14 ms·
Google Earth Redesigned
- jordache 9y agostill an annoying aspect of Google Earth - I can see a long range of mountains from my 2nd floor windows. I want to drop down to approximately the same position and elevation (from my 2nd floor window) and take in the same view on Google Earth. The intent is to identify mountain peaks that I can not determine in real life. Google earth limits the angle one can tilt while the POV is close to the ground.
- arethuza 9y agoHave you tried this site? http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/makepanoramas_en.htm http://www.udeuschle.selfhost.pro/panoramas/makepanoramas_en... Edit: It generates panoramas with mountains and hills labelled .
- jordache 9y agothanks for the link... Yes this is precisely the perspective I want to view on Google Map, with the added benefit of being able to double click on a distant peak and fly right to it, or perhaps also a feature to return to previous position so one can easily toggle between points of interests
- arethuza 9y agoThe panoramas generated do have links to the relevant locations in Google Maps - though no "flying" :-)
- vosper 9y agoThere are some pretty good apps that will tell you the mountains that your phone is pointing at. PeakFinder, for example.
- johnlorry 9y agoYou can ctrl + drag/pan to look around your current point in space.
- jordache 9y agofly / zoom to approximately 2nd story level of a typical single family house. Then pan up. You'll find that you can not pan high enough to view the horizon line.
- johnlorry 9y agoI can when I hold down ctrl, not when I hold down shift. I'm on a mac though, on windows it might be something else than ctrl. https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4u1n51wmrw795o/Screenshot%202017-04-18%2013.31.31.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4u1n51wmrw795o/Screenshot%202017-...
- jobigoud 9y agoTry to get to experience Earth VR in the Vive. It's a fantastic thing. Very useful to get a better grasp of mountain ranges. It's my goto app to show non gamers people that want to try VR.
- sorenjan 9y agoSounds like you want the viewshed functionality in Google Earth Pro [1]. The desktop client is basically abandonware at this point, but thankfully, and generously, Google has made the Pro version free [2], and it's still available. [1] https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2015/02/google-earth-pro-viewshed-tool.html https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2015/02/google-eart... [2] https://www.google.com/earth/explore/products/desktop.html https://www.google.com/earth/explore/products/desktop.html
- pasta 9y ago404. That’s an error. The requested URL /static/9.0.31.6/balloon/balloon.html was not found on this server. That’s all we know. Great... Edit: after some F5-ing got it working. The 3D view is great! And I wonder why maps should be so slow. This feels much faster. Edit2: I keep getting the 404 error every time. Looks like something is still wrong.
- amelius 9y agoBug: the demo only shows beautiful aspect of the Earth, not the polluted industrial areas, trash yards, plastic gyres, ship graveyards, oil spills, et cetera.
- noja 9y agoGoogle Chrome is required. Nope.
- asymmetric 9y agoWhy the hard requirement on Google Chrome?
- espes 9y agoBecause it uses PNaCl
- Aaargh20318 9y agoAKA Google ActiveX. This was a bad idea when Microsoft did it and it's still a horrible idea now.
- blowski 9y agoBad idea for whom? Developers, users, shareholders?
- pilif 9y agousers. it's terribly hard to secure.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Aaargh20318 9y agoUsers. It's a security nightmare.
- espes 9y agoIt's ActiveX, but completely secure and open source. Sounds like a good idea. Regardless, it's pretty much already been killed. Too bad it's taken 8 years for a web standard (WebAssembly) to match it.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
- bru 9y agoVery impressive, but too bad zooming in a zone isn't smooth: it keeps accelerating and slowing down on my computer, which feels dizziness-inducing.
- watbe 9y agoLooks like the Google Earth Flight Simulator[0] didn't make the cut. Many features are missing from the original desktop app and it's not immediately clear what this offers over using "Earth" within Google Maps. The "auto-rotate around the landmark" feature is also a pain for people who are used to maps being north-facing by default. [0] https://googlesystem.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/google-earth-easter-egg-flight.html#gsc.tab=0 https://googlesystem.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/google-earth-eas...
