Digital Earth Blog

Just a bit over six months since it was released for Windows, the Google Earth plug-in has been made available for the Mac.

Once you get the plug-in, there’s a lot of neat stuff you can do with it.  Some places to start:

• Earthswoop — Lots of tours
• Mini flight-sim
• Monster Milktruck — Just a demo, but lots of fun!

There don’t seem to be any changes to the Windows version, and a Linux version is still in the works.  Even so, this gives a bit boost to the legitimacy of the plug-in!

It’s time to roll out a site that a couple of us have been working on for the last few weeks — EarthSwoop!

Bits and pieces of the code have been used in some of my other plug-in tools, but this takes it a step further. Using the Google Earth plug-in and a simple interface, you can build collections of common locations, all viewed using an icon-based system. For some examples, go check out the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the 30 Stadiums in Major League Baseball, or some of the venues in the upcoming Beijing Olympics. We’ve built 15 collections to get you started.

You can create a collection about any subject that you want. Once your collection has been created, the system will generate KML files for each location inside of it and give you embed code to put it on your own site. When viewing it, you can add other content such as WikiMapia and Panoramio to help provide more context.

Here is a brief video that shows how easy it is to start creating collections, and below is an embedded version of our NFL Stadiums collection. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Powered by EarthSwoop | More info about this collection