Tag Archives: Google Earth

Search, explore, and more with Google Earth VR

When we first launched Google Earth VR, we knew there was something powerful about being able to point anywhere in the world and start flying. You could soar over landscapes and cities, and discover locations you didn't even know existed. But we also know people want to quickly find and revisit the places that mean the most to them, whether it's a childhood home or favorite vacation spot.

So, today we’re launching an update to Earth VR that gives you the ability to search. Just type an address or location name, and you can quickly visit anywhere in the world.

Earth VR Search
Now you can search for your favorite places in Earth VR

We’ve also added 27 new hand-picked locations to help you discover some of the world's most incredible places. You can check out Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle!), stand on the top of Table Mountain in South Africa, fly over Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina, and much more.

Earth VR Montage
Take a flight through 27 new locations including Neuschwanstein Castle

And today we're bringing Earth VR to Oculus Rift with support for Oculus Touch controllers. It’s available now for free on Oculus Store and Steam. Now, go explore!

Welcome home to the new Google Earth

Nearly everyone who's opened Google Earth in the last decade does the same thing first: they search for their home. Home is how we orient ourselves—it's where we start from. This might mean a one-story craftsman in a Wisconsin suburb. Or a house made of reeds on a floating village in Peru.

Then we zoom out. We see our neighborhood, then our city, our province, our country, our continent, and eventually: our blue marble. Out in space, our planet looks impossibly small. But improbably, it’s home to all of us. On the eve of Earth Day, I'm reminded of something I've learned watching people use Google Earth over the years: Home is not just how we understand our place in the world—it’s a means to connect to something bigger than ourselves.

Explore the new Google Earth

Today we’re introducing a brand-new version of Google Earth—on the web and Android—two years in the making. With the new Earth, we want to open up different lenses for you to see the world and learn a bit about how it all fits together; to open your mind with new stories while giving you a new perspective on the locations and experiences you cherish. It’s everything you love about Google Earth, plus new ways for you to explore, learn and share. Zoom in and see what adventures await you in the new Google Earth.

Broaden your horizons with Voyager

We've joined up with some of the world's leading storytellers, scientists and nonprofits to bring the planet to life with Voyager, a showcase of interactive guided tours.

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NaturalTreasures03.png
Walk alongside the elusive snow leopard in BBC's Natural Treasures.
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Start with Natural Treasures from BBC Earth, and journey to six habitats—from islands to mountains to jungles—and learn about the unique and thrilling wildlife in each. Then head to Gombe National Park in Tanzania and hear from Jane Goodall about her team’s chimpanzee research and conservation efforts. And make a stop in Mexico with Lola, one of 12 little monsters featured in Sesame Street's Girl Muppets Around the World, and learn about modern Mayan cultures. With more than 50 immersive stories in Voyager, and more added weekly, there are lots of adventures to choose from.

Explore and learn about anywhere

Uncover hidden gems the world over with “I’m feeling lucky,” a new feature that takes you somewhere unexpected with the click of a button. You might discover the lush green Pemba Island off the Swahili coast, the historic La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy or the Zao Hot Spring in Yamagata, Japan. We’ve curated 20,000 different places, so roll the dice and see where the world takes you.

CiudadArtes.png
Uncover hidden gems like Ciudad de las Artes y Las Ciencias in Valencia, Spain.

Once you’ve landed on a point of interest, open a Knowledge Card to learn history and facts about that place and see more pictures of it. To add a dash of serendipity to your travels, flip through the stack of cards and discover related places. You might find yourself in Valencia, Spain and stumble on the beautiful Ciudad de las Artes y Las Ciencias.

Share the beauty you find

Click the new 3D button to see any place from any angle. Swoop around the Grand Canyon and see geological layers, or check out the majestic architecture and pristine grounds of the 500-year-old Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley in France.