- therealmarv 9y agoIt seems this is the Google way. They kill one product (especially a desktop product) and it takes years till the new one is on every feature on the same level as the old one... look at Picasa vs. Google Photos. Even today Picasa can do many more things that Google Photos cannot do today. I'm sure the native/old Google Earth has a ton of stuff which is not ported to the web version. Good they cannot convert Chrome itself as a web app :D
- fao_ 9y agoIt makes some amount of sense because there's less to maintain and more cultural knowledge of the new codebase. Instead of saying "We're removing features from Picasa because nobody here knows how they work and everyone's scared to change things", they can say "We have a shiny new project here that will eventually be better than Picasa". It's a nice PR stunt.
- jonah 9y agoI can tell you for a fact though that at least some of the senior Engineers who developed Picasa are still at Google.
- morgosmaci 9y agoNone of which are on the photos team or have the time to rewrite it for the newer stacks.
- discordianfish 9y agoDoesn't do anything on my ubuntu / chromium system.
- staz 9y agoidem
- Morantron 9y agosame here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- stefs 9y agocb=gapi.loaded_0:121 GET https://clients6.google.com/oauth2/v3/userinfo?key=[redacted] 401 () cb=gapi.loaded_0:45 Uncaught [object Object](anonymous function) @ cb=gapi.loaded_0:45 clients5.google.com/log?authuser=0:1 POST https://clients5.google.com/log?authuser=0 401 () POST https://clients5.google.com/log?authuser=0 401 ()
- IBM 9y agoHow great would it be if they did the same thing for Google Finance as well? It hasn't been touched in years.
- marban 9y agoJust like Google A, B, C and then some.
- SilverSlash 9y agoOh man this is amazing! It's fast too. I can only imagine this getting better still with more research in deep learning.
- tinkr10 9y agoCan you please tell me how deep learning is used in this app?
- SilverSlash 9y agoSorry for any confusion. I don't mean to say deep learning is used in this app (though it might be). What I wanted to say was that with the advent of generative networks, generating 3D models on the fly from a few image data will hopefully keep getting better.
- therealmarv 9y agoIn my opinion it is not that fast on initial loading on a 3Mbit/s line... I had the feeling that native Google Earth was faster (but maybe only because of caching).
- hoektoe 9y agoGot a bit of vertigo there
- piratebroadcast 9y agoI have Chrome but my computer doesnt support WebGL apparently.
- AbuAssar 9y agogo to chrome://flags and enable overriding the gpu black list also there is an option to force Hardware acceleration. I tried it and works fine.
- ageofwant 9y agoThis is where the aluminium in your Coke can comes from: https://earth.google.com/web/@-32.55733803,116.19955541,310.41957882a,59338.79591988d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CkwaShJECiQweDJhMzI5NGMwNmZiYWJlY2Q6MHg1MDRmMGI1MzVkZjUwMDAZh0Tr8vcNQMAh-CqeH-sEXUAqClJvbGV5c3RvbmUYASAB https://earth.google.com/web/@-32.55733803,116.19955541,310....
- 4ad 9y ago"Google Chrome is required to run the new Google Earth. Please try this link in Chrome." Get fucked. Embrace, extend, and extinguish. It's ActiveX all over again. PS: I have a 4 Ghz, quad core, i7-6700K CPU, 64GB RAM, 250Mbps internet and this is both poorly working to the point of being impossible to use, and bringing my computer to a halt.
- deadbunny 9y agoIndeed, really getting echoes of MS back in the day when IE was king.
- archgrove 9y agoAmen: "Aw snap! The new Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet". No. _You_ didn't support my browser. The web is not "Just Chrome" any more than the web was "Just Internet Explorer". Same game, different player.
