Google Earth on Earth Day

Earth Day in Google EarthOnce again it’s Earth Day. A time to sit back and think about our wonderful planet, and some of us will be out picking up some trash, or just enjoying nature.

While researching thoughts for this post, I had a chance to talk to David Levine from Geostellar for a few minutes yesterday. They’re doing some great work in developing systems to allow you to view the solar potential of any building on earth. They generate the data using LIDAR and other techniques, then export it for viewing in Google Earth and the Google Earth Plugin. Android and iOS apps are due out later this year. To get an idea of what they do, check out the video below.

For those of you stuck inside due to weather, work, or other reasons – perhaps you might want to spend the day exploring our wonderful planet through the power of Google Earth. Here are a few links of stories from Google Earth Blog (GEB) in the past year describing environmental related content available for viewing in Google Earth:

• The Home Greenover Project — A neat way to show off eco-friendly homes.

• Diving Deep with Richard Branson — A new expedition to explore the “last frontiers of our own planet” at the deepest parts of the ocean.

• Visualizing the vast problem of marine debris — Exploring the issue of trash in the world’s oceans.

• Flooding Google Earth — Visualizations of Earth if sea levels experience significant rises.

• Predict how much solar power your house could generate — Based on your area, predict how much solar energy your home could generate.

• The WaterAid Point Mapper, helping find fresh water — A great tool to help sub-Saharan organizations map rural water points.

• Google Earth Engine, an amazing tool for scientists and researchers — Released at COP 16, this tool helps scientists analyze massive amounts of climate-related data.

• Sea Ice Extent Animation updated for 2010 — An animation showing the changes in the size of the ice cap.

• A climate change tour of cold places — NSIDC released this project to show the snowy and icy regions of the world covering sea ice, glaciers, ice shelves and permafrost.

• Tour of the proposed Belo Monte Dam Complex — A great visualization of the high-debated proposed dam complex in the Amazon.

• New weather features in Google Earth 5.2 — Some cool enhancements to the weather layer in Google Earth 5.2.

• Interactive multi-layered Google Earth map of 4 degree temp rise — A map showing the potential impact of a 4 degree rise in global temperature.

• Soil Moisture Animations — A worldwide map showing soil moisture levels, and important tool for people in a variety of fields.

Route Savvy App – Bing Maps

Whether you are going five or fifty places, the Route Planner app is a useful, unique map app that will get you from point A to Z in the shortest amount of time possible.Route Savvy App Bing Maps

Find Shortest Routes or quickest routes with traffic and managing geocoding from Excel data.

How it Works

Route Savvy App Geocode - Bing Maps

The first step is to add destinations on the map. “RouteSavvy” makes it easy to quickly add a few or 100 destinations – you can click locations on the map, enter addresses manually on the left-rail, or upload an Excel file with addresses on each row. For demonstration purposes, I’ve shown eight points below. Each time you add a destination, the map auto-zooms and centres so you can see all the destinations at once.

Route Savvy App Import Excel - Bing Maps

“General users likely have between three and ten destinations when they plan trips that could benefit from route optimization. The value of this tool for business use is amplified when businesses may have 25 or more destinations to reach in a day. Other services only allow up to 25 waypoints – considering the Bing app can handle up to 100, we feel that we’ll be a strong choice for businesses who need great route optimization for lots of destinations. Realtor’s who have multiple showings in a day, any business that does deliveries, shuttle services, technicians, and florists – just a few examples – will find this to be a great tool to make their lives easier with the “RouteSavvy” app.”

View the new Map App: OnTerra’s “RouteSavvy” Route Optimizer

Sign up for imagery update alert

Users in the Google Earth forum often ask about the age of satellite imagery and when the content will be updated. While we aren’t able to tell you in advance when our imagery will be updated, we can now notify you after new images are added to an area that you’re interested in.

With our Follow Your World application, you can register points on the globe and we’ll send you an email update whenever the imagery is updated there.

In just three easy steps, you can add points such as your hometown, your college football stadium, or just about any place on Earth. And since Google Earth and Google Maps share the same imagery, this tool is equally handy for enthusiasts of both products. Follow Your World also provides a handy dashboard to manage your subscriptions.

Whether you’re an armchair geospatial enthusiast, or you frequently use aerial imagery from Google Earth or Google Maps in your work, we invite you to give this new app a try so you’ll be the first to know.