Google Earth: Expanded 3D Buildings

Looking for new 3D cities to explore in far off places? Well, you’re in luck! We’ve been hard at work expanding our 3D coverage by adding ten of thousands of 3D buildings to these cities:

  • Berkeley, California USA
  • Cologne, Germany
  • The Hague, Netherlands

See the new buildings for yourself with the “3D Buildings” layer in Google Earth or by using Google Maps with Earth view.

 

 

 

 

 

New Google Imagery – Week of May 16th

The Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery Team has just published its latest batch of satellite and aerial imagery, and as always, there are all kinds of fascinating sites and features to check out.

It’s mid-May and summer is just around the corner. That means vacation! And since many of us like to head to the water for our leisure time, we’ve compiled examples of a few coastal areas that have received updated imagery in our latest release.
In the States, premiere beach vacation spots include the coral-sand beaches that line Miami, Florida. Below is a stretch of the world-famous South Beach within the City of Miami Beach’s City Center district. This high-resolution aerial image was taken this past March, during Spring Break.

 

44th St. Beach, Miami, Florida


If hot, crowded beaches aren’t your thing, there are many cooler places (literally) you could spend your leisure time exploring. Below is a high-resolution aerial image from this past April of Bear Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. In this image, you can see the glacier toe as well as the ice, meltwater, and debris it deposits. This valley outflow glacier is sourced from the Harding Icefield, the largest icefield contained entirely within the United States. If you’re viewing this in Google Earth, be sure to use the Historical Imagery time slider to view how the glacier’s size has changed over time.

Bear Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

 

Finally, here’s a recent satellite image of the entertainment center in the bustling coastal city of Qingdao, in the Shandong Province, China. The city was named China’s most livable city in 2009, and from the image below you can understand why; there are many places to enjoy such as beaches, sport complexes, and the beautiful public space, Hui Quan Square. Indeed, a nice place to visit and explore on your next summer vacation – whether it’s in-person or online. When viewing this area in Google Earth or Maps, you can also explore other parts of the image, such as the finishing touches being put on the Haiwan Bridge, the world’s largest water bridge, spanning 26.4 miles.

 

Hui Quan Square, Qingdao, China

 

Do you have a place you love for which you’d like to receive a notification when the Earth and Maps Imagery team updates the site? We’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:
USA: Myrtle Beach, Miami, Palm Beach, Lake City, Lynchburg, Lenoir, Dallas, Grand Rapids, Anchorage, Kenai, Tyonek

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:
Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jan Mayen, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Palmyra Atoll, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, St. Helena, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Street View takes you inside museums around the world

We’re always excited to share new Street View imagery with users, whether a botanical garden in South Africa or ski slopes in Canada. While Street View has enabled users to visit places all around the world virtually, the demand to show a broader range of popular locations has been great. Today we’re entering new territory with our experiment to take Street View technology indoors.
The Art Project, developed by a group of art-loving Googlers, is a collaboration between Google and 17 of the world’s most acclaimed museums. Select works of art chosen by these partners are now available for you to explore through Street View in Google Maps, and the Art Project site offers an immersive experience to explore museum information, floor plans, more than 1000 high-resolution pieces, and Street View imagery. Learn more about the Art Project on the Official Google Blog.
To take you inside magnificent spaces like the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, our team needed to update the way we go about gathering Street View images.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
Street View imagery is typically collected using cars and we’re able to utilize the ample roof space and interior storage of these vehicles for all of our equipment. To take Street View technology indoors, we needed to fit all of the equipment on a much smaller vehicle, a push-cart lovingly dubbed Trolley.
Pictured with Trolley: Daniel Ratner, Mechanical Engineer and Matt Williams, Program Manager at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Trolley is outfitted with a few components that are key to collecting indoor imagery: a panoramic camera to collect 360-degree views, lasers to capture distances to walls, motion sensors to track Trolley’s position, a hard drive to store data, and a laptop to operate the system.
With this adapted equipment, we were able to gather the imagery and bring it into Google Maps, and you can now drag Pegman directly onto museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to explore their impressive European Paintings wing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States
You can also enter museums when you’re already looking at Street View imagery of the museum exterior. You’ll notice new double-arrow navigation links from the nearby streets leading you inside, as you can see here for the Palace of Versailles.
Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France
Once inside the museum, you can navigate around rooms freely with the navigation arrows or simply click on a distant spot to jump to a closer view. Movement between floors can also be done with ease by selecting a different level from the new control panel below the Street View compass and zoom controls.
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
We’re excited to introduce this new imagery in Street View, and will continue to improve and develop this indoor experience. To explore these museums directly through Street View in Google Maps, visit maps.google.com/museums, and to view high-resolution artwork and learn more about the museums, check out the Art Project at www.googleartproject.com.