- piyush_soni 9y agoWell, to be fair to them, they take fair amount of time but eventually they support multiple browsers. Same was the case with Google Photos editing not supported on Firefox when it was launched. Turned out Firefox had to up their game to support it and now it works in both.
- highace 9y agoWhat graphics card? This uses your graphics card.
- 4ad 9y agoAMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB.
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't do this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- psyc 9y agoOff-topic from the update, but sometime in the past 2 years the quality of their universal photogrammetry became jaw-dropping.
- danmaz74 9y agoYes, I was blown away when I first noticed this. And I was thinking how much this data, which is free for everybody, would be worth in case of a war...
- zeptomu 9y agoIt's not really free. It's free in the sense, that you can browse around, but if you wanted to do some analysis on it, you would need access to the raw bulk data, and this is very expensive. There is free aerial imagery data available (e.g. ESA's Sentinel-2), but it has lower resolution (10m/Pixel). If you want to do the 3D building thing, I estimate you need data with something like 1m/Pixel and from different perspectives. This data volume is rather big (Exabyte-scale) and it is non-trivial to host and access it, so currently only the big players have it.
- bpicolo 9y agoSan Francisco definitely has resolutions better than 1m/pixel it feels like (for buildings downtown) At least, you can clearly identify segments that would be < 1m across.
- zeptomu 9y agoYeah, there is high-resolution data available, but it is scattered around small-scale web portals mostly built by the government in this local area, and aggregating and polishing this data is a non-trivial huge effort (they come in different scales, projections and quality). Furthermore most data is orthographic only, so you can built a nice 2D map out of it, but to do 3D I estimate you need images from specified angles (e.g. 4 views per place), and I think this data is still behind closed doors and quite expensive.
- defenestration 9y agoThe new Apple HQ building site looks impressive in 3D: https://earth.google.com/web/@37.33478572,-122.00939683,47.8437939a,465.11726319d,35y,65.7414677h,60.00288635t,-0r https://earth.google.com/web/@37.33478572,-122.00939683,47.8... They didn't close the circle yet, to let trucks enter the midsection.
- pyromine 9y agoWhat's more interesting to me is the cranes are 3d modeled, that was not expected
- folli 9y agoYes, I noticed that too. How is this done? There has to be some machine learning involved, accumulating all the aerial imagery and street view data and somehow generate a 3D model. This can't be all LIDAR data, can it?
- kristofferR 9y agoI think it's just Stereophotogrammetry (regular pictures from different angles), I doubt LIDAR and ML is used. It's at least not required. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry#Stereophotogrammetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry#Stereophotogram...
- zulln 9y agoHave you not heard? Machine learning is used for everything today, and if it was not it definitely should been.
- Mithaldu 9y agoUniversally useful link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B020'05.2%22N+122%C2%B000'33.8%22W/@37.3357952,-122.0074398,187a,35y,189.94h,57t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d37.3347857!4d-122.0093968 https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B020'05.2%22N+122%C2...
- nisa 9y agoHangs my current Chrome on Linux on a Core2Duo E8400 with older Intel onboard GPU - The old Google Earth Linux runs fine :(
- piyush_soni 9y agoLooks like only few places in the US and some other cities elsewhere have the 3D view (that too not properly finished). Rest of them are still the old 2D. Wasn't most of this already there? I have seen their 3D view before, so besides performance improvement nothing much is new?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- RubyPinch 9y agoeach time I look at google's 3d representations for things, I really wonder why they don't do manual touchups for certain places I mean, if you are including the Eiffel Tower in the intro pages, could both make it look cleaner, and make it use less net resources
- jobigoud 9y agoWe need something like OpenStreetMap but with 3D content like this. And allow people to touch up the models.
