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And Introducing Google Earth 5

On 2nd Feb 2009 Google Earth 5 was released. This is the largest update to the features and content in Google's virtual globe for over two years, and is the culmination of several projects that have been development during that time.

See the official video of the release event at the California Academy of Sciences

Download Lunch on Earth's In The Navy KML Tour

 

New Features

Oceans
You can now dive under the ocean's surface and explore the 3D bathymetry. To complement these explorations there a suite of new Ocean-themed layers. The ocean surface itself animates wave motion and allows 3D models to be partly or fully submerged. More information at Google Earth Blog.


Mars
Explore the craters, canyons, volcanoes and more on Mars, by swapping the terrain and imagery of Earth for that of our planetary neighbor. As with the oceans a range of new content is available in "Layers" to help explore this landscape. See Google Earth Blog's review for more information.


Historical Imagery
It is now possible to change the base imagery for a previously used dataset or any image from an archive imagery stretching back over 60 years. To allow easy access to these data, the time slider has been given a facelift and additional functionality.See Google's Lat-Long blogpost.for an overview of how to access the imagery.


Webkit Balloons
The HTML in description balloons is now rendered by WebKit (an open source web browser engine). What this means in simple terms is support for iFrames and most CSS and JS. This mainly a feature of interest for those who work with KML at the codelevel and a description of the various caveats can be found within Google's KML documentation.


Tours
Users can now create custom tours of the landscape and KML content in Google Earth. Read Google's Lat-Long blogpost for more information.

 

Links

Getting Started with Google Earth

  • Download Google Earth.

  • Read the Google's User Guide and the Geo Educator's Earth Starter Kit.

  • Although written for GE 4.2, Digital Explorer's manuals still provide a guide to many of the basic function in Google Earth. Meanwhile Rich Treves of Google Earth Design blog has been creating video tutorials since the early days of Google Earth.

Getting Started with KML

KML stands for the Keyhole Markup Language and is the international standard code used by Google Earth to generate and display content. Many KML features can be created and edited through the Google Earth interface, but its full abilities are unlocked through direct editing of the code.


  • A good place for both code monkeys and others who wish to learn KML at the text editor level is The KML Handbook by Josie Wernecke.

  • Google's code pages offer tutorials on basic and advanced KML features and documents with additional information on key elements in KML.

  • For more examples of KML illustrated using the GE plugin, see Roman Nurik's KML Interactive Sampler.