Short news: Trulia, Gaia, OpenStreetMap, Windguru, ArcGIS Explorer

  • S. Fjalar in Iceland proposes a class project for school: Use Google Earth imagery to make inspirational-style posters. See some of the results at the Artwork Earth Flickr group.
  • West Virginia University’s GeoVirtual Laboratory plays with Virtual Reality Geographic Information Systems. Looks like the amalgamation of a couple things I’ve seen elsewhere on the web. (Via W. David Stephenson’s blog)
  • Trulia real estate searches can now be saved as a live network link. Not entirely new, but very nicely implemented.
  • Gaia gets rid of the Google Earth imagery, but continues developing, and gets its own project page on SourceForge. In case it wasn’t clear before, it’s for Linux.) The Earth is Square reports Gaia will get support for NASA World Wind imagery in its next release. Good to see.
  • Talking of data: Over on OpenGeoData, Steve Coast announces that Yahoo! has agreed to let OpenStreetMap, the open source mapping project, use Yahoo! Maps’s satellite imagery. Rev Dan Catt cheers them on.
  • Windguru gives wind conditions for windsurfers in many different spots. It now comes with a KML link. (Via 5 minutos)
  • In the absence of Ogle Earth’s own review of ESRI ArcGIS Explorer (it’s coming, it’s just so damned busy right now), here are some others currently on the internets:
    • Andrew Smith at Digitally Distributed Environments: “At first look ArcGIS Explorer is sadly disappointing with poor rendering of KML files and the ability to add data only if you are GIS literate.”
    • Over on Dot Net Without a Net, Matt Priour reviews ArcGIS Explorer. Verdict: “This is going to be a niche product. If they can get the speed up to some reasonable level, I think it will be a really good one.”
    • SpatialLink has initial impressions.
  • Dave Bouwman does some Google vs. ESRI as opposed to Google Earth vs ESRI ArcGIS Explorer. Interestingly, Dave’s guestimates are remarkably close to mine, from last year.
  • Geotagger, Craig Stanton’s Mac application that georeferences photos using Google Earth, is up to version 1.1.
  • Google Earth is one of 5 nominated for “product of the year” by a Belgian marketing congress, in collaboration with the Standaard, one of Belgium’s largest newspapers. Also on the list: YouTube, the GPS device, podcasts, and digital TV. The GPS device already won last year. I guess you can win twice. (Via Belgeoblog)
  • On Slashdot: A contributor discovers a Microsoft van collecting street-level imagery. Ready to be pasted at the street-level into Virtual Earth?

3 thoughts on “Short news: Trulia, Gaia, OpenStreetMap, Windguru, ArcGIS Explorer”

  1. Just a little note on Geotagger. I swapped to ExifTool and now I think it has problems with computers that use commas instead of fullstops (read: Continental Europeans). There will be 1.2 out shortly.

  2. This mentioned microsoft photo map from inside of a van is a great adition to the existing google map service. I like it ver much from my first impression.

    Thank you for sharing this story with me !

  3. Hello

    The more I use Google Earth the more ideas I get. It is a most remarkable piece of software. It is capable of making certain types of search much easier. I have been creating kmz files covering South Africa and its many types of interests … for example I have placed all the wine farms on the famous Winelands Route, I have created a file showing all the mountain passes, all the golf courses, all the Bays, and National Monuments etc etc. I am continuing to build it up so that interested parties can locate and find what they want without leaving Google Earth just by superimposing layers. Maybe you would like to take a look South African places of interest on Google

    Earth

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