Tag: KML

Google has recently introduced the option to search through all the world's collection of Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files within Google Earth, which makes all the gazillions of layers immediately accessible for your geobrowsing pleasure. In order to use this new search function, all you need to do is navigate to your area of interest and enter a search query, and a list of appropriate KML ...

The latest release of Google Earth comes packaged with a surprise: drawing tools. They were previously only available in the paid upgrades of the applications used by professionals. This newly added feature adds path and polygon drawing tools to easily draw and pinpoint areas, for easier communication. Time animation has also been added to the newest Google Earth Version 4 Beta. These overlays can ...

You may or may not be aware that Wikipedia contains the geographical coordinates for thousands of cities, landmarks, and other geographical features, and there's an ongoing WikiProject to add latitude and longitude data to every place in the online encyclopedia. This is pretty cool, as it allows you to check out a Wikipedia article and jump straight to a Google Maps satellite view or punch the ...

Using Google Earth as a gaming environment is a great strategy. What better place to game than in a real environment? No need to create new environments, and obstacles. Julian is in the process of ripping out a Battleship game utilizing Google Earth! Juian has been playing around with Google's newly acquired Sketchup application, and modeling some ships and pegs for use in the online game. Users ...

Previously KML files were exclusively the domain of Google Earth, but a part of the Google Earth 4 announcement the other day that I missed was that Google Maps now supports KML files, too. KML, in case you're not up on your acronyms, is an XML format that lets you add data to Google Earth, e.g. locations, annotations, pictures, etc. To pull a KML file into Google Maps, just enter its URL in the ...

Despite being mostly a Windows boy myself, I'm really glad to see Google moving some of its apps to other platforms. Today Google announced the availability of Google Earth 4 Beta, which is a free download not just for Windows, but also for Mac OS X (yes, it's a universal binary) and Linux. Aside from going multi-platform, Google Earth 4 sports a new, sleeker interface, support for textured ...

Another day, another Google acquisition. Just in time for Pi Day, Google has scooped up @Last Software, makers of SketchUp, a 3D drawing app for Windows and Mac OS X. The @Last web site describes SketchUp as a "deceptively simple, amazingly powerful tool for creating, viewing, and modifying 3D ideas quickly and easily." In the announcement on the Official Google Blog, @Last's Jeff Martin ...