Somewhat similar to our last post regarding the Google business layer that shows local businesses when you click on a building. TechCrunch broke news of this app released from the Googler’s 20% time project called the Places Diretory App for Android. What is does is display what is around you specifically designed for tourists that have no idea where they are. The app essentially locates where you are, and displays a list of different establishments around you. As the picture on the left displays what would happened if you clicked on “Bars” from the places directory.

This app could really be a game changer if implemented with Google Earth, and the business data layer. I can see myself using this with the iPhone in a simple “find surrounding businesses” function.

Aside from my dreams of having this come to the iPhone, it is a great Android app. And for those who have dismissed Android in the past, once the new HTC g2 phone officially comes out (only those who attended the Google I/O conference have them) you will be amazed at how great of a mobile OS it is. I believe with the openness of the platform it has the chances to surpass the iPhone it terms of actual function ability. Although it still has a long way to go, but if developments like this keep coming out I will have to switch over or get another service plan just to use Android.

new business layer on the iphone

Good news for Google Earth iPhone users, not only has the new Business data layer been implemented in the standard version of G Earth, it is also included in an update the popular iPhone Google Earth app.

What the new data layer does is show you extremely useful information such as resturaunts that are nearby. Simply touch or click on an excisting building and the information will pop up. Of course the data will need to be added by the business owner, but still this is basically what everyone has been waiting for in terms of simple street searching. This is especially geared towards mobile users, and works perfectly on my iPhone. I have always wanted to see little forks for the resturants around me, and little gas icons for nearby gas stations. Shopping carts for stores etc.

This data layer can be easily enabled in the desktop version of Google Earth if you click right below the layer folder titled “Geographic Web.” This is something Google Maps users have been waiting for, but most likely due to data restrictions has been implemented in to Google Earth first. I consider the Google Earth app for the iPhone to be far superior to the default Google Maps app included on the iPhone.

Okay I know it’s been a while since our last post, but we are pleased to announce that the Google’s Earth blog is back in business. To kick things off let’s take a trip to New York City (in Google Earth of course.) Google has updated their User Guide for version 4 of Google Earth. You can turn on 3d buildings in the 3d buildings folder in the layers panel. Simply Position the viewer within a reasonable viewing altitude over a major city such as New York. Then 3D buildings will start to appear from an eye-elevation of 10,000 feet. Check the eye-elevation meter on the lower right of the 3D viewer to determine your current viewing height. The 3D buildings will appear in astoundingly great detail. Great work Google!

2 Days ago Amato Evan posted on the Google Earth Community a very useful atmospheric and global surface data layer that any Earth scientist or curious civilian will find useful and quite informative.

The following fields available in the klm file: false color imagery, total, low, mid, high, water, and ice cloud fractions, cloud drop effective radius, cloud optical depth, cloud top temperature and height, sea surface temperature, dust fraction, aerosol optical depth, and from NCEP: 500mb heights, troposphere temperature, and total precipitable water.

When opening the KML file you will find many data layers to choose from, for me the most interesting was the false color image. Also scroll to the bottom of your places options to see the tropopause temperature of the troposphere, and the option below that if checked will display the total precipitable water in the atmosphere. The data is not real-time, yet it is updated every 24 hours — Making it a fairly accurate and very useful data layer. The author is planning on creating animations of this data over the next ten days, but I’m not sure if it could be implemented into Google Earth or not.

KMZ File: Dynamic Data Layer of Tropospheric Temperature

The Google Earth team has been getting a lot of suggestions and feedback from users of the new version of Google Earth, and have been so inclined to release an updated version of the user manual. It is a very comprehensive and detailed guide for any new or expert Earth explorers out there. Below is some of the content the manual has to offer.

You can turn on border information by checking the Borders folder in the Layers tab. The Border check box turns on all possible borders, while you can expand the Borders folder to control display of the many kinds of borders, such as:

• CoastlinesInternational
• boundariesState
• and province boundariesCountries
• and capitalsState
• and province namesUSA
• county boundaries

When turned on, border information for a given view is always available. However, as with road data, it is displayed in the viewer when a logical distance is reached. For example, if you are looking at a very large region, you see only major boundaries. When you zoom in to a more confined region, you might see state or county labels depending upon your viewing elevation.

GPS Point Translation
When your GPS data is imported into Google Earth, it is categorized into three possible folders, depending upon the type of point. These folders are:

• Tracks - Tracks (or trackpoints) are the points automatically recorded by the GPS device periodically along the recorded route. They can be imported into the Google Earth application as paths. Waypoints - Waypoints are points entered manually by the user and typically marked with a name, such as “home” or “turnaround point.”
• Routes - Route points are those points that the GPS device uses to creating the routing, such as when you instruct the device to “go to” a recorded point from another recorded point. Route points can contain multiple connected “go to” instructions. They can be imported into the Google Earth application as paths.

Importing GPS Data
Importing the data from your GPS to Google Earth is simple:

1. Connect your device to the computer running Google Earth. You can use either a serial cable or USB cable, depending upon which one came with your device.Turn
2. Turn on the GPS device. Once your device is on and activated, it is not necessary to wait until it connects to satellites.
3. From the Tools menu, select GPS. The GPS window appears.

