From the Globe to the World: “Hello World” (An Introduction)
Hello Readers.
Welcome to this travel blog powered by wordpress. In here, we make considerable use of “Google Earth”, a program introduced in 2005 by Google to provide a “Virtual Globe”. A virtual globe is a collection of many types of photos, digitally stitched together to simulate a globe. Google Earth allows users to browse the globe at many different levels, from an encompassing space view, to a precise street view. The reality is that the program is not flawless, and the quality of images varies from location to location; so results may vary. That said, locations of high population density or high economic value typically have high quality images.
One important element of the program which you will encounter in this blog is a “KMZ” or “KML” file. These are “Keyhole Markup Language” files which are incorporated into the Google Earth virtual globe. In essence, they are a thin blanket to lie on top of the virtual globe image, and can add a wide variety of information to the image. By simply opening the file with Google Earth, you incorporate the file and information into the virtual globe.
For more background:
Here is a quality introduction to Google Earth and using Google Earth:
To download Google Earth, click here:
Here are a variety of beginner tutorials for new users of Google Earth.
This webpage was recently put together by three undergraduate students (Authors: Dawei Liu, Kuang Han, and Tomek Brzezinski) seemingly in order to document an imaginary trip to South Africa. The real intention however has been to show how Google Earth integrates into the process of the planning and implementing a vacation or trip. Moreover, the use of an imaginary “Mrs.Traveler” and her informal tone intends to illustrate the broad public potential for using Google Earth in the demonstrated fashion, rather than simply as a technical or academic resource.
Thanks for reading!