places found by the keyhole community. Go to Tools > Layers and the check off the Keyhole community BBS. There are tons and tons of placemarks and locations and when you click on them it will open the thread in the keyhole forums pertaining to what you clicked on.
Quoted post


yes, i know, but in ww there is big searchable database and in GE search implemented not good enough

[5of0]

Originally posted by pronvit@Jul 5 2005, 01:58 AM
yes, i know, but in ww there is big searchable database and in GE search implemented not good enough
Quoted post

And WW's search is better, you say? How bad can it be? :rolleyes:

[pronvit]

Originally posted by 5of0@Jul 6 2005, 03:36 AM
And WW's search is better, you say? How bad can it be? :rolleyes:
Quoted post


what is bad in it?

[5of0]

It's just pretty klunky, picky, and not very optionful. I'm not complaining, at least it works. :)

[ErkDog]

I still haven't gotten a chance to try out GE.

I didn't find out about technology like this until July 1st, lol.

I do <3 WW though, it's badassed.

I do find it somewhat hard to figure out how to customize WW, alot of the Addons seem to be hard to use, or are for the 1.2 version of WW, and nothing indicates that, so I try to install them, and of course they don't work, lol.

There should be a clear indication of which Addons work in what versions of WW.

[5of0]

A new add-on system planned, with version info and more. There's been quite a discussion about it on the mailing list, it may be a while before it becomes reality, but it's in the future.

[bob_cat]

I tried out WW some time ago, I found GE recently, I tried WW again just now.

GE is easy to navigate (despite some comments made here), it has good resolution for no initial financial cost.

On my corporate network it was fast and on my home broadband it was good enough. Upon installing it I zoomed into my office in London and overlayed the streets with one click. I typed in the search box for the Philidelphia Museum of Art and it took me there, I overlayed the buildings with one click.

Thats all lots of fun, but then I wanted to overlay an image for work use. I zoomed to a region, selected an image to add and then manually moved it to match up with the borders. With just a few clicks it was there and I could adjust the transparancy with... one click.

Having just loaded up WW, I zoomed in... to Europe.... and then it stuck. I looked through the menus and saw no clues about how to get a better view, I clicked on a few more image types and saw nothing.

No doubt my comments will be recieved with any great joy, but intuative interfaces are the heart of good programming and a good product. Had I been able to achieve the same results with WW in the same time I could have explored its greater potential. I appreciate it has greater potential, but when I can make so much progress so quickly and I can actually improve my work productivity as a result I am impressed. When I am impressed I invest, and I may well invest in GE. I don't have time to play.

I don't frequent this forum, but if anyone cares my email address is: bob@orbit.me.uk
Don't flame, because this isn't a troll its a genuine comment.

[dezajn]

The biggest weak point of WW is simple: imagery. Welle exept for the us.

But after testing GE I have to say that I'm disappointed by it. The images are good most of the time and often great but sometime that far from it. The tiles used are stiched from different origins it seem and the borders could became very bad sometimes. With WW it's not as precise but the colors are more consistent.
You must choose a satellite and change from one to another to get what you want but you can get more in worldwind.

I found something very disturbinig: is it me or is GE blur the edges of the screen ? The center is clear and the border all blurry :angry: (I work in 1920*1440 perhaps GE give a clear area (800*600) then blur the rest. Well... even if you have a good picture, if you blur 50% of the screen it's simply bad.

I have found the interface clumsy. WW is not perfect but when you now that spacebar is reset tilt/orientation. It became very intuitive. (A zoom bar or visual information of the curent zoom level would still be nice)

The favorites places are nice in GE but I'm sure they will be as well in the next WW version (already useable in current betas)

In GE the roads layer is nice but i won't use most of the others (cofee/retails/gas...)
All the others informations could already be added in worldwind.

GE force you to screensize when you want to save a picture. A script could help you take >10000*10000 pictures in WW.

You could add things in WW, and create things. It's not really user-friendly but it's easier than in a proprietary programm.

Why GE cache (<512mo) is so small, why ??

My opinion in short:
GE is a nice package that could display nice (close-up) pictures and informations. The program is "general-public" oriented.

WW isn't fully grown today but could already do many things and some better than GE.

I keep both for now.

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by bob_cat@Jul 9 2005, 04:23 PM
I don't frequent this forum, but if anyone cares my email address is: bob@orbit.me.uk
Quoted post

Well if you want info on WW you better frequent the forum. Just as you don't have time to play, I don't have time to mollycoddle people because they've openly admitted they don't read documentation ;)

Nonetheless, thanks for your comments. The interface is a personal preference - as you see, the poster below you prefers GE to WW.

And about the imagery....GE has more imagery than WW, because it's commercial stuff. So WW will 'just stop', because it jsut doesn't have any more imagery. Much like GE would 'just stop' once you zoom in too far.

Perhaps you had a connection / proxy problem though. WW is still a bit iffy about those.

[Lance]

I started using google earth before world wind, But have now used both a lot (I have over 4 GB of imagery in my WW cache). Id have to say they both have thier place.

[PJ]

Originally posted by TomServo+Jun 28 2005, 03:20 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TomServo @ Jun 28 2005, 03:20 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>It's interesting.. though I am not keen on the interface.. I found using it clumbersome... and it actually uses MORE resources than WW does.. never once saw it below 150mb ram use.. where WW is 80Mb average.
[/b]

Yeah, but WW takes up a ton of installed space, and it requires .Net and other guff. Google Earth uses much less space.

<!--QuoteBegin-TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 03:20 AM
The 3D models are interesting.. if a bit bland and cold feeling.
Quoted post
[/quote]

A temoprary gimick - they are building a scanner van to actually scan major US cities in much greater detail (Google are planning on world domination it seems!)

[Guest]

Originally posted by TheBeansprout@Jun 28 2005, 03:04 AM
As expected, they've left just the images for free and added in the real functionality for $.

WW is catching those features, slowly but surely :)
Quoted post

There is not once of those features I would need or pay for.

Except perhaps live coverage, but I guess that is decades away :)

[Guest]

Originally posted by Darksun@Jun 28 2005, 01:25 PM
I'm not all that impressed with GE. I find it a LOT slower than Worldwind in downloading and displaying images, and I also don't find the control asnice (it seems backwards to me for some reason, and it's motion isn't as fluid).


Probably what you are used to, I started with GE and just tried WW (on a machine which has .Net) and i think its interface sucks. But then I'm not a scientist nerd, but just a driveby looker from the heavens :)

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by Guest@Jul 12 2005, 07:56 PM
Except perhaps live coverage, but I guess that is decades away :)
Quoted post

For simultaneous access, yeah.

But if you wanted your own personal satellite, and have a few billion to spare, no problem B)

[PJ]

Originally posted by TomServo+Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TomServo @ Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>Ok.. enlighten us then... I have played with GE off an on today and found the interface kind of clumbersome. and the lack of caching data bad especially on my modem at home.. it is next to unuseable.[/b]

I don't know why he likes it, but I like the way you can easily bookmark places, write comments (with html markup including links), email the bookmark or place it on the desktop as a file (to double click to immediately zoom too)

And what lack of caching? Sure you are not just getting impatient with your 28k modem? Google Earth caches (disk cache) up to half a gig depending on your settings.

Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM
But the free version doesn't offer nearly what you can get in WW with add-on data and plug-ins. I didn't see anything showing me where earthquakes have happened in the last 20 minutes.


Ah, but two things: 1. Who cares *g* - no seriously, I would guess a lot of people would be interested if they could see realltime pictures - but since pictures are months or years old its not that interesting for most people (however, there is an "Earthquake" layer - though i haven't checked it out)

However

2. Make it so! Google Earth Placemarks, or KML file, structure is open and doucmented. Its not just for one specific location, but but can include a lot of places (they will show up in the interface grouped together in a folder in the favorites window - the user can either select individually or he can "tour" them, having the program fly from each point to the next) - one can also add graphics and pictures to such a file.
Someone with access to earthquake data could generate a KML (which is simply an xml file), including photograps of the affected areas and make the KML file available for download. People could "open" it from the website via a browser for instance and once down it would launch GE which would jump to the place.
With two hops and a skip someone could make a RSS solution I bet *G*
Code.google.com links to the tutorial (http://www.keyhole.com/kml/kml_tut.html) at And the full documentation (http://www.keyhole.com/kml/kml_doc.html)

Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM
I don't think your giving WW that fair of a chance to be honest. :) What everyone seems to think, especially people on the GE forums, is that it is all about the imagery and who has more of the higher resolution.


Sure it is - we want to be able to zoom in on a beach and see BOOBIES! :lol:

<!--QuoteBegin-TomServo@Jun 28 2005, 04:06 PM
WW is MUCH, MUCH more than just an application to show you imagery. It is a way to also convey other data and information to people.
[/quote]

You are a bit naive if you think Google would spend money on this just to show people imagery. They are already showing tons of information to people, mostly just american people at the moment, but its in beta - they have already stuff like resturants, trainstations, atm machines, parks, stadiums, movie rentals, grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, bars,clubs, lodings, golf courses, churches cemeteries, airports, city boundaries, postal code boundaries, country boundaries and more weird stuff like cloud cover.

I suspect their goal is to make a sort of world yellow pages where people pay to get listed.

But each to his own :)

I also supect its like Linux and Windows. Most will use GE and a core group will shake their heads and say that WW is much better :)

[Guest]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jun 29 2005, 07:19 AM
As for the slowdown and everything.. that is system related more than WW related. The min-specs for the system are posted. I load up 2400 Earthquake markers without a blink.. largest image load currently in WW.
And they paid for it, and you pay for it (if you use the non-free version) ..
Quoted post


If by "paid for it" you talk about image quality then no, with the free version we get much better pictures than what WW has shown (here in europe)

[Beansprout]

- A 512Mb cache is pitiful for a dataset which is in the hundred of Gb.
- You can fly between places with WW + addons etc. Search the forums for "Skripter", it's a handy tool.

GE is much more mature with regards to bookmarks and flythroughs and scripting, but WW is catching quickly.

Fun times B)

[TomServo]

Originally posted by Guest@Jul 12 2005, 03:34 PM
If by "paid for it" you talk about image quality then no, with the free version we get much better pictures than what WW has shown (here in europe)
Quoted post


*sighs* That's what I mean. Google has PAID to get that imagery. If they didn't pay, they would have no different than WW.

Actually, most of the imagery they use is LandSat images just processed to give a "greater" detail and we will have that in WW as soon as some more research is completed.

Greater resolution of cities is all that is really missing, and we are also working on that as well.

But imagery is not everything.. And that is where WW passes anything GE has. Just in the shere volume of data that is more use to more people.

GE is meant for a casual user, whereas more and more researchers and educators are looking at WW.

We could go on forever.. but it remains that GE/VE are the only real competitors to each other where WW is going for a different market.

[withak]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jul 12 2005, 03:46 PM

Actually, most of the imagery they use is LandSat images just processed to give a "greater" detail and we will have that in WW as soon as some more research is completed.

Actually, in a lot of areas in the US, WW is better. GE seems to use Landsat for rural areas where there isn't higher resolution available while WW has the USGS 1m ortho in those areas. Maybe Google didn't want large parts of the country to appear in black & white so they didn't use the USGS 1m images?

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by withak@Jul 12 2005, 10:47 PM
Actually, in a lot of areas in the US, WW is better. GE seems to use Landsat for rural areas where there isn't higher resolution available while WW has the USGS 1m ortho in those areas. Maybe Google didn't want large parts of the country to appear in black & white so they didn't use the USGS 1m images?
Quoted post

Interesting, didn't notice that.

[withak]

Here's what my parents' neighborhood (middle of nowhere in central Illinois) looks like in WW (left) and GE (right).

http://www.spiralseisiun.com/erik/ww-ge.jpg

[Guest]

I hope World Wind doesn't opt for blogging.. What do we need blogs for with a scientific program such as this. Let's stick with the plugin system. I could really care less if World Wind shows me where the closest McDonalds is.

I hope World Wind improves upon the weather layer and adds road overlays. Either way, atleast World Wind doesn't assume what imagery I want to view.

[SkyNet]

I think some of the 1m USGS imagery is pretty old. Example: Zooming into Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium is still standing and that has been demolished since 1997 and the Olympic stadium/Turner Field is not even under construction yet. Also the World Trade Center in NYC still stands in 1m USGS Ortho.

[TomServo]

Originally posted by withak@Jul 13 2005, 08:10 PM
Here's what my parents' neighborhood (middle of nowhere in central Illinois) looks like in WW (left) and GE (right).

http://www.spiralseisiun.com/erik/ww-ge.jpg
Quoted post



I prefer colorizing my own pictures.. they look much better :)

[attachmentid=1071]

Granted I only do small areas like this one above. My method is not recomended for large scale areas B)

But I zoomed in to get the detail I needed in USGS, and then saved the image. Then flipped to NLT LandSat and saved the same zoom level to get the color I needed.

Then some photoshoping and here we go. Looks MUCH better than the hacked up LandSat Pansharpening GE uses.. ;)

I am sure with some more research, we can produce a better looking / sharpe detail version of LandSat. But it will take time.

[google earth]

first thing i think GE is better cause it has hi resolution pic all over the world while WW has hi res. pic in the us only
2nd GE has cameras in the us where u can watch the world in present time
3rd GE installer size is only 10mb no 180mb!!!!!
4th GE can find resturants,bars,clubs,stadiums,earthquak es,banks,movierentals,gasstations,school and a lot more!!!!!
5th GE which is free has a lot of advanced features so u dont even need to buy the 20$ version

NASA'S WORLD WIND
hi res. pic. in a few parts of the us
no cameras or live view
180mb installion file size!!!
NOT recommended for begginers
cant find a thing with it
takes a lot more time downloading pic than GE
well i hope u changed ur minds

;)

[SkyNet]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 14 2005, 12:03 AM
2nd GE has cameras in the us where u can watch the world in present time


lol

[TomServo]

Was going to mark this as a troll and delete it...


first thing i think GE is better cause it has hi resolution pic all over the world while WW has hi res. pic in the us only


Um, switch "all over" with "High rest of some cities in the world" Which WW foesn't have. But we have explained 3.5 million times why already.