You can download the full comprehensive guide to Google Earth for directly below.

PDF File: Updated User Guide for Google Earth 4-BETA

A community made Google Earth Enhancement that delivers content directly into your Earth explorer.

This is a very well put together resource for Google Earthers. I stumbled onto it while browsing the Keyhole BBS Community Basically what it does it grab localized RSS feeds, and sends them to your Google Earth via place marks and data overlays. You can get all the GEarth news updates as well as weather and news, which it displays accurately over the Google Earth satellite imagery.
General GeoRSS link http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/494867

General GeoRSS service http://ws.geonames.org/rssToGeoRSS

Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Geonames Recent Changes http://www.geonames.org/
Google Earth blog http://www.gearthblog.com
Google Maps Mania http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/
Google Earth Hacks http://www.googleearthhacks.com/
Ogle Earth http://www.ogleearth.com/
Kathryn Cramer http://www.kathryncramer.com/
Google Sightseeing http://www.googlesightseeing.com/ Network link http://www.googlesightseeing.com/gearth.kml
Juice Analytics http://www.juiceanalytics.com/
Google Earth Lessons http://gelessons.com/blog/
Slashgeo http://slashgeo.org/
Mapdex http://www.mapdex.org/search/
3d Point http://3pointd.com/
AECnews http://aecnews.com/
Urban cartography http://www.urbancartography.com/

I would definitely consider this an essential file for avid users of the Earth application. These are updated real-time, and allow you near endless earth exploring resources. I’ve included the version 2.0 of the KMZ file below, so be sure to install it on your Google Earth.
KMZ File: Geo News RSS Feed in GoogleEarth

Since the Tour de France launched this year many Google Earth fans, as well as Tour de France fans have combined thier interests to enable satellite tracking of the riders progress. As Lance Armstrong has officially retired from the Tour, leaving a legacy of seven consecutive wins from 1999 to 2005 many people are wondering who will take his place. Included in the download below is a revamped version of the old TdF route kml for GE. With this enhancement you have the ability of live satellite tracking with GPS of some of the top riders this year, as well as the future roads they have to travel.

KMZ File: Tour de France Live Tracking in GE

Not long ago Google released the Beta 4 version of Google Earth at the Where 2.0 conference, where Google hosted the first Geo Developer Day, a gathering of two-hundred and fifty of the world’s leading geo developers. With this update came not so shortly after a massive satellite image data update Google posted on their blog Happy Birthday Google Earth. The update announcement shared that Google Earth is now covering a massive 20 percent of the Earth’s surface with high-resolution satellital imagery (impressive.) Also GPS support has been updated for Google Earth Plus users as well.

Brian Flood has made an in-depth look at the KML Enhancements made to Google Earth 4x. Most noticeably is the textured building enhancements made to the KML structure. Now buildings are not simply plain grey boxes, but now fully textured for a much more exciting look at urban areas. Another notable enhancement however is the the KML regions display, as previously in Google Earth loading large amounts of data overlays i.e. Doppler radar would be an arduous task most of the time missing specific locations of data. Now GE will subdivide the extent and amount of data until a sufficient minimum resolution is reached. Also some sort of caching is supposedly being used to prevent clearing of child hierarchies from the display tab.

Overall the terrain has been improved as well to present a more realistic view of peaks and valleys. If you want to see 3D buildings make sure your terrain and 3d building box is enabled, and using the pan/tilt function hover around your desired monument. Much progress has been made in detailing various models around the globe, as well as independent developers making readily made 3d models using Google’s recently acquired software Sketchup a must for modelers looking to get global recognition. Additionally I have included a file which demonstrates the textured building update made to Google Earth 4.

KMZ File: Textured Buildings in Google Earth 4x

Small update to our site including the new tag feature, where you can now browse our site from custom tags like KMZ (for finding KMZ files) or Topography to view our blog articles on topography. Also added links to our friends at Ogle Earth and G Earth Blog both sites are great for finding new updates and features going around in the Google Earth Community.

And speaking of communities Google’s Earth has just opened our Google’s Earth Forum where we will be posting a lot of cool ways to explore the Earth using Google Earth. Also you will be able to find KML/KMZ files for download posted by other GE surfers. So check it out, and introduce yourself.

The Russian Academy of Sciences have developed an application that converts ArcGIS 9 data into Google Earth KML files. The program is called KMLer and costs US$20, however Typeconvert (a free application) converts some ArcGIS data as well.

ArcGIS is a Geographic Information System software application developed by ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland.) ArcGIS works with other ESRI apps that allow you to gather and query maps created from spacial data and combine them into data files for analysis.

Valery Hronusov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a respected member of the Google Earth community has recently been gathering data from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) website. She has posted this data on the Keyhole BBS in the American Cellular Towers Density thread, which displays slide analyst and three dimensional data of cellular density in the United States.

I’ve included a KMZ file of the accumulated topographical data of Mount Everest. More topographic and spacial data for analysis is available in sample pages.

KMZ File: Topographic Data Of Mount Everest