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Postcards from Earth: Grand Canyon, Château de Chambord, Burning Man

When you find a view that leaves you breathless or inspires a fond memory, share a Postcard of your exact view with your friends and family. They can click the link to jump right to where you were (virtually) standing.

Bringing it all back home

We hope that after visiting your house in the new Google Earth, you'll be inspired to see someone else’s. Get started with a special Voyager story called This is Home, a journey into traditional homes from cultures around the world. You’re invited to step inside a Peruvian chuclla, a Bedouin tent and a Greenlandic IIoq, and meet the people who live there. Check back to visit more homes in the coming months.

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This is Home

Get the new Google Earth now on the web in Chrome; on Android as it rolls out this week; and on iOS and other browsers in the near future. (Of course, you can still access and download Google Earth 7 for desktop.) Hold it in your hand, pass it around a classroom, fly around the world and walk inside places thousands of miles away in incredible detail. Feel free to lose yourself a little—with Google Earth you can always find your way back home.

Whoa, that’s one big tree … check it out in a new Street View collection

Today, Google Maps is bringing you more Golden State beauty—we’ve added six destinations to our California State Parks Street View collection. In the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, you can gaze up at California’s famous redwoods, take in the spectacular scenery, and learn about the history of the park. Check out these Street View snapshots, as well as behind-the-scenes photos of the Sempervirens Fund using the Trekker and 360-degree cameras to collect this imagery.

01 Castle Rock State Park.png
Frolic in the meadows, gaze up at the trees, or check out some cool rock formations. Castle Rock State Park has something for every explorer. 
02 Skyline to the Sea Trail.jpg
There’s not a light at the end of the tunnel, there’s a beach at the end of the hike. The 31-mile Waddell Beach Skyline to the Sea Trail starts in the Santa Cruz Mountains and ends at Waddell State Beach.
05 Sempervirens Campground.png
This 2,000-year-old Redwood tree is dubbed "Father of the Forest."
03 Big Basin Redwoods State Park.png
At this site on May 15, 1900, A.P. Hill and a group of others formed the Sempervirens Club. Their mission was to protect the coast redwoods, and they later created Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The club went on to protect more than 34,000 acres of redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
04 Berry Creek Falls.png
Berry Creek Falls is located in an especially lush section of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The area’s diverse habitat is comprised of coastal marsh, Monterey pine forest, oak woodland, riparian woodland, and, of course, redwood forest.
150827-DCoyro-Sentinel-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-01.jpg
A Sempervirens Fund volunteer maps the Sequoia Trail in Big Basin Redwoods State Park (photo courtesy of Sempervirens Fund).
150828-ABlanchard-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-9399.jpg
This Sempervirens Fund volunteer is on top of the world! (Photo courtesy of  Sempervirens Fund.)

Whoa, that’s one big tree … check it out in a new Street View collection

Today, Google Maps is bringing you more Golden State beauty—we’ve added six destinations to our California State Parks Street View collection. In the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, you can gaze up at California’s famous redwoods, take in the spectacular scenery, and learn about the history of the park. Check out these Street View snapshots, as well as behind-the-scenes photos of the Sempervirens Fund using the Trekker and 360-degree cameras to collect this imagery.

01 Castle Rock State Park.png
Frolic in the meadows, gaze up at the trees, or check out some cool rock formations. Castle Rock State Park has something for every explorer. 
02 Skyline to the Sea Trail.jpg
There’s not a light at the end of the tunnel, there’s a beach at the end of the hike. The 31-mile Waddell Beach Skyline to the Sea Trail starts in the Santa Cruz Mountains and ends at Waddell State Beach.
05 Sempervirens Campground.png
This 2,000-year-old Redwood tree is dubbed "Father of the Forest."
03 Big Basin Redwoods State Park.png
At this site on May 15, 1900, A.P. Hill and a group of others formed the Sempervirens Club. Their mission was to protect the coast redwoods, and they later created Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The club went on to protect more than 34,000 acres of redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
04 Berry Creek Falls.png
Berry Creek Falls is located in an especially lush section of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The area’s diverse habitat is comprised of coastal marsh, Monterey pine forest, oak woodland, riparian woodland, and, of course, redwood forest.
150827-DCoyro-Sentinel-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-01.jpg
A Sempervirens Fund volunteer maps the Sequoia Trail in Big Basin Redwoods State Park (photo courtesy of Sempervirens Fund).
150828-ABlanchard-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-9399.jpg
This Sempervirens Fund volunteer is on top of the world! (Photo courtesy of  Sempervirens Fund.)