2nd GE has cameras in the us where u can watch the world in present time


Damn! You made me spew my drink! Where did you pull that from? Dude, where did you get the Hollywood version of GE?


3rd GE installer size is only 10mb no 180mb!!!!!


And with 1.3.2's release the WW installer will be about 15mb and maybe even down to 5mb if some other stuff is taken out and delivered via a download. The reason for the size, again covered 3.5 million times already i that the current WW has the Blue Marble images and Placename data included in the download. That is about 150mb of data right there.


4th GE can find resturants,bars,clubs,stadiums,earthquak es,banks,movierentals,gasstations,school and a lot more!!!!!


And if you need GE to do that... it is a neat function.. but if that is ALL your using it for.. you are greatly missing the TRUE impact of how to use these tools. Which, yet again, shows the major differences between GE and WW.


5th GE which is free has a lot of advanced features so u dont even need to buy the 20$ version


WW has always had advanced and neat features and much more data and has always been free. Point being? :) (And your not buying.. your "leasing".. stop paying and you loose all the data)


NASA'S WORLD WIND
hi res. pic. in a few parts of the us


Again, covered 3.5 million times already.


no cameras or live view


They DON'T EXIST outside top secret government groups and the movies. And more the movies than government.


180mb installion file size!!!


Again, that will be cut in 1.3.2.



NOT recommended for begginers


Really? Howso? over 3 million downloads and we only average a few dozzen questions a day.. beginners seem to understand how to use WW for the most part.


cant find a thing with it


Did you try? And what thing were you looking for? If you need a global mapping program to locate a starbucks.. you should get out more...


takes a lot more time downloading pic than GE
well i hope u changed ur minds

;)
Quoted post


Really? I download faster in WW .. I can take the same view in both and be enjoying it a while before GE is done streaming.

Also, GE doesn't seem to alow for alternative data sources.. So, while in WW you can view 10cm resolution of NY State, Montana, some parts of Itally.. and 2' resolution of New Zeland.. Your stuck with what you can get in GE.

If you have no idea what I am talking about.. search the forum.

[Sacha]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 14 2005, 09:03 AM
first thing i think GE is better cause it has hi resolution pic all over the world while WW has hi res. pic in the us only
2nd GE has cameras in the us where u can watch the world in present time
3rd GE installer size is only 10mb no 180mb!!!!!
4th GE can find resturants,bars,clubs,stadiums,earthquak es,banks,movierentals,gasstations,school and a lot more!!!!!
5th GE which is free has a lot of advanced features so u dont even need to buy the 20$ version

NASA'S WORLD WIND
hi res. pic. in a few parts of the us
no cameras or live view
180mb installion file size!!!
NOT recommended for begginers
cant find a thing with it
takes a lot more time downloading pic than GE
well i hope u changed ur minds

;)
Quoted post


Quicky, because Tom said already everything I think, and arguments are iron made.

First, stop to confond, mingle the programs and the imagery. Imagery change (Google recently with V2 or WW with its new datas), and many of it are the same. The algorythms are different for landsat7, but the data are the same, and levels of accuracy defer according to legal rights. But some are better in WW, others in GM.
I think that soon, we will have same datas or almost.

For the moment, we are waiting for the only solid argument advantage at GM, the world's 1.m data for known cities and little pieces of country in other places than USA. But I repeat, it's only imagery. And like Tom said, the choice is open on WW, with different modes, and closed on GM, where imagery is imposed.

If we speak about programs itselves, GM is down. You are using satellites imagery to search for a Toyota car dealer ? To get a italian restaurant to seduce the college beauty queen ? I should be interested to get statistics about GM using.

But one thing is clear : If we don't speak about imagery but software, the great educational evolutive program WW, haven't to be compare with this little opportunist commercial viewer tool. Their ways don't reach.

[google earth]

what's the use of WW?
see fires,and zoom into earth to see streets and houses and that's all

"Damn! You made me spew my drink! Where did you pull that from? Dude, where did you get the Hollywood version of GE?"
naw that's from the free version of GE just select 'user supplied collection'
and there will be loads of camera in NY washiingtondc,california,nevada and many more
i can't belive ur comparing GE to WW
just give GE a try :P

[SkyNet]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 14 2005, 07:06 PM
what's the use of WW?
see fires,and zoom into earth to see streets and houses and that's all

"Damn! You made me spew my drink! Where did you pull that from? Dude, where did you get the Hollywood version of GE?"
naw that's from the free version of GE just select 'user supplied collection'
and there will be loads of camera in NY washiingtondc,california,nevada and many more
i can't belive ur comparing GE to WW
just give GE a try :P
Quoted post


Whoa dude that's awesome, too bad in World Wind 2.0 they are going to add remote access to all the Closed Circuit Television Systems in the entire United States, so we can zoom into New York and then access the camera systems and watch street traffic and people getting off and on the subways. We can also zoom into buildings and watch people do thier work and even zoom into thier computer screens and see what they are typing! Dont tell Google, but NASA has 350 satellites in space just for WorldWind they can zoom in so close we can tell what color peoples' hair is its going to be awesome.

[google earth v.s World wind]

i think GE is good also WW is good so i use both
NASA hi res. pic in the us are better in the us better than GE
while GE has hi res pic all over the world
i use both so i think they are equal
:)

[5of0]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 14 2005, 06:06 PM
what's the use of WW?
see fires,and zoom into earth to see streets and houses and that's all
Quoted post

Off the top of my head, here are a few great things about world wind: you could also see weather conditions for your area, watch hurricanes, check out the cool terrian you'll be trekking next summer, find wifi spots in your area, see where the International Space Station is, teach your students geography and actually have them interested, find out where earthquakes, the latest and in history, have been and what they were, look at where you went with your GPS unit, find all the speed-check stations in France, search for schools, visualize where in France lance armstrong is, find out all kinds of stuff about places through wikipedia, check out the NASCAR tracks, and did I mention admire this big blue marble we live on?
Check out the add-ons, plugins, 1.3.2 beta, world wind is only going to get better. Not bad for a product developed in a large part by volunteers, and totally free.
Most of the functionality you mentioned can be added, the data just needs to be gathered and popped in. This is a major strength of WW - since it's open source, it can easily be expanded by anyone. I'm an avid google fan, but I'll side with WW on this one.

[aussiemac]

4000 views in five weeks.
Keeps the pot boiling.
I guess that's what forums are for!

[5of0]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jul 13 2005, 06:48 PM
I prefer colorizing my own pictures.. they look much better :)

[attachmentid=1071]

Granted I only do small areas like this one above. My method is not recomended for large scale areas B)

But I zoomed in to get the detail I needed in USGS, and then saved the image. Then flipped to NLT LandSat and saved the same zoom level to get the color I needed.

