wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Worldwide Panorama on Google Earth
Markus Altendorff 2005-Nov-07 20:39:00
wardnet2001 wrote:
>
> Hi All
>
> I've really ignored all the stuff about Google Earth. What can I do
> with it? Is there a link to explain it to me? Now I'm interested.
Hi,
Google Earth is "basically" a virtual globe, a sphere with a
picture of the earth painted on it on the screen that you
can turn and zoom in to. (for now, Windows only - and your
graphics card should be OpenGL compatible...)
The fun starts when you zoom in: high-resolution images are
downloaded "live" (i.e. you need an internet connection, and
the bigger the better...) up to a magnification where you
can actually see separate cars on the streets. Plus, you can
"fly" above the earth (i.e. you can not only look straight
down, but bank, turn, float etc.) and height and mountain
terrain is also visible (in 3D).
Thomas Rauscher of sinnfrei.at has collected the GPS data
that we offer on the WWP homepage and created a set of
"bookmarks" (like pins on a map) that show where all the
panoramas were taken, and you can double-click on any marker
to have the virtual camera zoom in on it, together with a
pop-up window that offers to open this panorama in a web
browsers. (Thomas, how about setting the bookmarks so that
the viewing angle is 45 degrees down instead of 90 degrees,
to give a better impression of "3D"? ;)
Did i forget anything?
-Markus