 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / February 2006WOW! earth.google now on mac 10.3.9!
Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html That page currently claims to require 10.4, but I noticed an obscure forum announcement a few hours ago, and tested it on a WIDE screen laptop - wow wow wow. Put it in full 17" screen mode and turn on the building display layer. Set above your rooftop and pan around at an angled view... virtually fly around... Middle age Mac portables no longer blocked from this exciting tool!!! Now if they could just make Safari a little more robust for 10.3.9ers... Having been in the Earth Resource Satellite Image Processing business a number of years ago, it is a science that I enjoy looking in on, on a regular basis. My favourite satellites these days are SPOT, QuickBird, Radarsat and IKONOS. These systems produce very small pixel size so that you can almost see people on the ground. Canadians or others interested in access to free Canadian datasets of images can go to http://geodiscover.cgdi.ca/gdp/index.jsp?language=en. Other countries may also make datasets available to their citizens. I have on occasion downloaded datasets of areas where family members live and registered the images to maps and been able to print them a nice satellite image of their backyards. FWIW, The City of Ottawa incorporates Ariel Photography in their online interactive mapping database. They show, roads, parks, schools, day care centre, community centres and a lot of other things, like, bicycle paths, walkways, waste collection days, municipal wards, fire halls and all manner of GIS data that varies with zoom factor. rtt > Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support > for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Middle age Mac portables no longer blocked from this exciting tool!!! > Now if they could just make Safari a little more robust for 10.3.9ers... Sounds like someone spot checked an area with poor resolution. This tool DOES show detail down to the level of almost seeing people (eg. you can see cars and windsurfers). They just don't have the whole earth to this level yet, but have well chosen areas in superdetail that are continually growing in area. And it is in 3D, not just for mountains, but even buildings! Not really a Mac specific subject - the earlier referenced site has a forum, but I thought this visual tool was very suited to a Mac and one of the most painful things they were until recently shut out of. Play with the controls - you can swoop around like a hang glider, looking forward at a 3D world. One irritant to bring up in their forums is the scroll arrows show which way YOU want to move, while rotate arrows reverse the perspective and show which way to move the VIEW - ouch! Try 2 finger scroll! Unfortunately it just handles magnification rather than scrolling. Use the arrow keys to scroll, or "fly" around. Do they document such shortcuts? If you set preferences/navigation to G-force rather than Trackball, then you get airplane like pitch and roll control if holding the clicker while moving the trackpad. Take a tour of your last vacation... pitch the view horizontally so you can look up at mountains / high rises, and arrow key your way around Europe or where ever. > Sounds like someone spot checked an area with poor resolution. This > tool DOES show detail down to the level of almost seeing people (eg. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > scroll arrows show which way YOU want to move, while rotate arrows > reverse the perspective and show which way to move the VIEW - ouch! New York in 3D is very good, let's hope other major cities follow... (wish, wish :-) > Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support > for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html What's interesting is that as good as it is, Google doesn't seem to have as high a resolution set of pics as some other places do. (Do a search on "satellite images" and you'll come up with several other databases.) www.terraserver.com for instance, has much finer resolution of several areas I'm interested in (famiy residences, etc.) than Google. But the Google interface of course is more fun. -- Ted Lee Minnetonka, MN >> Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support >> for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > areas I'm interested in (famiy residences, etc.) than Google. But the > Google interface of course is more fun. Another fun one is http://local.live.com > >> Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support > >> for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Another fun one is http://local.live.com My Safari didn't like that URL (Firefox did, though) > What's interesting is that as good as it is, Google doesn't seem to have as > high a resolution set of pics as some other places do. (Do a search on > "satellite images" and you'll come up with several other databases.) > www.terraserver.com for instance, has much finer resolution of several > areas I'm interested in (famiy residences, etc.) than Google. But the > Google interface of course is more fun. I finally whipped up a way to automate the process of creating KML image overlays for Google Earth using USGS aerial photos and topo maps from TerraServer-USA.com: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/kml_overlay Unfortunately, TerraServer has been unavailable for most of the last couple days, so it might not work at the moment, but give it a try -- tomorrow, maybe. Adam - http://adamschneider.net/ http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and prestwich tesco 24h offy - 20 Feb 2006 08:45 GMT > Attn earth.google.com wanna-be's, Google has snuck in map support > for OS X ver 10.3.9 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Middle age Mac portables no longer blocked from this exciting tool!!! > Now if they could just make Safari a little more robust for 10.3.9ers... There was an unofficial beta of this available a few months ago, so I've been using it since then. I tried the beta on 10.3.9 and it wouldn't work, at least on a Lombard. (ho-ho!) On my 1.33 12" powerbook, it worked fine on 10.4.3, but general system operation really suffered (I have 768 MB RAM)- couldn't listen to itunes for example. The official version seems to work smoother now on 10.4.5, but I find things like zooming in slower, or rather, it goes in steps sometimes. Anyone else notice this? I'm keeping both versions at the moment...  SignatureDavid Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org In case anyone is reading this thread, paste this in Google Earth and see where I am: 39 49 20 N 105 02 46 W -- Gnarlie > 39 49 20 N 105 02 46 W You're in Denver. SignatureWe are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams. from "Ode", Arthur O'Shaughnessy |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.