Then some photoshoping and here we go. Looks MUCH better than the hacked up LandSat Pansharpening GE uses.. ;)

I am sure with some more research, we can produce a better looking / sharpe detail version of LandSat. But it will take time.
Quoted post

Actually, I prefer GIMPing it:
http://forum.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index....wtopic=2303&hl= (http://forum.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.php?showtopic=2303&hl=)

[adamhill]

But World Wind has a Hooter's Locator Add-On :)

http://www.brains-n-brawn.com/cfWorldWind

[TomServo]

Originally posted by 5of0@Jul 14 2005, 11:38 PM
Actually, I prefer GIMPing it:
http://forum.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index....wtopic=2303&hl= (http://forum.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.php?showtopic=2303&hl=)
Quoted post


I was never very good at using Gimp though... been using photoshop for over 10 years now...

[TomServo]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 14 2005, 09:06 PM
what's the use of WW?
see fires,and zoom into earth to see streets and houses and that's all

"Damn! You made me spew my drink! Where did you pull that from? Dude, where did you get the Hollywood version of GE?"
naw that's from the free version of GE just select 'user supplied collection'
and there will be loads of camera in NY washiingtondc,california,nevada and many more
i can't belive ur comparing GE to WW
just give GE a try :P
Quoted post


Man.. you really are not looking much at all then in WW.. or at many of the plugins. WW is working out to be a GREAT data delevery application.. gigs of data and that is NOT counting imagery at your finger tips.

The second part.. um, how do I put this... *thwap* those are WEB CAM links.
And you can put that into WW too. Sheesh, get your termonolgy straight before making claims.

Reminds me though.. need to finish up my Great Lakes Data add-on.. and it has web cam links too.. *shock* :P

I have tried GE.. I have it up right now.. and to be honest.. it is ok but doesn't give me what I need in a viewing application. :)

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by google earth@Jul 15 2005, 02:06 AM
what's the use of WW?
see fires,and zoom into earth to see streets and houses and that's all

"Damn! You made me spew my drink! Where did you pull that from? Dude, where did you get the Hollywood version of GE?"
naw that's from the free version of GE just select 'user supplied collection'
and there will be loads of camera in NY washiingtondc,california,nevada and many more
i can't belive ur comparing GE to WW
just give GE a try :P
Quoted post

Given that you also posted this in this thread:

i think GE is good also WW is good so i use both
NASA hi res. pic in the us are better in the us better than GE
while GE has hi res pic all over the world
i use both so i think they are equal

I advise you to stop spamming.

And even if that second post wasn't you, I still advise you to drop the stupid attitude. Thanks.

[WWG]

Originally posted by TomServo@Jul 15 2005, 08:25 AM
Man.. you really are not looking much at all then in WW.. or at many of the plugins. WW is working out to be a GREAT data delevery application.. gigs of data and that is NOT counting imagery at your finger tips.


I initially downloaded WW a month ago and had fun working some weather applications. I then downloaded GE and was not impressed. The patchwork openning image of Conus is ugly. I fiddled with it a bit and went back to WW. Since then I went back to GE and dove into some of those "patches". I've been there ever since. I don't think the WW community should dismiss the high res imagry in GE too quickly. It is very intoxicating to view. GE's high res is not just metroplitan areas, it is adding more areas almost daily and includes some of the most spectactular scenery in the world. Last week I dove into Sedona, Az. and "flew" the Oak Creek Canyon north of Sedona at the height of the Mogollon Rim. Absolutely fantastic. I stopped at the Junipine Resort and looked west at the AB Young trail snaking up the canyon wall. I hiked that trial 18 months ago. I could see and almost feel the texture of the rocks and shrubs along the trail, note the boulders I sat on while huffing and puffing my way up the trail, stopped where the trail gets to the Rim and looked back toward Sedona to see the same view I saw from the real trail. Those are powerful images. (The "flying" in GE is much smoother, even in high res, and more intuitive than WW.)

Take a tour of the Yellowstone area, stop at the Old Faithful Lodge and view and the multihued pools in the Geyser Basins. And the high res isn't just US. I noticed a high res patch north of Lima, Peru, (whcih is also in high res), and "flew" the length of a long canyon, reading the political graffiti carved into the sides of the mountains along the way. Earlier while working in WW I posted a link to a gigantic fold in the rocks in Northwestern Austrailia. I went to the same place in GE and it was in high res. Seeing the details of the geology from 1000' rather than 20,000' makes GE a powerful teaching tool.

Overlays and addon's seem to be coming along in GE also but so far they are not as sophicated as WW's. But I think they will come. At this point I spend most of my time exploring the world in GE and coming back to WW once in while to see what's new.

[dave]

Someone made an add on for South American dams. Very little detail in W Wind. I took the trouble to type all the coordinates into G*Earth. It produced some nice pictures with good resolution. So I now have a file I can run in G*earth. I find it reasonably fast with 2Mbits. It just slows down loading if you keep lots of files in the main programme. The secret is to keep them in another folder and run them when needed. Theres lots of information in the programme and stacks to look at if you use the BBS site. It's very easy to add place marks for points of interest and I've used them to plot all my family and relations whereabouts. Dead easy to send the file to anyone else. I still like to use W Wind and will continue to be a devotee. It's just a matter of using the right tool for the job...I also tried Virtualearth. Great for ALL the USA data. G*Earth also find places by Post Code in the UK. So bring them all on it's great fun. One thing I found with G*Earth you can zoom way down past the resolution limit and see the UK roads. Just wish I knew what they have done with our Scilly Isles and other places.

dave

[Matt007]

I Have It And It Rocks!

[Guest]

Really smart quote you got there matt007... cripes..

anyway I just started using GE today and was totally blown away.. sort of like when you are a kid and find something really cool and new. I will have to dl WW when i get home from uni as well. the scientific aspect and ability to add on sounds very good.
Poor New Zealand gets left out of any decent resolution at all in GE, i was happy there was some high res in Aus!
These programs make you realise jsut how many ppl are in the world, and so many great places to see!
Peace

[TomServo]

GE does have the advantage with it comes to imagery.. they have more high res of cities outside the US. But from what I have played with on GE.. that is it's one and only advantage.

IF you want to compare imagery data between the two..

GE:
* Reprocessed Landsat
* Cities outside the US
* Urban area of US cities
* Some 2 meter of the US

WW: (Default)
* LandSat 30m
* LandSat 15m Visable
* LandSat 15m Pseudo
* USGS Topo of all US
* USGS 1 meter of all US
* USGS Urban Area of some US Cities

* WW 1.4 release will also feature 2 new datasets
* WW 1.3.2/3 will also have a new dataset

WW: (Add-On)
* Montana Ortho of some of the state .3m I think
* All of New York State at .7m I think (still being processed)
* Good chunk of New Zeland in high res (still being processed though)
* Complete Urban area add-on (coveres Urban areas in the US not covered YET by terraserver)
* LaRioja, Spain in high res (the wine country I think it is)
* NOAA GIS maps of US water ways
* South Africa in high res (upcoming project)
* West Virgina in high res was just finished
* There is an add-on to also reprocess yourself the OnEarth LandSat for a NIR and NDVI view of the imagery. (google if you don't know what that is)
* Also adding other US states tot he list... it is easier getting that imagery because most if it is in the public domain. We are working on more of europe.