Source: Google LatLong


Whoa, that’s one big tree … check it out in a new Street View collection

Today, Google Maps is bringing you more Golden State beauty—we’ve added six destinations to our California State Parks Street View collection. In the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, you can gaze up at California’s famous redwoods, take in the spectacular scenery, and learn about the history of the park. Check out these Street View snapshots, as well as behind-the-scenes photos of the Sempervirens Fund using the Trekker and 360-degree cameras to collect this imagery.

01 Castle Rock State Park.png
Frolic in the meadows, gaze up at the trees, or check out some cool rock formations. Castle Rock State Park has something for every explorer. 
02 Skyline to the Sea Trail.jpg
There’s not a light at the end of the tunnel, there’s a beach at the end of the hike. The 31-mile Waddell Beach Skyline to the Sea Trail starts in the Santa Cruz Mountains and ends at Waddell State Beach.
05 Sempervirens Campground.png
This 2,000-year-old Redwood tree is dubbed "Father of the Forest."
03 Big Basin Redwoods State Park.png
At this site on May 15, 1900, A.P. Hill and a group of others formed the Sempervirens Club. Their mission was to protect the coast redwoods, and they later created Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The club went on to protect more than 34,000 acres of redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
04 Berry Creek Falls.png
Berry Creek Falls is located in an especially lush section of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The area’s diverse habitat is comprised of coastal marsh, Monterey pine forest, oak woodland, riparian woodland, and, of course, redwood forest.
150827-DCoyro-Sentinel-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-01.jpg
A Sempervirens Fund volunteer maps the Sequoia Trail in Big Basin Redwoods State Park (photo courtesy of Sempervirens Fund).
150828-ABlanchard-Big-Basin-Google-Trekker-9399.jpg
This Sempervirens Fund volunteer is on top of the world! (Photo courtesy of  Sempervirens Fund.)

Shedding light on solar potential in all 50 U.S. States

Solar power is an abundant, low carbon source of electricity, but historically it has been more expensive than traditional electricity. With solar costs dropping dramatically, many people are starting to ask: does solar power make sense on my rooftop? In my town or state?  Since its initial launch in 2015, Project Sunroofhas used imagery from Google Maps and Google Earth, 3D modeling and machine learning to help answer those questions accurately and at scale. For every building included in the data, Project Sunroof calculates the amount of sunlight received by each portion of the roof over the course of a year, taking into account weather patterns, position of the sun in the sky at different times of year, and shade from nearby obstructions like trees and tall buildings. Finally, the estimated sunlight is translated into energy production using industry standard models for solar installation performance.

sunroof image 1
Project Sunroof county-level coverage from 2015 - 2017

Today, Project Sunroof is helping answer those questions for more places than ever, with an expansion that brings Project Sunroof’s data coverage to every state in the U.S, with a total of approximately 60 million buildings analyzed. The expanded data reveals some fascinating insights about the solar energy opportunity nationwide:


  • Seventy-nine percent of all rooftops analyzed are technically viable for solar, meaning those rooftops have enough unshaded area for solar panels.

  • Over 90 percent of homes in Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico are technically viable, while states like Pennsylvania, Maine and Minnesota reach just above 60 percent viability.