- stuntkite 9y agoOSM Buildings[1] and Mapbox's Unity3d SDK[2] is providing some really cool stuff in this area. Google definitely doesn't have the whole market locked up. I think we'll see some really cool mapping stuff this year. [1] https://osmbuildings.org/ https://osmbuildings.org/ [2] https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-unity/ https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-unity/
- Jdam 9y agoJust why did they re-use the K8s logo on the landing page?
- swozey 9y agoIt is a bit goofy using another products logo but Kubernetes means Helmsman and that product is called Voyager so I see where they were going with using a ships wheel.
- anc84 9y agoWhat is the difference to the 3D view in Google Maps? edit: (honest question, dear downvoters...)
- DanTheManPR 9y agoI would like an answer too - I genuinely don't understand what the difference is.
- ino 9y agoWith Earth you can load KML or KMZ files, and you don't have directions.
- CommieBobDole 9y agoHonestly, I think this is (or will soon be)the new "3D view in Google Maps". Seems to be an improved version of that, with a (very) few of the features from the desktop Google Earth added.
- bla2 9y agoI don't know why Google Earth exists. The satellite mode in maps is very good, doesn't depend on PNaCl, and is part of Google Maps, where it makes sense.
- cptskippy 9y agoThere is no satellite view anymore, it's called "Earth". Not to be confused with Google Earth. And to disable the crappy 3D you have to go into the menu. What's funny is that if you disable WebGL then you get a much more usable version of Maps IMO.
- bla2 9y agoI love that 3d experience you call "crappy". To each their own, I suppose.
- oppositelock 9y agoJavascript has big performance limits which don't allow Maps to do everything that Earth does. The 3D engine in Earth does a whole lot of magic to get the visual quality that it has. In Javascript, you have to trade off everything to minimize your function call overhead into WebGL and try to pre-generate as much static content as possible. Earth has a much quicker access path to GL, which allows it to render more and higher quality visuals. Satellite mode without terrain can look fine in JS/WebGL. Once you start tilting the view and seeing terrain and buildings, the JS performance will be horrible pretty fast, and adaptive LOD streaming is hard due to the function call overhead. I worked on the Google Earth desktop app for a few years, so this isn't idle speculation. This new NaCL version seems to be nowhere near feature parity with the old desktop client, sadly. I hope it catches up, since I loved the historical imagery, for instance. The good news is that the desktop app still works if you want to see that.
- bla2 9y agoThanks for the reply. I played with this new version and with Maps's Earth mode for a bit today, and to me they feel identical 3d-eise (except that the new thing only works in chrome, and I like Maps's UI better).
- LeonM 9y agoI'm really impressed by the amount of detail in the 3D views (hold middle mouse button to look around). Even the fair at the field near my house [0] can be viewed in 3D!. Coincidentally they are currently building that same fair today, so for a moment I thought the images were live... [0] https://earth.google.com/web/@52.08511654,4.31805086,0.37952354a,143.62359855d,35y,74.28635143h,44.29917602t,0r/data=CkwaShJECiUweDQ3YzViNzczYmZmZmZmZmY6MHhmOTJkM2VjNGZhYmE2MmJhGULEcvDxCkpAIQunFltSRxFAKglNYWxpZXZlbGQYASAB https://earth.google.com/web/@52.08511654,4.31805086,0.37952...
- silversmith 9y agoHow are they building the 3D views? Mapping cars driving around with sensors? I was under the impression that the shapes were inferred from satellite images, but the moment I step outside the major cities, it's back to flat maps. Even the couple hand-modelled buildings previously present in maps seem to be missing here.
- Jaruzel 9y agoThis is exactly what I want to know. There's several towns in the UK that have all the houses in really good 3D (mostly the coastal towns) - I struggle to believe that there's a team of humans making these...
- maxerickson 9y agoThere's a (yuuuge) public Lidar dataset for the UK: https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/09/18/laser-surveys-light-up-open-data/ https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/09/18/laser-surve... One of the motivations for the collection was flood analysis, which overlaps with your observation about coastal towns.
