Google Sets Sights On 3D Map of the Oceans

Several readers wrote to tell us about one of the next major projects to enter the Google-verse. We already have pretty views of the Earth and the Sky, the next target is apparently a 3D map of the oceans. "The tool — for now called Google Ocean, the sources say, though that name could change — is expected to be similar to other 3D online mapping applications. People will be able to see the underwater topography, called bathymetry; search for particular spots or attractions; and navigate through the digital environment by zooming and panning. (The tool, however, is not to be confused with the 'Google Ocean' project by France-based Magic Instinct Software that uses Google Earth as a visualization tool for marine data.)"

Comments

Science and Google tools

[Lord Satri]

Google continues to crank out new services, products, APIs, tools, and more. It's really quite staggering, but they do have the cash and brains to do it. But the investments they make are huge. I'm talking about money, time and brainpower. Working within the geospatial domain (a blend of GIS, remote sensing, GPS, virtual globes, webmapping and much more) and running a website about it, clearly the "newcomers" (mainly Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) with what has been often called neogeography are making serious inroads in traditional GIS software providers such as ESRI. (rejoice /. users, open source is also making serious inroads there too)

The thing is, neogeography *is* useful and efficient for many tasks. Not everybody needs "a real" powerful GIS to visualize and analyse geodata. That's why I can believe this rumored Google Ocean will be attractive to many oceanography scientists (as well to hobbyists, of course). See this recent article named "Google Earth, GIS, and the Great Divide: A new and simple method for sharing paleontological data"

I wonder what bathymetry they're using.

[MROD]

Hmm.. I wonder if they'll be using the Smith & Sandwell satellite derived bathymetry or ship-track data....

Anything better than 5 degree per pixel would be scientifically useful.. but I doubt that they'll have very high definition coverage... and I also doubt they'll be filling in the huge holes in the ship-track coverage.

The surface of Mars has been mapped in higher detail than the depths of the ocean and we are still guessing at the numbers of sea-mounts in the Pacific.