A new way of looking at the Earth

Google Earth is awesome. Freaked out with it over the weekend. Its a fine piece of software, and works like a charm even on a 128 kbps connection! Mostly looks like they use XML over HTTP to talk to the server. (similar to google maps).

The places in US are in a very good resolution, and the building in major cities (in US) are in 3D. So, you can kind of do a fly through!.

Places that I saw over the weekend….. Atlanta, Norcross (my wife used to work here when she had been to US on an assignment), Hoover Dam (has good 3d-terrain), Grand Canyon, SFO and the bay area - Cupertino (apple office), Mountain View (Google), Infosys office at Kaiser Drive, Golden gate bridge, Detroit Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson airport at Atlanta, Niagara Falls, NY - Manhattan Area, Liberty island…… Saw Dubai too!

When it comes to India, the resolution is not that great. But New Delhi has good resolution, specially the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Lok Sabha, India Gate area etc. May be, because its the capital. Bombay/Mumbai resolution is pretty bad. Couldn’t find gateway of India. Agra - Taj Mahal is not that clearly visible, but you can see it (bcoz its so huge!).

One funny thing I noticed was the names that are given to the cities, specially in south India. For e.g., Mangalore is named as ‘Mangaluru’, as if its pronounced in Kannada!. Mysore is named ‘Maisuru’ and so on…

Could get a nice view of Mangalore. Never knew Mangalore looked like that!!. Saw Hyderabad, Mysore, KRS dam, Kabini Dam, Goa etc. All the airports are clearly visible, including Mangalore, Goa, Bangalore etc!.

Its really addictive, and fun. You can sit with it for hours together. It will be more fun when the image resolutions of the Indian Subcontinent improves!

Updates (Sep-18-2005) : Resolution of some indian cities better now. Read More…

2 comments | July 4th, 2005 at 09:47am