How to make an Anaglyph with Google Earth. It always perks me up when someone does something completely new with Google Earth.

(One of the first cool things done with Google Earth was stereograms, back in July. I then wished aloud for stereograms as a built-in Google Earth feature, so that we could fly in stereo, albeit with our eyes screwed up. But a built-in anaglyph feature, which more powerful PCs surely can handle, would give us a fully fledged Google Earth 3D, just like in the movies. Just like in Snow Crash, in fact…)

[PS: I am outsourcing Wilma coverage to Google Earth Blog and The Map Room. Me, I’m working on getting Bloggforum 3 up to speed. If you’re around Stockholm November 19, do stop by. The new event site should be live in the next 24 hours.]

Grasshoppermind points out that the extremely cool Geograph project, which aims to collect photographs of every square kilometer of the British isles, now also provides a KML version of its searches, viewable in Google Earth.

The default “simple” KML download is a straightforward static file, but if you opt for the “advanced options”, you get to download a proper network link, which is great if you want to browse time-dependent results, such as recent submissions.

An article in Danish PC World highlights YaWah.com, the Danish company that helped NASA serve the gigabytes of imagery that its Blue Marble project demands. NASA bought one of their eRez imaging servers, according to the article.

YaWah.com also has their own version of Blue Marble up, as part of a demonstration — but for their viewer, all you need a browser, which makes this link a must-see.

The Dutch are no slackers when it comes to using Google Earth in the classroom. Via this page I found several links to how-to articles in Dutch on using Google Earth as an educational tool. One site in particular might appeal to English speakers: Earthquest.nl contains “assignments” for the classroom akin to treasure hunts, one of which has been translated into English (click on “Earthquests” on the left). Educators might want to check it out to get some ideas.

Another Dutch page of note is google-earth.pagina.nl, which contains heaps of links to Google Earth-related sites. Most of the links are to English-language sites, and also to some sightseeings sites I was not previously aware of, such as Aliensview (in English) and earth.web-log.nl (in Dutch).

Also of interest is the official answer by the Dutch government to the parliamentary question that was asked by 2 lawmakers regarding the ostensible security risks Google Earth might pose. For the record, then, because some articles on the internet are making it sound like it is the Dutch government’s position that Google Earth is a security risk (which is not its position), the government’s response is as follows, in part (translating now):

The images shown by Google Earth and Maps are already publicly available. The internet is a low-threshhold medium for accessing publicly available information. Currently there is no reason to start an investigation into the security risks of these applications.

Just as in the Netherlands, the US does not have a concrete policy regarding such applications on the internet. We asked the Australian government regarding Google Earth and the implications it saw for the privacy of its citizens. In its response the Australian government said that satellite imagery and aerial photography have been publicly available for a long time via companies both in Australia and abroad.

Liberal democracies are a wonderful thing.

Erwin Nikkels from Google Globe writes in about his recently launched Earthbooker.com, which integrates Google Earth with an 80,000-strong hotel database from Interactive Affiliate Networks, a division of Hotels.com. You can search, or else browse hotels in Google Earth via a network link. Instructions and details here. Because Google Earth is a browser, not a web app, it lends itself perfectly to commercial services like this one. After real estate and tourism, what industry will be next to take advantage of Google Earth?

Google Earth Community announces that new high-resolution imagery of Pakistan has been added to Google Earth’s database:

(October 14th) Google Earth is now hosting updated Pakistan earthquake-area imagery for rescue workers and concerned families. See the latest satellite data from our partner Digital Globe in the Baffa and Mansehra areas and locations near Islamabad and Rawalpindi by clicking on these links. These data-indexing placemarks will help you explore and understand the area of the recent, tragic earthquakes. Click on the dot closest to your area of concern and then click in the pop-up balloon to download an image of that area. Remember to close older images when opening new ones.

I’m back from a week in the greatest city in the world, and it’s time to catch up re Google Earth:

Mark McLaren looks at an implementation of XSLT to transform GPX into KML, and then updates his own conversion script (using ECMAScript, which is JavaScript by another name (I had no clue)).

My usual monthly “Geobloggers just got even better” link.

RobiNZ Blog mongers the rumor that SketchUp could be bought by Google. That would certainly make people happy, which certainly increases the likelihood that this is wishful thinking. (But if it isn’t, Mac version, please?)

But this is nice: Sketchup now has, in “pre-Beta”, a Google Earth Importer/Exporter (“If you want to send 3d models from SketchUp to Google Earth, this is the place to start”) and a Shapefile Importer (“If you have access to a GIS system, chances are you have access to useful building footprint data in the *.shp file format. Install this if you want to give SketchUp the ability to read these files and convert them into 3D models.”)

Mapdex blog provides the Coldfusion code for building Google Maps tiles via ArcIMS. Why does this news show up on a Google Earth-centric blog? Because we already know how to show Maps-like tiles in Google Earth. This, then should make it easier to publish large-scale detailed content, as it’s just become a lot more scalable.

Raiding Declan’s bookmarks now: EarthPlot (“processes geographic based data to generate a variety of maps within Google Earth”, $30) and EarthPaint (“allows the user to create freehand drawings and publish them as Google Earth ground overlays”, $15). Look intriguing, but only for PC.

Phone2Gearth lets Symbian phones with GPS convert this GPS data directly to KML, ready for Google Earth.

Major Google Earth satellite imagery contributor DigitalGlobe is launching two new satellites. Both seem geared towards making data updates more frequent.

Via All Points Blog, another Google geo-job.

Spatially Adjusted likes Dave Bouwman’s article “The GIS long tail“. Commenter Marc does not.

Zmarties likes large KML files, but notes that Google Earth becomes unstable when you use them, and comes up with some suggestions for Google Earth’s developers.

Tao of Mac dabbles some more with parsers, building a GPX parser that can slot quite nicely into something that produces KML.

Google Earth Blog finds another paragliding forum. (Other ones here and here.)