Animated prism map in Google Earth and EarthBrowser site tracker

 3D visualization, Earth Browser, Google Earth, Teaching resources  Comments Off
Feb 262009
 

Here’s a quick mention of Thematic Mapping blog in which Bjørn Sandvik describes a number of data visualization techniques using Google Earth. Since I’m teaching about the Green Revolution tomorrow, I wanted to find a suitable animation to impress the class. A Google search led me to Bjorn’s blog and a kml file on the human population explosion that was perfect for my needs. The file can be found on this page, and is illustrated in the video:


Animation of SE Asia population growth in Google Earth from Noel Jenkins on Vimeo.

I’m sure that many other geographers will find the population animation (and many of the other resources at Thematic Mapping) very useful.

Another discovery on Thematic Mapping, was Matt Giger’s EarthBrowser site tracker. I love EarthBrowser and was interested in this embeddable version. I tried it out but found that it currently seems to prevent Safari from scrolling properly.

 Posted by Noel Jenkins at 8:05 pm  Tagged with:

EarthBrowser update

 Earth Browser, Teaching resources  Comments Off
Jan 292009
 

EarthBrowser is now even faster and offers some new features including real-time satellites. An online API is just around the corner which will extend the application even further.

ebversion3

EarthBrowser Version 3.11

There are many schools which haven’t been able to install Google Earth across a network (mine included) and I view the two applications as being broadly complementary. Google Earth is great for spatial decision-making that requires high resolution imagery, while EarthBrowser is a better alternative when using global data sets such as webcams, volcanoes earthquakes and storms – which are all available within a single click from the main screen, as opposed to the increasingly complex Layers within Google Earth.

If you haven’t looked at EarthBrowser recently, do give it a try. It’s a free, super-fast download, and a site license is available.

 Posted by Noel Jenkins at 1:33 pm

EarthBrowser 3 Preview

 Earth Browser, Teaching resources  2 Responses »
Apr 042008
 

The latest incarnation of EarthBrowser is in beta testing and looking really interesting. It’s not yet available for public download.

eb3

Earth Browser 3 is Flash /Adobe Air based, and in a number of respects will be a genuine alternative to Google Earth, indeed possibly a better classroom tool for studying certain topics, especially weather and tectonics. Here’s a quick preview of how the application is looking at the moment.

EarthBrowser is a delight to use, extremely intuitive and quick in operation. Expanded to full screen on an interactive whiteboard, the virtual globe is stunning. The navigation is hugely enhanced with a neat and attractive draggable menu:

ebmenu

The data sets include comprehensive real time weather information, tectonic plates, earthquakes, volcanoes, webcams and country borders. The Layers panel in Google Earth by comparison is becoming rather unmanageable – try finding the new Earthquakes layer without a guide!

The Placemarks tab adds several other data sets including Aurora Activity. You can also add your own placemarks. I’ve done this in the screenshot below, ading a photo that I took recently in Tromso:

ebshot
click to enlarge

KML files can be opened by dragging them into Earth Browser, and clicking names or flags in the weather window brings up a related Wikipedia search.

The Placemark menu includes the option to open a Google Map that tracks the Earth Browser view when panned. This is an important feature, partly because the Google Map will display a satellite view at resolutions that Earth Browser can’t manage.

ebshot2 The New Map window (click to enlarge)
ebmap2

I’m very excited about EarthBrowser 3 and will be eagerly awaiting the finished version. The USP for geography teachers is the clean and efficient navigation and essential real-time datasets. I notice that Apple are hosting some useful looking teaching resources for EarthBrowser here.

 Posted by Noel Jenkins at 10:09 pm

Add webcams to EarthBrowser

 Earth Browser  1 Response »
Dec 292005
 

Earth Browser makes a great backdrop for using webcams in the classroom. Although it comes with hundreds of webcams, it’s very easy to add your own.

Start by searching for webcams on Google, for example Antarctica webcams. Here for example I’ll add the camera at Mawson Station.

mawson cam

Start Earth Browser and click Options and Webcam list to open the Edit Webcam dialogue. Then click New, and select the country, in this case Antarctica. The Nearest Location drop down box alllows you to locate the webcam symbol accurately, though if necessary you can use latitude and longitude co-ordinnates. Add a title for the camera, for example Mawson research station and then paste the URL of the camera’s web page into the Webpage URL box. Finally locate the actual image URL by right-clicking on the webcam image itself and selecting Properties. Copy the information listed under Address (Internet Explorer) or Location (Firefox) into the Image URL box and then click Add to finish the process.

edit cam

The webcam will now be safely stored in Earth Browser’s database. If you cutomize Earth Browser heavily, you might want to save the settings (File / Export Settings) to a safe place, in case you have to reinstall the program in the future.

earthbrowser new cam

 Posted by Noel Jenkins at 6:08 pm  Tagged with:

New Earthbrowser version

 Earth Browser, Teaching resources  Comments Off
Nov 222005
 

There’s a new version of the excellent virtual globe EarthBrowser.

EarthBrowser screenshot

With near real-time weather satellite images, sea surface temperature animations, hundreds of webcams (and the ability to customize the database) hurricane tracking and higher resolution maps than before, this remains a fantastically useful piece of software. It complements Google Earth and by virtue of it’s simplicity is perhaps the better classroom application for certain topics, particularly for teaching weather and climate. I wrote a short article about using Earth Browser in the classroom last year (link to article).

 Posted by Noel Jenkins at 10:25 pm  Tagged with: ,
© 2012 DigGeog Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha