Google Earth is currently Stuart's new toy <g> and although I'm not as fascinated with the subject as he is, I'm impressed enough to share as I think there are FoLCs who would love this.

Google Earth is a free download. It's a program of satellite representations of the earth, where you can click anywhere on the globe and zoom in to a specific location in the world. Some areas are more detailed than others of course, but you can usually find the part of the world in question in amazing detail. You can tilt to make the image 3-D and rotate it to see your location from all possible angles.

The images of the area around Ben Lomond, here in Scotland, are so detailed, Stuart is able to plan hillwalking trips using them as a reference.

The images are constantly updated from satellite information and it's a lot of fun as well as informative.

LabRat

LOL! My boyfriend is fascinated with that website too. The other day we found sattelite pictures of the house I live with my parents in and the apartment I share with my boyfriend. The footage of my house freaked me out!!!!

I've had too much fun with both the website and the application. I've zoomed in my house and old apartment and work, trying to figure out when the pictures were taken. And griped when satellite photos aren't close enough in other addresses, such as my parents' houses.

Looks cool! Thanks for sharing. But... *sigh* another step towards finally going with the masses and accepting Google. Oh well, at least it's not Microsoft.

So... how different is it from Google Maps ?

Also, BTW, have you seen Google Moon ? Browse around for a while, then zoom in all the way...

Paul

Hm, Paul, the free version is probably not that different - the commercial ones on the other hand offer a lot more.

In my case, google-maps/earth doesn't look promising as the satellite-photos aren't close enough in large areas through many european countries. As a companion-tool for standard maps with detailed contour lines this would have been perfect for hiking in the alps.


Have any of you tested NASA Worldwind - against/with google.earth? Although the satellite-data seems to be a bit older, the feature-list impresses me more.

hehe thats cool. Here's my home away from home, The House of Pain, the Cauldron of Fear, Subi Oval.


Does anyone know how to get rid of all the labels?

Yeah, this is a really fun program to play with My husband pointed it out to me, and my son is fascinated by it, but I've had fun, too. Sort of give's you a Clark's-eye-view of the world!

PJ

I just found my house... and now I'm addicted!

LOL. I had to laugh when I visited one of my Stargate sites this morning and found someone had started a thread about Google Earth over there, too.

Small world. (And even smaller if you're using Google Earth )

Bettina, yes, it's only drawback does seems to be that it concentrates its detail on the US, Canada and the UK. A lot of the other parts of the world are much less detailed. Which is a shame, because they're probably the areas I'd be most fascinated to find out more about.

But they seem aware of that in their FAQs, so perhaps they'll improve those areas before too long.

LabRat

I went to Niagara Falls and Toronto Lester B. Pearson international airport this morning. Oh, and if you go to Paris Charles de Gaulle international airport you can actually see the planes!! Lovely views. It's a bit disappointing that some other of my favourite places come out blurry, but I'm gonna try it on Cheshire.

Kaethel

I'm still playing with this one.
Someone located and marked Buffy's home and high school (Torrance SHS) hehee

LOL. I was highly amused when the first thing the Gaters did with it was look for Area 51.

LabRat

The only problem is that the images are VERY outdated (at least in my city), when I do a maximum zoon in. I'm moving to a new apartment complex (which opened in 2002), and in the image, there isn't even sign of construction at that place, just a green field. I guess it costs a lot to make satellite images and save them in a server, so they only do it every 5 or 6 years.

Too bad. I was planning on using those images to give directions to people on how to get to my new place (especially since you can include the street names with the images - cool feature).

malu