- folli 9y agoI'm not sure that's it's only LIDAR data. There are e.g. some cranes and scaffolding that also are 3D modeled. I assume it's some magical machine learning pipeline that accumulates the aerial and street view imagery, LIDAR where available, and generates a 3D model.
- andy_ppp 9y agoEmbrace and Extend the web with Chrome only apps like this. Google are basically old Microsoft at this point.
- neilsimp1 9y agoI really liked having a separate application to open for Google Earth instead of a browser. I take it this won't be an option any more?
- heavymark 9y agoChrome allows you to turn any website into it's own app, but saving a website such as Google Earth to your bookmarks then drag that to chrome://apps and right click on it and choose Open Full Screen and create short cut. So it will you will be able to open it like an app and find it in spotlight/alfred and you can still use chrome for websites separately.
- JetSpiegel 9y agoAn "app". Just a glorified browser page without chrome. You can achieve the same thing with a shortcut.
- coldpizza 9y agoSomebody will probably create an Electron app that wraps the web app, just like with Google Play Music
- sorenjan 9y agoFortunately yes, it is. > Of course, you can still access and download Google Earth 7 for desktop https://blog.google/products/earth/welcome-home-new-google-earth/ https://blog.google/products/earth/welcome-home-new-google-e...
- sgift 9y ago> Embrace and Extend the web with Chrome only apps like this. Depends on the reason for "Chrome only" - if they use (upcoming) standards not supported so far by other browsers I see no harm in it. Other browsers will catch up in time.
- usmeteora 9y agoI want to VR around the earth. I was kind of excited and hoping this was that
- nicoboo 9y agoMobile view using F12 dev-tools shows a not-so-well-done design. That's a first for Google but I guess it will be improved even on various devices without having to install/try the apps. But it's a good first shot, keep going guys!
- jaimex2 9y agoNice, I hope someone makes a GTA 1 clone using the models and data :)
- Untit1ed 9y agoA bit disappointed to be honest - this doesn't do much better than Cesium and has a hard requirement on Chrome :(.
- stuntkite 9y agoCesium is a clusterfuck of JS though. I also once thought it was cool then I tried to use it professionally and extend it. It's a nightmare. Mapbox and Vizicities are offering some good stuff with real DEM now. Fingers crossed.
- kmfrk 9y agoI think it's a little funny and symptomatic of HN that we can't take a minute to fucking marvel at the fact that we've got something like this in the first place without going over the font or the whatever. Technology is amazing and moving rapidly, and if we can't take out five minutes to revel in an achievement like this, I don't know what the point is.
- selbekk 9y ago+1. This was just amazing to look at and play with.
- provost 9y agoWhen the homepage was 'flying' over the landscape, I was dreaming how cool that would look as the background for my TV.
- neon_electro 9y agoApple TV has this as a screensaver option: http://benjaminmayo.co.uk/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-video-screensavers http://benjaminmayo.co.uk/watch-all-the-apple-tv-aerial-vide...
- douche 9y agoIs it really something new, or is it something old, redone in Javascript, with fewer features, though?
- andrepd 9y agoThe latter. No substantial improvement and lots of regressions.
- flippyhead 9y agoI find myself often thinking this. Louis CK sums it up really well when he says "everything is amazing and nobody is happy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LaT5Iiwo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LaT5Iiwo4
- danielsamuels 9y agoMy house isn't even on there. :(
- sytelus 9y agoI checked some of not so famous places and 3D re-construction of environment is really good. I would assume they probably have even higher detailed 3D environment internally. Now if they can only allow to use this for developing self-driving cars algorithms :).
- NoGravitas 9y agoI love the way they play well with web standards: http://imgur.com/a/c9cNT http://imgur.com/a/c9cNT
- expertentipp 9y agoNavigating 3D maps in the desktop browsers has always been clunky with UI controls for panning, tilting, zooming, and their unclear mapping with the mouse buttons. They solved it by assigning the left mouse button to set an anchor and middle mouse button to "operate" the camera. Very simple and intuitive - I'm impressed, good job.