Well, that's all I can think off off the top of my head... I won't even go into the "non-imagery" add-ons :)

[pronvit]

Originally posted by TomServo@Aug 4 2005, 03:50 PM
* WW 1.4 release will also feature 2 new datasets
* WW 1.3.2/3 will also have a new dataset
Quoted post


can you give more details on this? :)

[TomServo]

Originally posted by pronvit@Aug 5 2005, 05:48 AM
can you give more details on this? :)
Quoted post



I could.. but I can't remember right now off the top of my head. :blink: Someone with a better memory than I will have to post what is upcoming... B)

[bull]

As I remember it the new sets we know of are - geocover 1990, geocover 2000 and nlt pseudo colour.

[withak]

Google just added a bunch new high-res pictures, including 6in/pixel of many cities and 1in/pixel of their headquarters. Does NASA have a pool? :)

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=71406

[bull]

Damn, anyone got a spare billion or so they could lend me so I can buy some imagery to donate to the public domain :P

[withak]

A pool would be cheaper.

I wonder if employees get to use the big NASA one when the astronauts aren't in it?

[pronvit]

The one thing in GE I can't live without is good cache and offline work..

[5of0]

Originally posted by pronvit@Aug 16 2005, 02:57 PM
The one thing in GE I can't live without is good cache and offline work..
Quoted post


Why can't you do such in World Wind? Just increase your cache size.

[aussiemac]

How's this for practical gps application.
Check-out Boulder Buses - real-time tracking online.
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.ph.../0/page/0#71294 (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/71294/an/0/page/0#71294)
I wonder if this could be converted to also run on worldwind?

[5of0]

Originally posted by aussiemac@Aug 16 2005, 03:24 PM
How's this for practical gps application.
Check-out Boulder Buses - real-time tracking online.
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.ph.../0/page/0#71294 (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/71294/an/0/page/0#71294)
I wonder if this could be converted to also run on worldwind?
Quoted post

Shouldn't be hard to do, considering it's C# with source.
How about the license:
PREAMBLE
This license agreement allows you to use the source code for internal research and
development. This means you are studying the code and using it to create additional code
for study, and that you are not:
· deploying the software for use by a corporation, business or organization (commercial
or non-commercial)
· using it to provide a service to a customer
· creating a product that will be used externally or internally, unless it is a product that will exist solely to be studied or compared with other code

This license agreement also allows you to create and own derivative products, and to redistribute the original source code and the derivative products, as long as they are distributed under the same conditions as specified in this agreement. Derivative products may be distributed commercially if you obtain a separate commercial license with the University of Colorado.
...
"Internal Research and Development" means testing, measuring, assessing, evaluating the
software and/or Derivative Work by You which is not for any commercial purpose.
...
2. GRANT OF LICENSE
CU grants, and You accept, a personal, nonexclusive, nontransferable license:
a) to use Software, at no charge, in accordance with the terms herein, solely for Internal Research and Development; and
b ) to develop Derivative Works that may be used solely for Internal Research and Development; and
c) to copy, distribute and sublicense Software and Derivative Works solely in accordance with the terms herein. Any Software or Derivative Works distributed shall be pursuant to a license agreement that contains all of the terms herein; and shall contain prominent notices stating how the Software, Derivative Works, or documentation were changed, the author and date of any such change and
d) You acknowledge that the Software is a valuable, proprietary asset of CU. You shall not
market or sell the Software or Derivative Works.
Adapting it to WW would definitely be a "Derivative Work" by their definition. It can be used "solely for Internal Research and Development", but I can "copy, districbute and subliscence" it into the ground.
So, can I (hypothetically) create a "Derivative Work" and then "copy and distribute" it here? :blink:

[aussiemac]

Originally posted by 5of0@Aug 17 2005, 09:29 AM
Shouldn't be hard to do, considering it's C# with source.
How about the license:

Adapting it to WW would definitely be a "Derivative Work" by their definition. It can be used "solely for Internal Research and Development", but I can "copy, districbute and subliscence" it into the ground.
So, can I (hypothetically) create a "Derivative Work" and then "copy and distribute" it here? :blink:
Quoted post


What about if I ask the author? (by email)

[5of0]

Originally posted by aussiemac@Aug 16 2005, 05:01 PM
What about if I ask the author? (by email)
Quoted post

What?? You mean you want to COMMUNICATE??? :P
Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it.

[aussiemac]

Originally posted by 5of0@Aug 17 2005, 10:09 AM
What?? You mean you want to COMMUNICATE??? :P
Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it.
Quoted post


I just did it!
I'll let you know what he says.
If he replys!

[pronvit]

Originally posted by 5of0@Aug 17 2005, 02:03 AM
Why can't you do such in World Wind? Just increase your cache size.
Quoted post


No,No, I mean that GE has bad cache and can't work offline and I can't live without this.

sorry for bad english..

[withak]

I also just noticed that Washington is uncensored now.

[aussiemac]

Originally posted by aussiemac@Aug 17 2005, 10:14 AM
I just did it!
I'll let you know what he says.
If he replys!
Quoted post


I never got a reply yet to my email about "boulder busses"
Maybe tomorrow....

[aussiemac]

I got this email from the developer of the GE software for Boulder Busses.
It's great stuff.
Hope some of you developers can work on it for WW.

"Re: boulder busses
From: AMag
That's fine with me, so long as they comply with the license agreement that's included with the source.

Worldwind is an interesting program. I'd never even heard of it until I got your message, but I'm looking through it right now. I'm impressed by some of the data that's available, and the freshness of some of this imagery.
Unless I'm missing something, though, it doesn't seem to have suffecient resolution for the bus tracking to be of much use, does it?"

Only problem is terraserver seems to be down again.
I can't get any urban area ortho for Boulder, Colorado at the moment.

[TomServo]

I don't think terraserver has the complete boulder area.. Never looked really. But if you have my usgs add-on you can get the imagery.


http://www.alteviltech.com/temp/boulder_colorado_sm.jpg (http://www.alteviltech.com/temp/boulder_colorado.jpg)
Click for full res

[aussiemac]

That's as good as GE.
Should be able to nearly see the driver's of the buses from there.

[SkyNet]

Originally posted by aussiemac@Aug 23 2005, 02:46 PM
That's as good as GE.
Quoted post


Probably because its the same data?

[aussiemac]

Originally posted by SkyNet@Aug 24 2005, 08:57 AM
Probably because its the same data?
Quoted post


I'm sure it is.
Pity we couldn't repeat the process for the rest of the world.

