Google Earth is a program where you can look at the Earth through aerial photos. At Google Earth Cool Places (GECplaces) you can find and share weird, cool, and beautiful places. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Dec 6, 2011 - 5 comments

MeFi's own Alan Taylor brings us another crop of stunning aerial imagery from Google Earth, inviting you to guess what you're looking at. Now with multiple choice! (previously)
posted by theodolite on Nov 29, 2011 - 47 comments

Enter start and destination and watch your route payed out.
posted by iffley on May 8, 2011 - 48 comments

Clement Valla uses Google Earth to zoom in on bridges and roads in a way which makes them appear warped. [more inside]
posted by gman on Mar 7, 2011 - 21 comments

Geometry, Surfaces, Curves, Polyhedra (many of which are beautiful) l Google Earth Fractals l fractals and chaos. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 1, 2010 - 5 comments

Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 15, 2010 - 22 comments

Google has invented the Holodeck. Well, not really, but for the moment it's probably the next best thing. Google's Liquid Galaxy Project, a virtual glass elevator that lets you fly around the world, makes for a stunning presentation. Developed as part of Google’s “20 per cent time” initiative, which sees its engineers encouraged to pursue their own projects on company time, Liquid Galaxy allows users to fly through the Grand Canyon, leap into low-Earth orbit and back down into the oceans and even perch oneself on the Great Pyramid of Giza, all without even breaking a sweat. Check out the amazing video here.
posted by Effigy2000 on Feb 11, 2010 - 61 comments

Precursor to Google Maps? Overhead photos of NYC circa 1924. (Click the camera icon and slide to 1924)
posted by jefficator on Feb 1, 2010 - 35 comments

Google goes geothermal with EGS.
posted by Artw on Aug 19, 2008 - 16 comments

Not content to merely index all things terrestrial, Google Earth now lets you set your sights on the sky.
posted by the painkiller on Aug 22, 2007 - 23 comments

Have you played with Google Earth recently? You can track flights live and in 3-D, or watch an animation of global cloud cover over the last 10 days, or simply make Google Earth prettier using NASA images. Google Earth isn't limited to the current, you can also enable historical maps from the 1700s, and view an animation that will show you what will happen in the future to New York and San Francisco if the sea levels rise. Google Earth can also shed light on previous MeFi discussions, from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (and, indeed many other ship wrecks) to the discussion over America's top 150 buildings, now in all of their 3-D glory.
posted by blahblahblah on May 10, 2007 - 26 comments

Archaeological treasures found on Google Earth. In 25 years on the ground, "I've found a handful of archaeological sites. I found more in the first five, six, seven hours [on Google Earth] than I've found in years of traditional field surveys and aerial archaeology,"
posted by stbalbach on Oct 17, 2006 - 20 comments

Google Releases Sketchup for All. Google has released a free version of SketchUp (video and tutorials), quite possibly the coolest and most intuitive 3D authoring tool. An added bonus of SketchUp is it's integration into Google Earth. Google has also provided a 3D Warehouse for the posting of your models, which can be downloaded into either application (SketchUp for editing, Earth for displaying). Kind of gives you some insight into their plans for using Google Earth as an Automotive (Honda and Volkswagen) GPS service. (Sidenote: how long until this is seen as a threat to national security?)
posted by rzklkng on Apr 27, 2006 - 41 comments

Seen anyone on Google Earth lately?
posted by divabat on Feb 17, 2006 - 33 comments

Google Earth threatens democracy The planet's military bases apparently cannot hide from Google's all seeing eye.
posted by thecollegefear on Sep 13, 2005 - 30 comments

Google Earth: Zero Hour +1 If Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was responsible for a productivity loss of $600 million (for people playing hooky), then the release of Google Earth has to be responsible for at least $100m. So the next question is...what's next? When you think about all the Google Maps hacks, from craigslist, to GasBuddy (offline), Chicago Crimestats and Transit Maps, London Traffic Cams, various sight seeing sites, NYC Subway Stops, plus integration with BlogWise, Terraserver, Host-IP (broken?), Yahoo Traffic, and the US Census, you might wonder what else could be integrated into gEarth?

Things I'm hoping for? How about integrating historical markers, daytrip resources, factory tours, social demographics (like Nationmaster), politics (fundraising, election results, registration, polling place location, election irregularities), mapped to do lists, real-time weather and traffic, things that aren't there anymore, custom atlas creation, IMDB movie location shoots, tighter integration with topographical maps, WiFi access Points, a News Attention Index, shipwrecks, Job Searches, and tighter integration with the USGS. As shown in the gEarth interface (left hand side, first one in "Layers"), their online community is already working on using, improving, and customizing gEarth's new features, including some updates (Caution, requires the integration of *.kml file, *.eta, or *.kmz files.)
posted by rzklkng on Jun 29, 2005 - 21 comments

Use the free 7 day trial while it's available! This lil program lets you zoom in pretty darn close on just about any spot in the world. And it is FREAKING COOL. I don't have much better commentary than that, sorry. You can zoom around to your favorite locations, tilt the camera, show all road names, rotate views - and once you've got a bunch of stuff plugged in its really neat to just click between them and watch the flyby. I can't believe this isn't a double post, but couldn't find it on search. Have fun!
posted by glenwood on Nov 21, 2004 - 67 comments