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Google Earth Pro Now Available Free
HughPickens.com writes Google has long offered a Pro version of Google Earth for $399 per year that includes some pretty cool extras not found in the free version. Now Rick Broida reports at Cnet that you can get Google Earth Pro absolutely free. All you have to do is download the installer, run it, then sign in using your e-mail address (as your username) and license code GEPFREE. Features include: Advanced measurements: Measure parking lots and land developments with polygon area measure, or determine affected radius with circle measure; High-resolution printing: Print images up to 4,800 x 3,200 pixel resolution; Exclusive pro data layers with Demographics and traffic count; Spreadsheet import: Ingest up to 2,500 addresses at a time, assigning place marks and style templates in bulk; and Movie-Maker: Export Windows Media and QuickTime HD movies, up to 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. If you've ever been involved in a property dispute, you'll know how acrimonious they can get. Google Earth Pro includes parcel data that definitively defines property boundaries. "Do you really need this? Probably not, as Pro was created with business/enterprise users in mind," writes Broida. "Let's be honest, [Google Earth Pro has] entertainment value that's virtually impossible to measure."
Sadly not Linux.
The truth is that the definitions of the property boundaries are exactly accurate, i.e., 100' N/S and 50' E/W. The issue is that how the surface features interact with those property boundaries is only an approximation.
I work daily with this using a GIS systems. We have a custom-crafted map where an expert spent a lot of time doing what's called "rubber-sheeting", meaning stretching and squeezing the photo layer to make it line up as closely as possible with the lot lines layer, and it's still plus or minus a few feet, more than enough to preclude using it to settle a property dispute.
The ONLY way to settle a boundary dispute is to hire a surveyor. Be precise in what you want, you want a boundary line located, you do NOT want a "survey" which is more more complicated and much more expensive.
As a data custodian for our county cadastral data I can attest that using the data for ANY purpose other than tax assessments is not recommended. Parcel data is meant to track ownership. It is not meant to be an accurate representation of survey data. It never has, and never will. Just because it "looks" ok when you overlay it with an aerial photo doesn't mean it should be used for any determination of property lines. This is why every time you buy a house a professional surveyor comes out and re-checks everything. We all know the house didn't move, but surveyors can't even agree on a the same location of a corner marker. Where do you think all this error goes when you try and do a countywide fabric of parcels? For a kick, ask your county assessor for the parcel line data.. including COGO attributes. Then look in amazement as your 120 foot property line is actually 118.5 feet on the map to make it fit inside of decades of mapping error. I've tried to reach out to Google many times to offer an update of our data to reflect new subdivisions. I never got a response. The product looks pretty and functional until you actually try and do something that matters with it.