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Open Source Alternative To Google Earth?
aws910 writes "Today, I fired up Google Earth to find that the 'points of interest' category had been removed, and a single checkbox is in its place. Certain layers are now entirely inaccessible. Google triggered a user revolt, but admitted fault, and promised to restore full functionality someday. In the meantime, I've found a lack of plausible alternatives. Bing seems nice, but Moonlight crashes the browser on any machine I use, and I'd rather use OSS anyway ... which made me realize there doesn't seem to be a good open-source alternative to Google Earth. Am I missing something?"
World Wind is licensed under NASA's Open Source license. Not sure of the intricacies with it (IANAL) but was developed with the open source community.
My work here is dung.
Who's going to pay to license all those satellite images? Who's going to run the servers and pay for all the bandwidth consumed by such an application?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Take a look at Marble from the KDE education project - http://edu.kde.org/marble/
http://edu.kde.org/marble/
Marble is a Virtual Globe and World Atlas that you can use to learn more about Earth: You can pan and zoom around and you can look up places and roads. A mouse click on a place label will provide the respective Wikipedia article.
Of course it's also possible to measure distances between locations or watch the current cloud cover. Marble offers different thematic maps: A classroom-style topographic map, a satellite view, street map, earth at night and temperature and precipitation maps. All maps include a custom map key, so it can also be used as an educational tool for use in class-rooms. For educational purposes you can also change date and time and watch how the starry sky and the twilight zone on the map change.
In opposite to other virtual globes Marble also features multiple projections: Choose between a Flat Map ("Plate carré"), Mercator or the Globe.
The best of all: Marble is Free Software / Open Source Software and promotes the usage of free maps. And it's available for all major operating systems (Linux/Unix, MS Windows and Mac OS X).
I have a map of the United States...actual size. It says, "Scale: 1 mile = 1 mile." I spent last summer folding it. I also have a full-size map of the world. I hardly ever unroll it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Agreed. The question of an open source Google Earth is not the application, but where the data comes from. Google Earth probably would be open source, if Google wasn't afraid their remote protocol would be reverse engineered (at which point they would update it). Anyone who has programmed with the Google Earth COM API knows that Google goes to great lengths to protect the data they store on their servers.
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html/#gereplacment
FSF is actively looking for people to contribute to any such project.
AccountKiller
Doesn't have street view or actual photos from what I've seen but its ok. openstreetmap.org
Any company that has huge revenues, that lets top-notch developers work on anything they think is kewl, and is structured so that investors can't complain about them pouring millions into projects that will never monetize. Alas, there's only one of those...
The upside of Google is that they push the state of the art with everything they do, and they provide free access to products that we couldn't afford without them — assuming that these products would even exist without them, which they mostly wouldn't. The downside is that they're total amateurs when it comes to the nuts and bolts of providing a product that isn't buggy, doesn't have major UI issues, and doesn't have weird outages and feature changes without notice. Google Earth seems to typify both the upside and the downside.
daeley@debian:~$ go --outside
bash: go: command not found
Hmm.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Google Earth is essentially a Web Map Server (WMS) The OGC http://www.opengeospatial.org/ has all the specifications for Web Map Severs and Clients. As others have mentioned, NASA WorldWind is a good example.
A blog to follow would be http://freegeographytools.com/
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
Sounds just like what people were saying about Microsoft in the early 1990s.
Microsoft is dead. Google is the new Microsoft.
Stick Men
I mean, Google Maps, sure I use that all the time to find where something is, directions how to get to it...on my iPhone, it even shows traffic loads.
I click Google Earth...it is neat how it zooms down to where I'm at from outer space..but after that...what?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I use it to get approximate terrain ideas before flights. It's easier to find passes and get comparative (not actual) mountain heights using that than a topographic map. For actual flight planning, I use the FAA charts, but for quick reference, Google Earth helps a great deal.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
We use it in urban planning (architects do too). Google Earth can be linked to Sketchup. You can import terrain from Google Earth, model a structure on it, and then export it back into Earth. You can also use it for some GIS-esque analysis by defining polygons and such on it.
I use it for getting directions. I have a horrible memory for names, but a great one for pictures, and so while I can't remember the name of the street I'm supposed to turn on I can remember what the street corner looked like from above on google earth, imagine what it would look like from a perspective on the ground, then see if I've reached that spot yet.
Google Earth is my goto mapping tool because it makes it FAR easier to know if you're going the right way or not if you've seen it, even just from above (though with more and more incorporated street-view you can now see street-level views of most areas).
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
For the most part, GE is not useful for typical end-user activity. It is mostly used to provide a tool for commercial applications of the Google maps data. For example, if you've seen a movie that did the zoom-in or -out between the globe from space and a single house, everything from 100 feet up and further was probably Google Earth. It's also used by law enforcement, NGOs planning access routes to remote locations, real estate, site surveys, etc. See their business use cases for Google Earth for more info.
But what does Earth give you over just plain Google Maps for that application?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I'm trying to find out what exactly Google Earth is actually useful for??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
I have a cousin who works for the top GIS company and when Google started doing the satellite view on Google Maps and then released Google Earth, there was a collective "ah shit!" from the industry because Google was giving away their bread and butter for free.
We take it for granted, but before Google, you mostly had to pay top dollar for a dataset overlaid onto a satellite map because there were no real non-commercial alternatives.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Marble is an amazing program with all kinds of different maps and satelite images it can pull from. It is worth checking out.