  • Houston, TX has the most solar potential of any U.S. city in the Project Sunroof data, with an estimated 18,940 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of rooftop solar generation potential per year. Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, and New York follow Houston for the top 5 solar potential cities -- see the full top 10 list in the chart below.
Sunroof image 2

To put the rooftop solar potential into perspective, the average U.S. home consumes 10,812 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year according to EIA. There are one million kWh in one gigawatt-hour (GWh). One GWh of energy is enough to supply power to 90 homes for an entire year.

If the top ten cities above reached their full rooftop solar potential, they'd produce enough energy to power 8 million homes across the US.
Sunroof image 3
Sample of Project Sunroof solar energy potential map

This also means that if you've been thinking about going solar, there's a much better chance there's Project Sunroof data for your area. The Project Sunroof data explorer tool allows anyone to explore rooftop solar potential across U.S. zip codes, cities, counties and states. If you’re looking to learn about the solar and financial savings potential for your homes, the Project Sunroof savings estimator tool now covers 40x more buildings in the U.S. than when we launched it in 2015.

Sunroof Image 4
Visualization of solar potential at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

Almost 10 years ago, Google became an early adopter of rooftop solar, installing a 1.6 megawatt (MW) solar array at our headquarters in Mountain View, CA—the largest corporate solar installation of its kind at the time. Today, Project Sunroof combines Google’s longstanding interest in sustainability and renewable energy with unique, high-quality information about the potential of rooftop solar power. We’re proud to be expanding coverage of this project to help more people decide if solar makes sense for you.  

Source: Google LatLong


Shedding light on solar potential in all 50 U.S. States

Solar power is an abundant, low carbon source of electricity, but historically it has been more expensive than traditional electricity. With solar costs dropping dramatically, many people are starting to ask: does solar power make sense on my rooftop? In my town or state?  Since its initial launch in 2015, Project Sunroof has used imagery from Google Maps and Google Earth, 3D modeling and machine learning to help answer those questions accurately and at scale. For every building included in the data, Project Sunroof calculates the amount of sunlight received by each portion of the roof over the course of a year, taking into account weather patterns, position of the sun in the sky at different times of year, and shade from nearby obstructions like trees and tall buildings. Finally, the estimated sunlight is translated into energy production using industry standard models for solar installation performance.

sunroof image 1
Project Sunroof county-level coverage from 2015 - 2017

Today, Project Sunroof is helping answer those questions for more places than ever, with an expansion that brings Project Sunroof’s data coverage to every state in the U.S, with a total of approximately 60 million buildings analyzed. The expanded data reveals some fascinating insights about the solar energy opportunity nationwide:


  • Seventy-nine percent of all rooftops analyzed are technically viable for solar, meaning those rooftops have enough unshaded area for solar panels.

  • Over 90 percent of homes in Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico are technically viable, while states like Pennsylvania, Maine and Minnesota reach just above 60 percent viability.

  • Houston, TX has the most solar potential of any U.S. city in the Project Sunroof data, with an estimated 18,940 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of rooftop solar generation potential per year. Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, and New York follow Houston for the top 5 solar potential cities -- see the full top 10 list in the chart below.
Sunroof image 2

To put the rooftop solar potential into perspective, the average U.S. home consumes 10,812 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year according to EIA. There are one million kWh in one gigawatt-hour (GWh). One GWh of energy is enough to supply power to 90 homes for an entire year.

If the top ten cities above reached their full rooftop solar potential, they'd produce enough energy to power 8 million homes across the US.
Sunroof image 3
Sample of Project Sunroof solar energy potential map

This also means that if you've been thinking about going solar, there's a much better chance there's Project Sunroof data for your area. The Project Sunroof data explorer tool allows anyone to explore rooftop solar potential across U.S. zip codes, cities, counties and states. If you’re looking to learn about the solar and financial savings potential for your homes, the Project Sunroof savings estimator tool now covers 40x more buildings in the U.S. than when we launched it in 2015.

