Google Acquires ImageAmerica

Google has just announced on their Google Lat-Long blog that they have acquired ImageAmerica - a company that builds high resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery. Google previously used imagery from ImageAmerica in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (Read more...)

Heat Map of KML and GeoRSS of the Earth

Barry Hunter has blogged about how he recently attended OpenStreetMap's first conference called "State of the Map". The interesting thing was a slide Barry saw that was presented by Ed Parsons (who was formerly with the UK's Ordinance Survey, and now works for Google). Ed presented a slide (click on the thumbnail above for a bigger picture) which shows a heat map of all the places found in KML and GeoRSS posts which have been indexed by Google's Geo Search engine. (Read more...)

European Campuses Want a 3D Contest Too

Jan-Philipp and five other students built models of their campus which they felt would have qualified for the contest Google recently ran to build 3D campuses. But, Google limited the contest to participants from the US and Canada. They wanted to share the model they built and suggest that maybe Google should do a European campus contest. (Read more...)

Singapore F1 Race Visualization in Google Earth

The folks at Earth@Sg have released an excellent Google Earth visualization of the setting of next year's Singapore Formula 1 (F1) car race. They have created some very nice 3D models of the downtown area, the grand stand, the race course, trees, and the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel. They also give you instructions for setting up your "Touring" options in Google Earth so you can pretend you are an F1 race car flying down the race course. (Read more...)

The Solar System in Google Earth

The 34 moon collection put out a couple days ago at the Barnabu blog has now been taken to the next natural evolution. James has changed the Earth into the Sun (by adding an image overlay) and then scaled the Moons down relative to the size of the Sun and added all the planets as 3D models as well. (Read more...)

New Layers Update - Earth at Night NASA Layer

Google has just pushed out a new layers update. The biggest new addition I've found is a new NASA layer under the "Featured Content" layer. One of the new features in the NASA layer is a "Earth at Night" image overlay for the entire Earth. It shows how much light various cities are putting out at night (or light pollution for those of us who like stargazing). Not only that, but the new layer is a regionated layer so when you zoom in closer it brings in more detail. (Read more...)

3D Campus Winners Now in 3D Buildings Layer

The seven winners of Google's 3D Campus contest are now viewable in the built-in 3D Buildings layer inside Google Earth. You could go look up each winning campus and find them, (Read more...)