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Google Earth, Now With Browser Goodness
Google announced this week that their Google Earth application can now be used from the browser, instead of having to download and install the desktop application. "Google also launched an JavaScript API that lets you interact with the globe, draw markers, add layers or integrate with Google Maps. 'The Google Earth Plug-in and its APIs let you embed the full power of Google Earth and its 3D rendering capabilities into your web pages.' Google LatLong blog announced that each Google Maps mashup can take advantage of the new 3D view by adding a single line of code. 'Our goal is to open up the entire core of Google Earth to developers in the hopes that you'll build the next great geo-based 3D application, and change how we view the world.'"
Now they can connect your browsing habits with your satellite voyeurism.
Google : Journey to the Center of the Earth come out? Or even better Google Mars!
So now it can run substantially on a (huge) plug-in inside my browser. How is this different or more convenient just because the window is wrapped in the browser.
Seems everything must run inside the browser these days. When can I get windows vista for firefox?
Unfortunately, as with the current version of Google Earth, it does not support proxies requiring authentication... Not sure which version this changed in, but older versions work fine.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
All Linux browsers ... and so on
Firefox (Macintosh)
Safari (all platforms)
Firefox 3 (all platforms)
Opera (all platforms)...
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
... that lets you interact with the globe, draw markers, add layers or integrate with Google MapsAww crap! I thought they meant real markers! ...
Anyone know how to get sharpie out of LCD?
3D models for inserting into Google Earth are made with SketchUp, which is a 3D desktop studio available only for Windows, and MacOS, not Linux. When will Google finally release a Linux SketchUp, or at least include its main modeling features into the Web version?
Or even better, when will there be a simple way to use existing (and good) Linux 3D studio tools to make standard-format datasets that are easily and completely importable into Google Earth (whether desktop or Web)?
Hell, at this point I'd even settle for a way to import the paths in a 2D PostScript (or PDF) file into something that makes them 2D lines/areas on a 3D canvas that I can put into Google Earth, rotated and positioned for at least an idea of what a fully 3D model would look like. But to do anything like that right now, I need a Mac or a Windows machine.
--
make install -not war
Currently this looks like it's only on Windows. I didn't see anything about when a Mac or Linux version might be available, did anyone else see anything?
What I want to see is a Google Mars with all the images of the probes/rovers organized in some way.
What's the gap between this and the existing Virtual Earth 3D plugin? http://www.google.com/earth/plugin/examples/samples/index.html vs. http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk.
The Browser Edition. Come on, you know you want to make it!
Well, it went mental and spawned three processes that happily chewed up my CPU and started eating memory as a side dish. Oh, and Firefox crashed.
;-)
It's a beta, right?
Who makes a Firefox plugin that's an .exe file? Seriously, Google needs to read the how to page and follow the standards.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Have you tried SketchUp in Wine? If you did, and it didn't work, have you submitted problem reports to the Wine team and to Google?
Try linking a real link instead. http://code.google.com/apis/earth/
I'm waiting for Canvas3D to stabilize. Currently there is an Opera build http://my.opera.com/timjoh/blog/2007/11/13/taking-the-canvas-to-another-dimension for Windows and Mozilla has an extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7171 Google should better invest more on that Mozilla Canvas3D extension.
Call me when it runs on linux
NO SIG
The real question is whether or not the flight sim easter egg is still included. :D
from the way all you people are bitching that you've never had to try to develop anything that uses the old Google Earth APIs. The choices are: COM API for Windows, an Apple Script API with something on the order or 5 actions, and the linux API, which oh wait, doesn't exist.
This, however, will be a unified API for every platform, once it's ported (this says under installing the plug-in that support for other platforms is coming in future releases). And one which I can already tell you is light years better than what I currently have to deal with.
In other words, STFU.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
The Worldwind folks have shown that you can do this stuff in Java, too. Why not use a Java plugin? Before you say 'java is slow', try profiling a Java 3-D application and see where the CPU cycles are spent.
I never understood why anyone would bother with Google Earth when satellite view exists on maps.google.com.
Of course it's also been years since I've tried Google Earth, so maybe they've added quite a bit extra functionality over maps.google.com.
The ability to chose your install location in Google Earth (you can in the pro version, not in the free version)
and it can't find your browser if it isn't called iexplorer.exe and is located in the usual places.
And etc etc.
I suppose its clever they have made this embeddable thing, but I think they should have created a Google Earth URL a long time ago, people just could link to a place on earth in a link instead of forcing people to host a kml file.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
When you download the rubbish Google installs an update, and an update service
Wow, guess the days of Google as a friend is well and truly over.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There are two possibilities I see:
1) Google is attempting to compete with Microsoft Live's 3D map function: Virtual Earth embedded in a browser.
2) This is a pre-cursor to having a version available for multiple platforms.
Google's stands a much better competitive chance when their products run in (almost) any browser, so I would -like- to think that this is where they are headed. What makes me cringe is, how do they plan to get there on non-MS-Windows (non-Direct-X) platforms?
I think many of us here have experienced the horror, however briefly, of software-only OpenGL 3D.
K3D: k-3d.org.
I'd be happier if I was able to do multi point routes and avoid certain roads like I can while using Google Maps in Google Earth. Until then, this is a pretty useless feature to me.
"Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead."
The website for the plugin says plugins are planned for Linux and OS X in future builds.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
Brewster Jennings Protects America is pretty close.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I would love to see an example of this running on "googlepages" .
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
1. First you download GoogleEarthPluginSetup_en.exe (300 KB), a setup for Google Update. The application creates a system service set to "Automatic" and downloads the real setup for Google Earth Plugin.
2. The plug-in's installer (googleearth-plugin-win.exe) has 6.376 KB. It includes almost all of the files installed for Google Earth, an Internet Explorer plug-in and a Firefox extension.
3. The files are copied to C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth Plugin and the two plug-ins are installed in Internet Explorer and Firefox.
4. All the future updates are handled by the Google Update service that runs in the background all the time and pings Google to see if there's a new version available.
5. The plug-in uses a lot of memory (around 100 MB just for loading the initial view and 300 MB for the Monster Milktruck demo) and, for each embedded object, you're running an instance of the Google Earth application.
Yeah... so now you no longer have to run that cumbersome Google Earth standalone app! *rolleyes*
It doesn't seem they've gone out of the way to do anything different than what VE 3D's done for quite some time in terms of minimal supported OSes, unifying the 2D and 3D JavaScript APIs, and an interactive sample site. So if in all this time, this is what they've done, they're behaving like they're doing 1, and not very well. You'd suppose 2 is the next competitive move that would come out of Google, but I think it depends on what Microsoft does. If Microsoft adds killer feature X, I think Google's just going to do X' in this case.
One anonymous coward's crude is fine enough for me, thanks. Most of the world is (and remains) uncharted by the Microsoft birds, so, while it is great that you can count your koi population from two years ago by looking at Live, most of us obviously couldn't care less.
Neither for your koi nor for Live, that is.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.