It may be available on Windows as well through windows.kde.org
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
and spending 30 seconds to read the fucking page you posted a link to would have led you to read the 2nd posting on that page:
25 November 2006, we've got the letter from Michael Jones, the Chief Technologist of Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Local search, requesting us to cease reverse engineering and improper usage of licensed data that Google Earth use. We understand and respect Google's position on the case, so we've removed all downloads from this page and we ask everybody who have ever downloaded gaia 0.1.0 and prior versions to delete all files concerned with the project, which include source code, binary files and image cache (~/.gaia).
which was posted over 3 years ago. although what can i really expect from an AC who either can't spell brain or consults someone named brian for all his decisions...
The points of interest feature has already been restored: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2010/03/the_points_of_interest_return.html
NASA World Wind is the most popular afaik, but there are others, including OSSIMplanet, pTolemy3D, Virtual Ocean and quite a few other ones depending on your requirements.
Animoog.org
I've replaced google earth with Xastir. Xastir is for ham radio station tracking but it featurs address lookup, multiple map layers, online maps, tigermaps, and gps support. When I was a cab driver I could use xastir to look up addresses offline because it's address mappings are stored locally. It doesn't look fancy, but it does look professional. http://www.xastir.org/
Google Earths main benefit is its KML format. Google documents the KML format very well ( http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/topicsinkml.html ). I use google earth with my wireless network scanner ( www.vistumbler.net ). It has allowed me to do some interesting stuff with the wireless data, for example. - We have a wireless database with over 100,000 Access Points. This creates a 75MB kml files of access points. Google maps is unable to load a KML of this size directly. (see our full KML http://www.vistumbler.net/wifidb/ --> Daemon Generated kml) - I have a feature to export signal history to google earth as a 3d/colored/line above the earth (see http://forum.techidiots.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=278&start=0&hilit=Signal+Mapping ) - I have a feature called AutoKML which automatically creates 4 kml files. One of track you have driven, one with active APs, one of Dead APs, And one with the current GPS position. With a "Network Link" google earth updates the changes in the kml file at a specified interval and displays them. I can also specify a view height and current location, so I can make google earth follow my current location (and show me the active APs I am detecting). These are only a few examples of what I use google earth for. I'm sure there are much more creative uses for it.
Yes, I read your post. IBM was the new Standard Oil. Microsoft was the new IBM. Google is the new Microsoft.
People were saying similarly positive and negative things about Microsoft 15+ years ago in a similar context: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Microsoft was seen as the Great Liberating Force against IBM.
I'm not particularly desperate for mod points today, I just think people need to bear this historical lesson in mind, which is the reason for my post. My £0.02.
Stick Men
I've used it to learn about geography. Taught me more than I ever got from school.
This will work with google maps, but tends to be a good deal quicker once you get an area cached.
I do work on optimization of large datasets, such as mapping all streets ala street view. KML files are a wonderful standardization, but they can be huge. In fact, a lot of geographic data is voluminous. There still is a niche for actual client apps that are not running JSON for speed reasons when crunching large datasets.
As well as the shiny interface, what makes Google is oodles of current, hi-res imagery and enough grunt to make the same base set of data available to a large chunk of the world's population.
Taken as a complete product, I can't see anything remotely in the ballpark. FOSS can do software, but data and servers to cough it up is not a software issue. Bing has data, but from what I've seen their data currecny and resolution is trailing Google. Due to the economies of scale involved, catching up would probably need deep pockets.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
You can run it outside of a browser?
That's all I've got.
I have been toying with the idea of building a GPS nav system out of a netbook, USB GPS receiver and Google Earth, but it's really not any cheaper than buying one (obviously I intend to multi-purpose the netbook, or the costing wouldn't even be comparable).
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I'm trying to find out what exactly Google Earth is actually useful for???
Never mind Google Earth, I'm trying to find out what an "Atlas" is useful for, or what are all those funny map-thingys covered in strange squiggles that you can buy all over the place. I mean, I don't have the imagination to see what they could possibly be useful for, so they just seem like a total waste of paper and printing to me.
Assuming you're referring to ESRI, (Environment Systems Research Institute), labeling them the 'top GIS company' is highly subjective. There are IMO many better platforms out there, open source included (see GRASS and/or QGIS). They just were lucky enough to secure some significant clients early on (USGS, USFS, USFWS, USDoI, DoD, NGS, etc.), which it turn forced all their subcontractors to adopt the same platform. Their software is bloated, cumbersome, about a decade behind emerging technologies, i.e., like Google Earth, and has a very closed architecture when it comes to integration.
(warning, shameless plug)
I've been working on a similar program for a while called libgis. The main difference is that libgis is built as a library instead of an application and uses OpenGL for rendering, which allows it to render terrain. It also uses GTK+ instead of Qt, but that's just due to my personal preferences. Unfortunately, it's not (yet!) as complete as Marble/WorldWind/Google Earth.
I'm have to call BS on your cousin.
I actually work in the GIS industry and when Google Earth was released there was a giant "Thank fuck for that" as it meant more people beyond the niche's of mining, government and military started to look at GIS services seriously. Google Earth has been a huge boon for any GIS Analyst trying to sell GIS services.
Previously, when trying to get new clients we had to try an explain a complex field to a perspective client, a lot of "imagine this...", and then watching their eyes glaze over. Now we can say with maps and data we can provide x service, just like Google Earth. We've even been able to sell Google Earth services, putting data into Google Earth and Google Earth training.
Google Earth has opened a niche market into something more mainstream, in general it has been a good thing(TM) for GIS even if you're just grabbing onto Google's coat tails for a bit of extra revenue (like a A$500 a seat one day Google Earth training course).
Google have a relationship with GeoEye for satellite data and they are most certainly not giving it away for free, either raw or processed. If you actually want the imagery for manipulation or publication you need to pay.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.