[TomServo]

Considering GE USES the USGS imagery for most the cities... it should be :)

I didn't zoom in all the way.. could have gotten another 300-400 meters closer I think.

[withak]

Someone has created a bunch of Google Earth overlays from aerial photographs from the news of the flooding in New Orleans.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.ph.../0/page/1#91346 (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/91346/an/0/page/1#91346)

Edit - Removed google image due to copyright issues.

[bull]

Should be easy enough to convert that to a WW add-on, if anyone feels like it.

[withak]

Screenshots cause copyright issues?

[bull]

Yep, screenshots of google earth aren't allowed, contact patrick.hogan.nasa.gov for more information, basically google lawyers are overzealous.

[m_k]

Originally posted by withak@Aug 31 2005, 05:12 PM
Screenshots cause copyright issues?
Quoted post
Strange, isn't it?

from http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer...1422&topic=1141 (http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=21422&topic=1141)
Can I post images to the web?
You can personally use an image from the application (for example on your website, on a blog or in a word document) as long as you preserve the copyrights and attributions including the Google logo attribution. However, you cannot sell these to others, provide them as part of a service, or use them in a commercial product such as a book or TV show without first getting a rights clearance from Google.
I would say that we can use screenshots from GE here (it's just "fair use" (?))

[TomServo]

There is a reason we took all the GE images out of the WWC hotspots site.. and it wasn't because we wanted to be nice. :\

[bull]

Yep m_k thats how I read it too, but we have to follow what Patrick Hogan tells us.

[withak]

I've just realized that I've posted dozens of GE screenshots at a number of internet forums in the last month or two. I hope Google's legal team doesn't have a "most wanted" list. :)

[5of0]

Originally posted by bull@Aug 31 2005, 08:06 AM
Should be easy enough to convert that to a WW add-on, if anyone feels like it.
Quoted post

Hmm, you're right looks pretty easy. And I feel like it, so I'll let you know how it goes. :)

[5of0]

Well, I've put together the first half of the KML file in a zip file (http://www.twobeds.com/upload/userfiles/5of0/Louisiana.zip), just unzip it into your World Wind 1.3 directory. The file contains some sized/stretched images, but GE has a "rotate" tag that doesn't exist in WW that makes it hard to get them aligned right. Even manually rotating them out of WW doesn't work right, because the boundaries change. But the "unplaced images" sublayer, with all the pictures on, makes a cool collage laid over louisiana and mississippi that looks pretty neat, and shows the devastation that Katrina left behind.
I don't plan to work on it in the immediate future, but I may come back to it.

[withak]

There's a notice on Digital Globe's website that they plan to get satellite images of the areas affected by the hurricane several times over the next week. I imagine that those will end up in GE as soon as Google can get them.

[TomServo]

noaa has them now... we just need to get them into a WMS and serve them..

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by withak@Sep 1 2005, 02:54 AM
There's a notice on Digital Globe's website that they plan to get satellite images of the areas affected by the hurricane several times over the next week. I imagine that those will end up in GE as soon as Google can get them.
Quoted post

I saw the BBC using DigitalGlobe imagery today, it was pretty cool.

But hey...WW will have them soon - Nowak (our GIS genius), Mangocrate (our NOAA contact) and nhv (our GIS genius and professional) are working on it :)

[noiv]

According to GE Blog (http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2005/09/google_releasin_1.html) pictures are ready to download for GE.

This 'download one file and get all stuff in once' feature makes
things very easy for user with GE. Simply click a file in internet,
GE opens and loads it into temporary layers.

May be I missed something - are there plans/ideas to do similar in WW?

[Guest]

Hmm, I'm not impressed. WW offers much, much more. It's also much more detailed, much faster... and SO much prettier. :D

The only thing that I found better is that clicking a layer in Google Earth's layer manager (they couldn't think up their own name for this, could they?) automatically turns on all the "sub-layers" of this layer. In WW, this doesn't happen with the user-created layers, at least not when I try it in my installation of WW.

[Beansprout]

Quick, someone copyright/patent the 'Layer Manager' :D

[withak]

Originally posted by Guest@Sep 4 2005, 02:38 PM

The only thing that I found better is that clicking a layer in Google Earth's layer manager (they couldn't think up their own name for this, could they?) automatically turns on all the "sub-layers" of this layer. In WW, this doesn't happen with the user-created layers, at least not when I try it in my installation of WW.
Quoted post


It's an option that the person who created the add-on can set. If the sub-layers default to off then it is most likely because having all of them come on at once would slow World Wind to a crawl.

[noiv]

Originally posted by Guest@Sep 4 2005, 10:38 PM
Hmm, I'm not impressed. WW offers much, much more. .... Quoted post You're right and I agree completely.

I only want to point out a single click in your browser is enough to extend GE and see the result.
It makes it easier a lot for users not even capable to use a forum. :)

Is it a big task to define a file extension (e.g. WWA (WW-Addon)),
WW loads as shell at runtime and extracts/installs instantly?

Just a proposal. -_-

[withak]

Another example of being one click away from just about any information.

http://www.mapdex.org/blog/1/2005/09/Mapde...ogleEarth-2.cfm (http://www.mapdex.org/blog/1/2005/09/Mapdex-in-GoogleEarth-2.cfm)

Mapdex has a huge index of public WMS layers, and they've recently added Google Earth network link icons to their search results page. I can do a search for "geology" (for example), and click a link to have a geologic map of Kentucky overlaid in GE, complete with the handy transparency slider.

It does look like they haven't found a good way for a legend to be included in an overlay though.

[canosso]

Hello noiv,

Originally posted by noiv@Sep 4 2005, 05:29 PM
You're right and I agree completely.

I only want to point out a single click in your browser is enough to extend GE and see the result.
It makes it easier a lot for users not even capable to use a forum. :)

Is it a big task to define a file extension (e.g. WWA (WW-Addon)),
WW loads as shell at runtime and extracts/installs instantly?

Just a proposal. -_-
Quoted post


Sorry for the self-praise, there is a Plugin: My favorite Icons (http://forum.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.php?showtopic=4584) where you can add icons and imports layers without loading them before, the file could also be sent, sorry at the moment not by mail. Yes the collection of the icon marks is at the moment lousy but could be enhanced in the future.

And WW supports links, GEarth not. There is also the altitude handling not so easy, like WW with DistanceAboveSurface for icons and Altitude for the URI to go this place.

canosso

[Quaver]

I have hit one simple advantage that WW has over Googlie.

Their imagery is Public Domain. Which mean my commission for earth flypasses in CG (dont ask, I think its complete crap but people seem to love it) doesnt require any money whatsoever to make it available for broadcast.

Those googlie boys have copywrited their imagery to the hilt.

