Run, don’t walk, to one of the best articles yet written about how Google Earth does its magic:

How Google Earth [Really] Works

It is written by Avi Bar-Ze’ev, who was one of the developers on early versions of Google Earth, when it was still Keyhole Viewer. He starts off his series by looking at how Google Earth renders a 3D virtual globe, and he does this by explaining the various concepts underlying Google’s patent applications, some of which have been made public only recently.

(BTW, Avi also got a long response from NY State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris regarding his desire to censor imagery of infrastructure in Google Earth.

I think he still doesn’t get it — his argument is just wish-thinking: Google isn’t obligated to buy from (potentially censored) US imagery providers; the company could just as well buy it from foreign providers. And if Google and other US companies were compelled to censor their imagery or prohibited from using foreign providers, then there are plenty of map and globe competitors abroad that will and can provide the imagery.

Removing such imagery from Google Earth means that only those who are the most motivated get access (e.g. terrorists, who can use a number of alternate sources and who often have rogue government support) while concerned citizen loses a resource. Want to check if the local power plant is obeying zoning laws? Not if Google Earth has blurred it. Google Earth and other mapping services like it provide checks and balances for the public on their government. If that is taken away, then the terrorists have already won, to overuse that phrase.)

• 3DVia redux: Not content to just have Microsoft adopt its 3DVia technology to build a 3D Warehouse competitor, Dassault Systemes is also teaming up with Publicis Publishing group to create the password-esquely named 3DSwym, which will focus on something called “consumer journey management”, which I think means getting people to to interact with consumer goods packaging in 3D as it is being developed in order to get feedback from them and thus create something that they really want. Caveat Edsel? Still, another case of using 3DVia to keep metadata with the 3D model throughout the production pipeline, which is the future of such systems.
• 3D Warehouse2ArchiCAD: First Photoshop CS3 Extended got a plugin for retrieving content from 3D Warehouse, now Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD 11 gets the same functionality. Cadalyst has the news, and instrucitons.
• GE Security: Avi Bar-Ze’ev offers to explain to NY State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris why his security concerns regarding Google Earth are unfounded. Also, as of now he is putting his technology posts up on Reality Prime, so update your readers.
• Another Street View competitor: Map Jack. One sentence review: Higher resolution pictures but with a less fluid GUI that Street View, and currently for San Francisco only, so it will be interesting to see how this scales. (Via 3PointD)
• Picasa Mashup: On the Maps API Blog, Pamela Fox explains how to mash up Picasa with Google Maps by creating a route for a georeferenced Picasa album. I’ve spent the last few days trying to add a traveling salesman solution to the code, but no luck yet. You’ll be sure to hear about it if I do:-)
• Ozzie Jaws? Somebody’s been scouring Sydney’s Australia Day high resolution images available in Google Earth, and suspected two of the surfers are really a shark and a stingray. The news made it to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. The pictures in the article are not all that clear, so here are the placemarks; check for yourself. I think the shark’s a good candidate, but the stingray — no way. (Best viewed in Google Earth, not Maps — Maps doesn’t let you get close enough.)

AGI makes Satellite Tool Kit, an astrodynamics application for designing, visualizing and analyzing air and space flight. It does a lot of heavy lifting for government agencies, the military, and civilian aircraft manufacturers.

One use is the planning of flying unmanned flying drone (UAV) missions and the analysis of gathered data. Not everyone has an STK system installed, however, so now there is a utility that exports that data (and stuff like it) to KML. It’s shown in action in this YouTube video:

Watch it even if just for the eye-candy of seeing how STK’s virtual globe works. Can’t wait for this kind of augmented reality prowess to show up in Google Earth:-) Okay, maybe we’ll have to wait a couple of years.

Google Maps just got a jaw-droppingly impressive upgrade to its directions functionality. Just watch the YouTube video already:

You have to play with it to believe it. And it works in Europe too, across countries:

And it handles ferries seamlessly:

I have no idea how the algorithm for finding routes does its work so fast, or how address labels get to be displayed on the fly as you drag a destination around, but this bit of AJAX programming is simultaneously technically stunning, useful, and easy to use.

From the Department of Paranoid Officialdom:

The NYT reports: Google Earth Makes Some Officials Nervous. Apparently, Microsoft and Google vans have been scouring NYC for their street view products, and this has been making low-level officials nervous.

This morning, the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, held a news conference in Midtown Manhattan to urge Internet-based mapping services to consult with law enforcement authorities — and well, to just be responsible — in deciding what to put on the Web. Citing Google Earth among other services, he said he was worried that too much information might compromise counterterrorism efforts.

Right. Because terrorists are too stupid to drive cars and take pictures themselves. (Some of the comments attached to the article are priceless.)

As you perhaps know, the residence of US Vice President Dick Cheney — the US Naval Observatory — is pixellated in Google Earth/Maps (and Microsoft Virtual Earth), and has been since the application launched. The White House and the Capitol are crystal clear, so why not Cheney’s residence? Is it a conspiracy?

Probably not. This issue was first raised by Maureen Dowd back in 2005 and deemed then to most likely be imagery processed along outdated guidelines. In a similar case, Google upgraded imagery of the White House when the existing view was shown to be doctored. In other words, Google has likely just never gotten round to finding a better un-pixellated view of Cheney’s home — so it would be unfair to blame Cheney for the state of his home in Google Earth, at least without some kind of evidence he’s behind the pixellation.

That doesn’t stop Jon Stewart at the daily Show from doing this, however:

At the very least, it’s more evidence of Google Earth’s grip on mainstream consciousness.

(Via Fantom Planet)

• Want to know what Google’s plans are for monetizing its mapping products? You could do worse than read the following patent application, filed by Google on Dec 12, 2006 and published a few days ago: Determining Advertisements using user interest information and map-based location information (Via SEO by the SEA, which also takes a closer look at the details of the patent.)
• Webware has a sneak preview of Earthmine, a georeferenced urban imagery system that aims to outdo Google’s Street View with clearer, higher-vantage imagery and (it is claimed) 3D data gathering abilities. ETA is later this summer. (Thanks Andy!)
• Evan Ratliff’s big Wired article on Google Maps and Earth is out. Evan auto-reviews it on his own blog:
  

  As the online version’s headline implies (or possibly, overstates to the point of self-parody), it’s about how Google Maps and Google Earth are altering the way people relate to geography. Perhaps more interestingly, it’s about how thousands of people have taken the tools made by Google and other companies to become their own mapmakers.

  It’s an informed and worthwhile read.

• Feed Validator’s KML support has now been officially announced on the Google Maps API Blog.
• The joint-US/Mexico/Canada Commission for Environmental Cooperation today launches a KML layer mapping US, Canadian and Mexican industrial pollutant data. If you live there, it is worth checking out pollution sources near you. (Via the Daily Green)