See the Trip View Bowl in Google Earth

Coming out of Taiwan each year, "Trip View Bowls" are popular works of art that show aerial artwork of a city, drawn onto the inside of a blue bowl. The artwork is quite impressive and amazingly detailed.


GEB reader Steven Ho, who we've shown you before for items such as his Mount Everest panorama, has built some very innovative Google Earth files to show off the 2011 bowl.
The first is a tour (KMZ) that shows the bowl, then swoops around and shows the entire earth inside the bowl, then dives back down to Taipei again. If you turn on the [3D Buildings] layer, you'll see that he's aligned it quite well (though the 3D coverage in Taipei is still quite weak).


Here is a quick video of the tour if you aren't able to access Google Earth right now:



The second is a huge 3D model of the earth sitting inside of the bowl (KMZ). There's not much to do with it, but it's a crazy sight to see and certainly one of the largest 3D models I've ever seen.


Lastly is a very high-res look at the imagery on the inside of the bowl, viewable using the Google Earth photo viewer (KMZ). As we mentioned at the beginning of this post, the artwork inside the bowl is remarkably detailed, and this file really helps to show that.

Quick and simple Street View with the Google Street View Image API

The Google Maps API family includes the Google Static Maps API, which delivers maps as fixed images in PNG, GIF, or JPG format. It’s great when you want to quickly add a map to a page without writing a JavaScript application, when you need maps on a device with no JavaScript support, or for generating lightweight thumbnail maps or maps for printing. In fact we’re so delighted with the popularity of the Static Maps API that today we’re launching an accompanying service for Street View imagery.

The Google Street View Image API brings the simplicity of the Static Maps API to Street View, providing a way to add a Street View image or thumbnail to any application without the need for JavaScript. Simply construct a URL in accordance with the documentation, and the API returns the corresponding Street View panorama as an image in JPG format:

You can use the Street View Image API in both web based and mobile apps, and the size limits and daily quotas match those of the Static Maps API for both the consumer Maps API and Maps API Premier. You can display Street View images in your apps using this API without a corresponding Google map, but if you do choose to display a map it must be provided by Google.

To make it easier to find help using the Street View Image API and Static Maps API, Google is also launching a new forum today dedicated to these services. If you have any questions regarding use of these APIs going forward google recommend you head over to the new Google Maps Image APIs group.

Google Earth 6.1 released

Google Earth 6.1 has just been released, and it comes with a handful of very nice features. You can download the new version here.

Changes to "Places"
With the ever-growing collections of saved Places in Google Earth, google have added a few tools to help us keep them organized. If you have a folder full of places, you can now click on that folder and sort them all from A-Z. In addition, there is now a small search bow at the bottom of your "places" window that allows you to search within your saved places to find items.

Changes to Street View
Late last year, Google added some big improvements to the Street View mode in Google Earth 6. Google have now refined it a bit further by allowing you to single click to move to a new location (instead of requiring a double-click) and google have improved the zoom feature. Now you're able to use the slider control on the right side of the screen to zoom in and out with much greater control. Street View in Google Earth also has a slightly wider field of view, similar to that found in Google Maps.

New lengths in ruler
We just showed you some great ways to use the Google Earth ruler a few weeks ago, and it had a minor change with this update. When using the "line" tool, instead of just telling you the length of the line, it will show you the "map length" along with the "ground length" of the line, which can vary slightly.

New fonts for street/place labels
It's hard to tell exactly what they've done, but it appears the fonts have been reduced in thickness (un-bolded, sort of), but also increased slightly in size. In any case, they're a bit easier to read.

Minor tweaks in the sidebar
Along with the changes to the "Places" section, they've revamped some of icons over there, and turned the (+) folder expansions into soft arrows, to make it look a bit less harsh.

New settings in "Tools --> Options"
You can now set the "Units of Measurement" to use your system default (rather than specifically choosing feet vs. meters)

"View --> Reset" menu option
This is still accomplished more easily with the keyboard, but you now have some options to reset your view with the menu. If you'd prefer to reset with the keyboard, you can press "n" to face north, "u" to reset to a top-down view, or "r" to reset both.

"Help --> Upgrade to Google Earth Pro..." menu option
A very minor addition; another bit of encouragement to upgrade to Google Earth Pro. Clicking this simply loads an informational page on what you'll get in Google Earth Pro.

Updates in Google Earth Pro
Speaking of GE Pro, 6.1 has brought some nice updates to that product on top of the updates listed above including enhancements to the printing layout, movie maker and better support for proxies and SSL certificates. They also tied the elevation profile into the ruler tool, saving a step when working with paths, as shown in the screenshot here. More details about the Google Earth Pro updates can be found on the Google Enterprise Blog.

All in all, it's a solid update. Nothing groundbreaking, but lots of little enhancements to make the Google Earth experience better for every user.

Google Earth 6.1 adds a few KML features

The recently released Google Earth 6.1 have added two new features that will help you annotate line data and improve KML Tours that include Street View mode. As a part of Google’s ongoing commitment to innovation within the standard, these were added to the gx: namespace using the official extension mechanism for OGC KML.

Line labels

When Earth 6.0 launched last November google introduced line styling options to create more realistic roads that have a physical width, outer coloring, and text labels. Now with Google Earth 6.1 you can also add simple text labels at the midpoint of regular (screen <width>) lines by using the new <gx:labelVisibility> tag in <LineStyle>.

Caption: Labeled line between SFO and LAX airports. 

Note: To preserve the current, unlabeled appearance of regular lines in existing KML files, google have turned off all line labels by default in Google Earth 6.1. Because labels for physical width lines were turned on by default in Earth 6.0, you will now need to explicitly enable in your LineStyles to display them in Earth 6.1+.

Better Street View experience in Tours

Last November google also introduced <gx:ViewerOptions> in Earth 6.0 so that KML Tours can activate the historical imagery, sunlight and Street View modes, allowing you to tell even cooler stories. Street View mode uses a different field of view (FOV) than the regular navigation mode to provide users with a better experience. However, until now this special FOV was not captured while creating Tours in Google Earth. This meant that tour playback couldn’t faithfully reproduce the Street View experience as originally recorded.

To address this issue in Google Earth 6.1 they added the <gx:horizFov> tag to <Camera> and <LookAt>. These values are captured automatically while recording tours in Earth 6.1 but you can also add them directly to your KML.

Caption: Here’s an example of using <gx:horizfov> to create the classic dolly zoom effect, invented by cameraman Irmin Roberts and used in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo.

Note: Although Cameras and LookAts can also be used to provide a default view for your placemarks, please note that in Google Earth 6.1 custom FOV values are only respected within the <gx:FlyTo> tags in tours.