Plus WW has a pretty, fluffy community of beavering coders :D That have been a ridiculous amount of help to me. CHeers guys (and gals)

Q

[withak]

Here is a network link (http://www.googleearthhacks.com/dlfile7423/3Dsolar.htm) for GE that adds overlays for the following:

Global IR 10km
Modis Rapid Response System
Modis Terra and Aqua
USGS Ortho 1m
USGS Topo
Landsat 7 IR1
US Navy Cloud Top



Loading them as overlays works slower than loading them as layers in WW, but that's a lot of new stuff that GE didn't have before.


edit: Actually, it's very slow.

[m_k]

Originally posted by withak@Sep 15 2005, 11:33 PM
Here is a network link (http://www.googleearthhacks.com/dlfile7423/3Dsolar.htm) for GE that adds overlays for the following:

Global IR 10km
Modis Rapid Response System
Modis Terra and Aqua
USGS Ortho 1m
USGS Topo
Landsat 7 IR1
US Navy Cloud Top
Loading them as overlays works slower than loading them as layers in WW, but that's a lot of new stuff that GE didn't have before.
edit: Actually, it's very slow.
Quoted post

I tried it 2 or 3 days ago... and it sucks :rolleyes:
very slow, sometimes it loads images (or should i say 'image' - cause very often you can see only one tile...) and sometimes not :|

[guy]

Originally posted by Julio.tx@Jun 28 2005, 05:26 AM
Hey dudes, what the fuss about it?
NAsa WW is customizable, and fun to play with, but will google earth play the same way?
Quoted post

nasa doesnt seem to show as clear in my opinion

[bob_cat]

I think the biggest challenge that I have faced with using WW is the fact that on my 1.3GHz tablet laptop it really doesn't work right. For some reason GE does run on lower speed platforms with only limited 3D ability. You could argue that I should be using a machine with a decent 3D card in, but I have three laptops and one Epia server, I don't need a 3D workstation.

Not sure when I'll attempt to use WW again, perhaps when I have a machine which can render faster.

[bull]

Well there was a pda port of world wind so maybe if it gets improved that may suit you better, and 1.5 which is in the design phase will be a total re-write so that may work better for you.

[Sandro]

Collection of 1000 file kmz of the best intersting place of the world with ge. Preview, image and photo from satellite. Fly to. Tutorials.

Ge (http://www.sandrodiremigio.com/google_earth_3d/google_earth_3d_tutorials_satellite_imag e_kmz.htm)

[bull]

Well its not too hard to load a lot of those kml's (the simple placemarks) into World Wind.

[Guest]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(google earth v.s World wind @ Jul 14 2005, 07:40 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
i think GE is good also WW is good so i use both
NASA hi res. pic in the us are better in the us better than GE
while GE has hi res pic all over the world
i use both so i think they are equal
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif
[/b][/quote]

Sory But i have to say ge Is way better Faster load times and it isnt as glitchy as ww. But i dont get where you can honestly say that ww has better res pics than ge I looked at where i work On ww and ge side by side First thing tto note is that it was the same picture on both programs Second the image was clearer by far with google so I will use ww for moon mars ect but for earth it is google all the way

[keyhole0815]

Hmm. Im living in germany. GE has become a huge tool. There were 2 updates with higher resolution. Some cities like Bremen are complete available in 15cm res with images of summer 2001.
And moste of the "empty" landscape is availalbe in resolutions between 30cm an 2m. And with the overlay for german streets it starts to scar me a bit style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif.

So there is just one point left for using ww. Ww can be used offline because of the cache packs.

[bull]

Remember the free GE is only for personal use, if you use it for work or education you must purchase a license, so I would argue that 'tool' is the wrong word, maybe 'toy' is better.

[TomServo]

Doesn't OneEarth have two high res datasets for all of Germany now? Or did we kill that server? ...

[withak]

Hey, the 3d modeling program that google bought a while ago has a free version now too.

http://sketchup.google.com/

[withak]

This is ridiculously easy to use. I did my parents house in about 20 minutes without knowing anything about the program. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/8033/house014fc.png

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4127/house026ru.png

[m_k]

Google Earth 4 BETA - for PC, Mac and Linux...
http://earth.google.com/earth4.html

[m_k]

New Beta (v4.0.2080)

* WMS support in image overlays
* time control

http://earth.google.com/earth4-beta4.html

[jimhenzy]

I have already reached 2GB of disk size in GE. Can I increase it above 2GB, e.g. 3GB or even 10GB?

[m_k]

I have already reached 2GB of disk size in GE. Can I increase it above 2GB, e.g. 3GB or even 10GB?
No, you can't.

[withak]

No. Google doesn't like people to have easy access to their data.

[Sachin]

Simple answer i support opensource.

[jp09]

Hi,
Just wanted to add a little contribution to Google Earth VS WorldWind comparison : the elevation data point of view...
http://www.ige.fr/worldwind/compWW-GE.php

Jean

[withak]

Nice. :) What program did you use for the last screenshot with the high-res DEM?

[m_k]

Aren't all screenshots from WW? (apart from the first one from GE) ;)

[withak]

With the higher-res DEM added? How?

[jp09]

With the higher-res DEM added? How?

Yes, they are all screenshots from WW... :cool:

... using more or less the same method than for the images
Our company developped its own set of tools to process the DTM and integrate it in WW.
Jean

[withak]

Wow. You should make a forums post or wiki page about that; there are a number of people interested in adding their own terrain data, but no one has managed to do it yet. :)

[ghchinoy]

Yes, they are all screenshots from WW... :cool:

... using more or less the same method than for the images
Our company developped its own set of tools to process the DTM and integrate it in WW.
Jean

Jean,

If you could write the basic steps needed to do that, I think everyone would really appreciate it! A "how to" guide would get a lot of people excited.

Thanks!

[what_nick]

Oh dstile can process dem's er ... with the dem option no one wants to use it ?

[TomServo]

I don't think anyone knows that

[what_nick]

You add a --dem switch during tiling and give it Int16 data and it will happily make .bil files for you to populate the Worldwind cache, then edit Earth.xml and add a HigherResolutionTerrainSubset in the area where ur DEM is. The only problem is smooth transition to SRTM. Worldwind does not have Terrain blending yet, if jp09 has this implemented I would love that code in the core :)

[jp09]

Wow, I didn't know dstile could do it. We had developped our own tools.
I had my associate agreement (we are a "small" company : 2...) to write a doc on how to integrate high res DEMs, but it looks like it will not be really necessary : you've told almost everything !
Well, maybe some people will appreciate more details, anyway... i'll try to make a doc in the coming next days
No, what_nick, we didn't implement terrain blending : either the transition is quite OK, either we do it through GIS (ArcGIS). As that's our job....

By the way, talking about blending, what_nick, quadtile blending behaves weird when you have transparent areas inside the quadtile (PNG quadtile) : when opacity is < 255, those transparent areas appear a bit opaque, darkening the underlying images. Do you have any ideas what could be done to it ?

Anyway, that's true WW lacks lots of documentation on what it can do, and how. I had to struggle long days to find the way to integrate large images and DEM, at the (not so old) time when Nowak didn't want to share his tools... (wis evil companies at least)

[bull]

Hehe yeah with Nowak it is free or no way, he can be bribed though ;)

[what_nick]

I had to bribe him with an Opteron CPU to get the --dem switch working properly. Try other such bribes e.g. Water Cooled case or Quad CPU motherboard and you may have more success.

