Digital Earth Blog

We mentioned it yesterday, but now we have details of the imagery update in Virtual Earth, thanks VE: An Evangelist’s Blog.

I had hoped to see more of their awesome “version 2.0″ 3D cities added, but no new ones were added this time.  Still, it’s a very impressive update!

Here’s part of the list:

Microsoft Ultracam Orthos

• Pueblo, CO
• Wilmington, DE
• St. Joseph, MO
• Graceland, TN
• Memphis, TN
• Mesquite, TX
• Burlington, VT
• Yokohama, JPN
• Kawasaki, JPN
• Setagaya, JPN

Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - US

• Areas NW of Birmingham, AL
• Pickens County, AL
• Charlotte County, FL
• Boulder, CO
• Pueblo, CO
• Pasco County, FL
• Fulton County, GA
• Black Hawk County, IA
• Johnson County, IA
• Woodbury County, IA
• Douglas County, KS
• Olmstead County, MN
• Suburban St. Louis, MO
• Hinds County, MS
• Mississippi Metro
• Smith County, MS
• Tallahatchie County, MS
• Tate County, MS
• Tunica County, MS
• Yalobusha County, MS
• Yellowstone County, MT
• Pitt County, NC
• Merrimack County, NH
• Lancaster Metro, PA
• Lawrence County, PA
• Minnehaha County, SD
• Pennington County, SD
• Eau Claire, WI

Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - Australia

• Gold Coast, Australia
• Sydney, Australia
• Hobart, Australia
• Wollongong, Australia

Obliques (Bird’s Eye) - Europe

• Aberdeen, UK
• Edinburgh, UK
• Dunfermline, UK
• Cumbernauld, UK
• Falkirk, UK
• East Kilbride, UK
• Dundee, UK
• Crawley, UK
• Glasgow, UK
• Liverpool, UK
• Las Palmas, Spain
• Telde, Spain
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
• Den Helder, Netherlands
• Ruhrgebiet Region, Germany
• London, UK (updated)
• Ruhrgebiet Region, Germany
• Berlin, Germany
• Agrinion, Greece
• Chalkida, Greece
• Chania, Greece
• Drama, Greece
• Ioannina, Greece
• Kalamata, Greece
• Iraklion, Greece
• Katerini, Greece
• Kavala, Greece
• Lamia, Greece
• Larnia, Greece
• Serres, Greece
• Trikala, Greece
• Patra, Greece
• Volos, Greece

Orthos - US (0.5m)

• Albuquerque, NM
• Santa Fe, NM
• Augusta, GA
• Charlotte, NC
• Columbia, SC
• El Paso, TX
• Florida Southwest Coast, FL
• Ocala-Gainesville, FL
• Gulfport, MS
• Knoxville, TN
• Myrtle Beach, SC
• Nashville, TN
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Panama City, FL
• Pensacola, FL
• San Francisco, CA
• St. Cloud, MN
• Tampa Bay, FL

Satellite - Worldwide

• Baker Island, USA
• The Alhambra in Grenada, Spain
• Ahmadabad, India
• Pune, India
• Bhopal, India
• Timbuktu, Mali
• Bhudaneswar, India
• Indore, India
• Patna, India
• Nagpur, India
• Bangalore, India
• Calcutta, India
• New Delhi, India
• Bombay, India
• Hyderabad, India
• Jaipur, India
• Kanpur, India
• Madras, India

Google has added a neat feature that combines Google Maps driving directions with StreetView. When you’re looking at your list of directions, look for the little camera icon next to each item. If you see one, then you can view those directions in StreetView. It draws a blue line with large arrows inside of the StreetView window to help show your route.

Google has created a video that shows off this new feature. After you’ve watched the video, try it out for yourself. If notice anything interesting during your trip, show it off in the Google Earth Hacks new StreetView section.

The download isn’t available yet, but Google Earth version 4.3 will be out later today. We’ll let you know when it starts to become available. Some of the notable features:

• StreetView - As we predicted a few weeks ago, StreetView will finally arrive in Google Earth. The images will be shown using the “Photo Viewer”.
• New navigation system - The way you navigate in Google Earth has been changed to better support a 3D environment. The view will automatically tilt to horizontal as you zoom in, and your speed will be based on absolute height rather than relative height.
• Image acquisition dates - The bottom of the screen will now show how old a particular piece of imagery is. Some will be accurate to the day, others to the month and some will simply show the year. This is a feature that a lot of people have wanted, so it’s great to see it coming.
• Revamped 3D rendering system - They’ve updated the way 3D cities are rendered and added many more of them. It sounds like it will work similar to Virtual Earth, where low-res buildings load first, and they gradually become higher quality as you zoom toward them.
• Flash support for the Mac - This means things like the YouTube layer, the Google Earth MMORPG and other Flash-based items will now work on a Mac!
• Sunlight - You can now turn the sun on and off, and use the time-lapse feature to move it around. Hills and mountains will cast shadows on the ground, though 3D buildings will not.
• New languages - Google Earth will now be available in 12 new languages — Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, English (UK), Spanish, Finnish, Hebrew, Indonesian, Portuguese, Romanian, Thai and Turkish.

It sounds like it will be an awesome update. We can’t wait to get our hands on it!

For more about this coming release, check out the Google Earth Blog and Ogle Earth.

In a classic case of the Streisand Effect, Aaron and Christine Boring have filed suit against Google for posting images of their home (which is located on private road) in StreetView.  As a result, the Smoking Gun (and other sites, like this one) have posted pictures of the residence, thus making their “private” property even more public.

The suit has some merit, as it appears Google did indeed take the photos while on private property.  However, in addition to asking for the imagery to be destroyed, they’re asking for $25,000 in damages and we can’t figure out where that number came from.  It seems a bit excessive.

The funny part is that the road number in StreetView is considerably mis-aligned on their street, making it very hard to determine which house was theirs — until now.