Sunroof Image 4
Visualization of solar potential at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

Almost 10 years ago, Google became an early adopter of rooftop solar, installing a 1.6 megawatt (MW) solar array at our headquarters in Mountain View, CA—the largest corporate solar installation of its kind at the time. Today, Project Sunroof combines Google’s longstanding interest in sustainability and renewable energy with unique, high-quality information about the potential of rooftop solar power. We’re proud to be expanding coverage of this project to help more people decide if solar makes sense for you.  

Source: Google LatLong


Shedding light on solar potential in all 50 U.S. States

Solar power is an abundant, low carbon source of electricity, but historically it has been more expensive than traditional electricity. With solar costs dropping dramatically, many people are starting to ask: does solar power make sense on my rooftop? In my town or state?  Since its initial launch in 2015, Project Sunroof has used imagery from Google Maps and Google Earth, 3D modeling and machine learning to help answer those questions accurately and at scale. For every building included in the data, Project Sunroof calculates the amount of sunlight received by each portion of the roof over the course of a year, taking into account weather patterns, position of the sun in the sky at different times of year, and shade from nearby obstructions like trees and tall buildings. Finally, the estimated sunlight is translated into energy production using industry standard models for solar installation performance.

sunroof image 1
Project Sunroof county-level coverage from 2015 - 2017

Today, Project Sunroof is helping answer those questions for more places than ever, with an expansion that brings Project Sunroof’s data coverage to every state in the U.S, with a total of approximately 60 million buildings analyzed. The expanded data reveals some fascinating insights about the solar energy opportunity nationwide:


  • Seventy-nine percent of all rooftops analyzed are technically viable for solar, meaning those rooftops have enough unshaded area for solar panels.

  • Over 90 percent of homes in Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico are technically viable, while states like Pennsylvania, Maine and Minnesota reach just above 60 percent viability.

  • Houston, TX has the most solar potential of any U.S. city in the Project Sunroof data, with an estimated 18,940 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of rooftop solar generation potential per year. Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, and New York follow Houston for the top 5 solar potential cities -- see the full top 10 list in the chart below.
Sunroof image 2

To put the rooftop solar potential into perspective, the average U.S. home consumes 10,812 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year according to EIA. There are one million kWh in one gigawatt-hour (GWh). One GWh of energy is enough to supply power to 90 homes for an entire year.

If the top ten cities above reached their full rooftop solar potential, they'd produce enough energy to power 8 million homes across the US.
Sunroof image 3
Sample of Project Sunroof solar energy potential map

This also means that if you've been thinking about going solar, there's a much better chance there's Project Sunroof data for your area. The Project Sunroof data explorer tool allows anyone to explore rooftop solar potential across U.S. zip codes, cities, counties and states. If you’re looking to learn about the solar and financial savings potential for your homes, the Project Sunroof savings estimator tool now covers 40x more buildings in the U.S. than when we launched it in 2015.

Sunroof Image 4
Visualization of solar potential at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

Almost 10 years ago, Google became an early adopter of rooftop solar, installing a 1.6 megawatt (MW) solar array at our headquarters in Mountain View, CA—the largest corporate solar installation of its kind at the time. Today, Project Sunroof combines Google’s longstanding interest in sustainability and renewable energy with unique, high-quality information about the potential of rooftop solar power. We’re proud to be expanding coverage of this project to help more people decide if solar makes sense for you.  

Open-sourcing Google Earth Enterprise

(originally posted on the Geo Developers blog)

We are excited to announce that we are open-sourcing Google Earth Enterprise (GEE), the enterprise product that allows developers to build and host their own private maps and 3D globes. With this release, GEE Fusion, GEE Server, and GEE Portable Server source code (all 470,000+ lines!) will be published on GitHub under the Apache2 license in March.
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Originally launched in 2006, Google Earth Enterprise provides customers the ability to build and host private, on-premise versions of Google Earth and Google Maps. In March 2015, we announced the deprecation of the product and the end of all sales. To provide ample time for customers to transition, we have provided a two year maintenance period ending on March 22, 2017. During this maintenance period, product updates have been regularly shipped and technical support has been available to licensed customers.