- yownie 9y ago"Google Chrome is required to run the new Google Earth. Please try this link in Chrome. Learn more. " GFY.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throw7 9y ago"Google Chrome is required to run the new Google Earth." thanks for nothing.
- shortimer 9y agoI thought that their imaging was all from satellite, but this image seems to show a very-close-to-the-camera windmill which would seem to hint at a drone....? https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65401271,128.717528,189.11365248a,154.7733102d,35y,65.37849899h,66.55599122t,0r/data=ChQaEgoML2cvMXMwNTQ3cGxiGAEgAQ https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65401271,128.717528,189.113...
- niklasrde 9y agoNah, it makes more sense if you go to the 2D view of the same spot [1]. There'll always be some parallax perspective offset towards the edges of the satellite image. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65383541,128.71781037,186.97921881a,312.95734321d,35y,70.35751109h,0t,0r/data=ChQaEgoML2cvMXMwNTQ3cGxiGAEgAQ https://earth.google.com/web/@32.65383541,128.71781037,186.9...
- llccbb 9y agoGoogle has been one of the largest purchasers and schedulers for aerial photography over the past 5+ years. Traditionally aerial photography uses airplanes as the flight system.
- kristofferR 9y agoI'm glad to see that they've fixed the Oslo bug (half the city couldn't load since 2014).
- perilunar 9y agoj
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- paulofalcao 9y agoThe 3d view is faster in google maps than google earth, why do we need google earth? Also I'm already used to use ctrl to rotate the view on google maps.
- noir_lord 9y agoThey where knocking a large building down near the office recently, this has that building in a partial state of demolition and has modeled the girders that where exposed. I admit to looking at it slightly slack-jawed, that wasn't so much future shock as the future punching me square in the face. https://earth.google.com/web/@53.74539679,-0.32722384,18.71382064a,234.32784729d,35y,3.04492516h,64.07003691t,-0r/data=CkgaRhJACiUweDE1MThlNmRjNDEzY2M2YTc6MHg4Nzc1NDZmNDg4MmFmNjIwGTf4wmSqZkFAIcSUSKKXf0NAKgVTeXJpYRgBIAE https://earth.google.com/web/@53.74539679,-0.32722384,18.713...
- Mithaldu 9y agoUniversally useful link (ctrl+click to rotate): https://www.google.de/maps/place/53%C2%B044'43.4%22N+0%C2%B019'38.0%22W/@53.7449284,-0.3271697,52a,54.9y,1.88h,53.41t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d53.7453968!4d-0.3272238?hl=en https://www.google.de/maps/place/53%C2%B044'43.4%22N+0%C2%B0... This has been around for years.
- fudged71 9y agoGreat example. Whatever they're doing in terms of photogrammetry and geometry reconstruction is really impressive. I wonder how much of it is manual effort (if any)
- flavor8 9y agoIt's interesting that the cars on the motorway to the south of the building are pancaked (not 3D) whereas the cars in the parking lot next door are 3D. It makes sense, since I guess they need objects to be in multiple frames from a flyover to project them into 3D. It must be a bitch to deal with moving objects and figure out which position to put them in, since the rest of the imagery is generated from multiple frames.
- kensai 9y agoThe fact that it was designed to be used only with Chrome is troubling. Of course it was the right of Google to decide on whatever platform they wanted. Anyone knows if there is a parallel "open" version in the works (in WebAssembly or similar)?
- rocky1138 9y agoThere's a desktop client available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.