[withak]

By the way, talking about blending, what_nick, quadtile blending behaves weird when you have transparent areas inside the quadtile (PNG quadtile) : when opacity is < 255, those transparent areas appear a bit opaque, darkening the underlying images. Do you have any ideas what could be done to it ?

Shapefiles have this problem too. A while ago Chris fixed what I think is the same problem with wms layers. It had something to do with the way that transparent pixels (i.e. "no data" pixels inside the tiles) were handled along with the opacity of non-transparent pixels. You can see the changes he made to fix wms layers via the FishEye link at the bottom of this page. (http://issues.worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/browse/WW-585) I tried to figure out what needed to be done to the shapefile tile class to fix it, but my knowledge of DirectX wasn't up to the task. :(

[jp09]

Hum, yes, fixing those weird transparency behaviours in shapefiles and quadtiles would be great !
Please, please, if someone's enough at ease with directX to solve it...
I tried, but i'm really lost with DirectX !

[James_In_Utah]

This is such a huge deal to me. I will not be able to upgrade my users to V1.4 as long as this problem exists with shapefiles. Any help with that would be very much appreciate!!!
Thanks,
James

[jp09]

Hey, James, wouldn't you have a DirectX aware coder to work on it ? Would be great... ;o)

[James_In_Utah]

Well, I don't know anything about DirectX, but I may have to learn. We have some contractors doing some coding work for us, but pulling one of them off of a project to look at this may or may not happen. I will probably just have to try to follow the WMS fix example and see it it can be applied to the shapefile loader.

V1.4 does a lot better job of loading KML files, at least as far as speed is concerned. For some reason it is much faster. We use that to display aircraft plots. I'd love to have that, but we also use the shapefiles to display theoretical radar coverages. right now anywhere that has overlapping coverages looks like a black blob. Until that gets fixed we will have to stay with the current version.
James

[withak]

Hey I found a workaround.

http://pneumatictu.be/radar_opacity.png

You can specify opacity via the color in the xml instead of the layer properties.

<PolygonColor>
<Red>255</Red>
<Green>0</Green>
<Blue>50</Blue>
<Alpha>150</Alpha>
</PolygonColor>

[James_In_Utah]

Good deal! That should work nicely. I'll give it a try first thing tomorrow...
Thanks!
James

[withak]

The only drawback would be that you can't change opacity set this way from the gui, you would have to edit the alpha values in the xml and reload.

[James_In_Utah]

Using the current loader, there doesn't seem to be any way to edit the shapes anyway. If I want to change the color, I edit the xml, and then reload the whole earth. It would be great if the whole shapefile layer could be reloaded without restarting WW or reloading the earth.
James

[Chade]

If the shapefile layer is second in the tree from the Layer Manager, if you turn that off and on it will that reload it? I'm finding that with another few renderable objects...

[withak]

It doesn't re-read the xml when you do that.

[Chade]

Read the post, dammit Chade. Editing the xml! >.<

Anyway, wouldn't deleting and loading the xml (again) be faster than restarting WW or reloading Earth...?

[James_In_Utah]

There doesn't seem to be a good way to unload the shapefiles currently. I actually added logic that allowed me to "Delete All" entries under a layer in the layer manager, and then I could use the shapefile loader dialog to reload the xml files, but it had lots of bugs. Once V1.4 is out I will probably try migrating my changes forward.
James

[withak]

A File -> Load... dialog will almost certainly be in 1.4.1. The code was there in 1.4 but it wasn't tested enough. Right-click -> Delete... does works in 1.4. Unfortunately it doesn't permanently delete shapefile layers because the loader doesn't include the xml filename in the the RO metadata like it does for regular layer; so all it can do is remove them from the LM until you restart.

[James_In_Utah]

Ideally I would be able to programatically refresh the color of shapefiles on a timer, say every minute or so. The XML will reside on a server, and the shapes themselves will be on the clients. It sounds like every minute or two I would have some process that just deletes all shapes and reload them base on the xml file on the server. Do you think the new code will support that type of functionality?
Thanks,
James

[withak]

You could do that right now with a plugin.

[James_In_Utah]

If I started with the current shapefileloader, would it be a big deal to add logic to remove whatever shapes it had loaded? Then, if that works, just put it on a timer to unload and reload every two minutes? I guess actually changing the color of a polygon in a loaded shapefile is out of the question?
Thanks,

James

[Chade]

Shouldn't they all just be in a RenderableObjectList? It should be all rather malleable through that...

[withak]

From the point of view of the RenderableObjectList, a shapefile layer is just a qts (that happens to be stored in memory and generated on the fly instead of being stored on disk and downloaded). So you would have to regenerate the entire layer to change one thing in it.

[Chade]

Urgh. :(

[withak]

Yeah. Hence my attempt (http://forum.worldwindcentral.com/showthread.php?t=8375) to treat the data in shapefiles like the vector objects they really are. :)

[James_In_Utah]

If you can get the alpha blend thing to make your shapefile loader do opaque shapes I would switch. We load up about 300 shapefiles, and indicate status of radar sites with colors. As it stands right now, if one site changes color, I have to unload the whole thing, currently by reloading earth, and then redraw all the shapes. On a typical desktop client, this can take maybe a minute or two. Also, once they are all loaded, zooming and panning is almost painful. Any suggestions on how to deliver this functionality to my users in a more fluid approach would be appreciated!
Thanks,
James

[TomServo]

Yea know... I should really do a feature post once a month with what people are doing with World Wind.... because I really want to see what James_In_Utah is doing :)

[bull]

If you did that 'they' would have to kill you.

[James_In_Utah]

Hi Tom,
I work for a unit that monitors and records radar data from around the country. As part of that monitoring we need a visual display to indicate radar coverage at different altitudes, and WW displaying ESRI shapes seems to be able to do that. We indicate the status of the site by color. The status of these sites can change minute by minute, so it would be great if the color displayed for a particular ESRI shape could be changed without having to reload the whole set.

In addition to displaying coverages, we are able to plot radar data in WW using a pluggin which pulls the information out of our recordings using a C++ dll. We can also display aircraft live using the KML output of a tracking algorythm we developed in-house. With a "run of the mill" laptop I can track and display the data from maybe 10 radar sites. There must be memory issues however because after 15 - 30 minute the whole earth disappears for a while, and comes back a little later. I leave the lat/lon lines on in case this happens.

I have also given the users a plugin that pulls detailed information about the radar sites from our Oracle database and display the sites as Icons. When the user mouses over the site icon, he gets the detailed info in the lower left corner.

This is all running on a closed LAN. I've made some changes that will allow for an "Work Offline" mode, which speeds things up greatly. Now that there is a work around for the shapefile distortion problem, I'll upgrade the users to V1.4 when it comes out.
James