Feedback is important to us and we’ve heard from our customers that GEE remains in-use in mission-critical applications. Many customers have not transitioned to other technologies. Open-sourcing GEE allows our customer community to continue to improve and evolve the project in perpetuity. Note that the implementations for Google Earth Enterprise Client, Google Maps JavaScript® API V3 and Google Earth API will not be open sourced. The Enterprise Client will continue to be made available and updated. However, since GEE Fusion and GEE Server are being open-sourced, the imagery and terrain quadtree implementations used in these products will allow third-party developers to build viewers that can consume GEE Server Databases.

We’re thankful for the help of our GEE partners in preparing the codebase to be migrated to GitHub. It’s a lot of work and we cannot do it without them. It is our hope that their passion for GEE and GEE customers will serve to lead the project into its next chapter.

Looking forward, GEE customers can use Google Cloud Platform (GCP) instead of legacy on-premises enterprise servers to run their GEE instances. For many customers, GCP provides a scalable and affordable infrastructure as a service where they can securely run GEE. Other GEE customers will be able to continue to operate the software in disconnected environments. However, we believe that the advantages of incorporating even some of the workloads on GCP will become apparent (such as processing large imagery or terrain assets on GCP that can be downloaded and brought to internal networks, or standing up user-facing Portable Globe Factories).

Moreover, GCP is increasingly used as a source for geospatial data. Google’s Earth Engine has made available over a petabyte of raster datasets which are readily accessible and available to the public on Google Cloud Storage. Additionally, Google uses Cloud Storage to provide data to customers who purchase Google Imagery today. Having access to massive amounts of geospatial data, on the same platform as your flexible compute and storage, makes generating high quality Google Earth Enterprise Databases and Portables easier and faster than ever.

We will be sharing a series of white papers and other technical resources to make it as frictionless as possible to get open source GEE up and running on Google Cloud Platform. We are excited about the possibilities that open-sourcing enables, and we trust this is good news for our community. We will be sharing more information when we launch the code in March on GitHub. For general product information, visit the Google Earth Enterprise Help Center. Review the essential and advanced training for how to use Google Earth Enterprise, or learn more about the benefits of Google Cloud Platform.

Posted by Avnish Bhatnagar, Senior Technical Solutions Engineer, Google Cloud

Start with a line, let the planet complete the picture

Jeff Nusz, Data Arts Team

Take a break this holiday season and paint with satellite images of the Earth through a new experiment called Land Lines. The project lets you explore Google Earth images in unexpected ways through gesture. Earth provides the palette; your fingers, the paintbrush.
There are two ways to explore–drag or draw. "Draw" to find satellite images that match your every line. "Drag" to create an infinite line of connected rivers, highways and coastlines. Here's a quick demo:


Everything runs in real time in your phone's web browser without any servers. The responsiveness of the project is a result of using machine learning, data optimization, and vantage-point trees to analyze the images and store that data.

We preprocessed the images using a combination of Open CV's Structured Forests machine learning based edge detection and ImageJ's Ridge Detection library. This culled the initial dataset of over fifty thousand high res images down to just a few thousand selected for their presence of lines, as shown in the example below. What ordinarily would take days was completed in just a few hours.


Example output from the line detection processing. The dominant line is highlighted in red while secondary lines are highlighted in green.



In the drawing exploration, we stored the resulting data in a vantage-point tree. This enabled us to efficiently run gesture matching against all the images and have results appear in milliseconds.


An early example of gesture matching using vantage point trees, where the drawn input is on the right and the closest results on the left.




Another example of user gesture analysis, where the drawn input is on the right and the closest results on the left.



Built in collaboration with Zach Lieberman, Land Lines is an experiment in big visual data that explores themes of connection. We tried several machine learning libraries in our development process. The learnings from that experience can be found in the case study, while the project code is available open-source on Git Hub. Start with a line at g.co/landlines.