- tps5 9y agoI never see anyone talking about google's elevation data for buildings and the process they've used to drape imagery over that elevation data. I wonder why that is? Maybe this isn't a hard problem and it's just a question of getting high quality data. Still, I've never seen any other company come close to this. I do wonder what exactly is new here in terms of a casual user browsing the landscape. Google maps 3D offers, more or less, the same experience. And that's been around for a while. Still, it's hard to be negative about this. The result is quite clearly better than every other comparable technology I've seen.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nxc18 9y agoApple Maps does the same thing and was doing it before Google. Interestingly, Apple seems to have better imagery, at least where I am; trees are sharper and more realistic, the ground imagery is more detailed and the colors truer to life. In the forests, trees are rendered clearly enough that I can recognize the landmarks, which just isn't possible in Google's rendering. The only downside is that Google's colors are prettier than Apple's, at the expense of accuracy. Bing (via the Maps app) is also doing this type of thing, but with a less robust set of data. Google's implementation appears to be based on oblique (angle, taken from plane) imagery similar to Bing's "Bird's Eye View" feature; if you open up old Google Earth you can see oblique shots from various angles that match the exaggerated coloring of the final 3D maps. Seriously though, check out Apple Maps. I didn't think I'd be recommending it, as I nerd out about Google Earth a lot, but it's actually got great imagery & models.
- tps5 9y agoCan I check out Apple Maps in a browser? I'd like to take a look, but I don't have easy access to ios or macos. The screenshots do look fantastic. (Not a criticism of Apple if this isn't possible)
- CameronBanga 9y ago
- rocky1138 9y agoHow is this any better than the desktop version that's already out?
- problems 9y agoIt's not - they just stopped developing the desktop one because now they're all about web-only. It sucks too because we use the desktop one all the time at work - though we're slowly replacing it with custom Cesium-based stuff.
- JepZ 9y agoWell, it doesn't work for me. After clicking the link I see only some wallpaper and a text 'Google Earth'. I use Chromium 57 with Linux. Any ideas why it doesn't work? Google maps (Earth + 3D) works without problems. When I open the website with Firefox I get a nice text telling me that google earth is an advertising platform for chrome ;-) 'Aw snap! The new Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here.'
- futurix 9y ago"Google Chrome required" - sure, because current crop of web developers are too young to remember dark age of Internet Explorer domination.
- phkahler 9y agoYeah, I noticed the contradiction: "Explore the far reaches of the world, right in your browser. " But my browser is FireFox.
- krisdol 9y agoWhat web technology does this use, specifically, that prevents firefox usage? Or is it just a chrome plugin they decided not to port?
- nandhp 9y ago["other browsers in the near future"](https://blog.google/products/earth/welcome-home-new-google-earth/ https://blog.google/products/earth/welcome-home-new-google-e...), so maybe there isn't one?
- dkns 9y agoI remember when inbox launched it could be only used under chrome/chromium. Then somebody changed their user agent in firefox to chrome and magically it started working just fine. So you might want to try that.
- excalibur 9y ago> Loading in progress. 0 of 4.543 billion years processed. Impressive.
- sidcool 9y agoThis is an engineering marvel.
- callahad 9y agoIf any Googlers are reading this: What does the new Earth require that Firefox is missing? I'm happy to help file things in Bugzilla so that this Chrome App can grow into a standards-based Web app.
- spankalee 9y agoNaCl
- NuDinNou 9y agoBad news > Mozilla's Christopher Blizzard criticized NaCl, claiming that native code cannot evolve in the same way that the source code-driven web can. He also compared NaCl to Microsoft's ActiveX technology, plagued with DLL Hell.
- spankalee 9y agoI suspect a future version will use WASM
- sorenjan 9y agoI don't understand why. They have a WebGL version in Google Maps that look almost identical. The data is the same between the two. Did they recompile the old desktop client to NaCl for no good reason? They didn't even keep any features, the only thing they kept seem to be the rendering. The new client isn't even close to the old desktop version that hasn't seen an update in years, and probably never will either.
- Mister_Snuggles 9y agoInteresting... When I visit this on iOS, I get a message that says "Google Earth for iOS is coming soon." Of course, there's already a Google Earth app for iOS. When I launch the Google Earth app on iOS, I get a message that says (roughly) "The developer has to update this application to work with future versions of iOS". This is weird since it was last updated in May 2016, though that appears to be a very minor update. In other words, the old iOS app is effectively abandoned and the new one isn't available.
- wolfgke 9y agoDoes this browser version of Google Earth also support the 3D mice that 3Dconnexion produces? I prefer using them in Google Earth for flying/zooming/rotating so much over using a regular mouse.
- rakshithbekal 9y agoAs expected doesn't work in edge. Atleast bypassed the disclaimer changing the user string. Things like these make me want to not use their services.
- user5994461 9y ago"Aw snap! The new Google Earth isn't supported by your browser yet. Try this link in Chrome instead. If you don't have Chrome installed, download it here."
- xliiv 9y agothis is absolutly awesome. Polymer shines :)
- CommieBobDole 9y agoWell, this is great. It's just like Google Earth, but slower and without all the neat features like historical imagery that made Google Earth awesome. Seriously, it doesn't even seem to support historical street view, which was the only big Maps feature that was missing from Earth. For anybody who wants to see what this is a pale imitation of, Google Earth Pro for desktop is still downloadable and still free (and still full of weird unfixed bugs because they've been working on this "replacement" instead) https://www.google.com/earth/desktop/ https://www.google.com/earth/desktop/
- exodust 9y agoOne thing I'm disappointed about... In the desktop version when you click and drag then let go, the camera will keep flying across the landscape without slowing down. Depending how fast you drag, it's possible to slowly and gracefully glide over the landscape in any direction you choose. This is a cool feature that is no longer possible in this new "improved" Google Earth. The camera now comes to a dead stop. I really hope they can add an option to bring back the "zero resistance" camera or whatever you call it. Or a flying camera mode or similar. It means you can sit back and glide over a city slowly, just above the buildings or mountains without needing to interact. If you choose a nice slow speed, the approaching map data loads in time and you have yourself a nice aerial trip over the land.
- shthed 9y agoLets hope they release an API for it, google maps api still only 2d and google earth api got discontinued years ago
- yalogin 9y agoThere is no information on the redesign. The only thing I know is they made Chrome a requirement to use it.
- Arkaad 9y agoThey don't even explain why Chrome is mandatory! "Learn more." just sends us to the Chrome page...
- Arkaad 9y agoThey don't even explain why Chrome is mandatory! "Learn more." just sends us to the Chrome page...
- minikomi 9y agoWell. Gives you a good idea of how massive Tokyo SkyTree is. https://earth.google.com/web/@35.71013838,139.81057456,323.83953229a,1872.25254428d,35y,89.34096197h,93.36321476t,-0r https://earth.google.com/web/@35.71013838,139.81057456,323.8...
- 8ball 9y agoIf you know about politics, this is what it takes: a person on the leader's position would use anything and any way he can to keep his authority/position stable --- this is not happening just in DC but in enterprises too. As Larry etc formed Alphabet while tossing Google to Pichai, the latter's power has already been weakened by the former everyday. The fact is that as Google as well as other large companies in silicon valley is more and more occupied by Eastern Indian works, the quality control of products has therefore gone into toilet since their culture, while turning to be the majority, is to seek atomic survival by exploitation of extrinsic achievement instead of improving intrinsic value of products. Office politics has been never more severe since then and now it's difficult and exhausting for Pichai to maintain his position by dodging countless number of traps created by themselves. He would then like to do anything to keep himself up --- or else being destroyed --- even if it means to set the product quality back to a century before, to bind the will of midlevel managers to support himself. And that is why the products goes back to as evil as IE, simply because no one could care less.
- gejjaxxita 9y agoOn my 4 core i7 laptop with 8GB of RAM running Ubuntu this juddered and flashed a lot and CPU utilisation went to 100% on all cores... I didn't think my laptop was that bad.