While Frank points out that “Google and NOAA” have released an imagery layer for Hurricane Ike after-Imagery.  I thought it would be good to point out that you are NOT limited to Google for this imagery.

You can get the imagery right from NOAA, if you know where to look (It is actually the National Geodetic Survey that is doing the imagery).  Here is the Ike imagery page and also the Gustav imagery page.  You can download the individual images or whole paths of the fly-over imagery.

And if you don’t feel like downloading the imagery and doing the processing yourself, You can view it online as well as in NASA WorldWind with the ZoomIt! layer.

One thing I noticed though while looking at the imagery… the GE imagery.. well, it seems sub-par in quality.  Not to mention it is different imagery that what I have seen from the NGS.  Example:

As you can see these two images are of the same location and about the same altitude.  But they are different times of the day (if not different days) as you can tell from the foam on the water.  But if you look closer you see the “Public Imagery” on the right has a better processing and is much cleaner and sharper in the fine details.

Made a change to the OSM.xml file.  It now has both the Hybrid view and now, the Standard view.  The standard view is like what you see on the OpenStreetMap site, white background for the tiles that download.

I didn’t say in the last post.. but I figured by now that most people know how to install a WW XML, but just in case..Unzip the file and copy into your “World Wind Folder”/Config/Earth/ and start WorldWind.  The Standard view is off by default.

Ok, here it goes… WorldWind FINALLY has roads!

Something I have been wanting in WorldWind since almost day One.   Roads.  Seems so obvious to have.. yet was not so simple to get.  Why? Because WorldWind uses Public Domain data.. and most of the road data is not Public Domain .. or they don’t want to share.

Yes, you can get some road data, for the US you have Topo maps.  Or you can use the Virtual Earth plug-in.  Or you can load shapefiles or your own data.  But now we have a WorldWind XML that works in WorldWind.net to load the Open Street Map tiles in via a WMS server, all thanks to someone wanting to load the tiles in WorldWind Java.

Open Street Map data is a perfect fit for WorldWind.  Why? Because their goal is to make a global road map of the globe that is in the Public Domain and free for all to use without restrictions.

Philadelphia

Washington, D.C.

Paris, France

Was reading at All Points Blog about a “new Google Tool” coming soon.. After reading the post, I realized it will basically be the same thing as the NOAA Coastal Risk add-on for WorldWind I put together about two years ago now.  Guess I need to get the data again (it was being updated when I first gathered the data) and get the mapserver serving the data again (Original Mapserver site is down, I have a new spot for the data.. just need to re-upload it).

Now to finish getting ready for a drive out to Pittsburgh for Easter.

The PASDA site has the imagery in a WMS now (though HOW the WMS is setup was a source of headaches in the naming of the counties.  Anyone know what counties these are? 254581197555ffggs,25458119755557379,2545811975555737).

You can download the Add-On XML here.   To install, unzip and copy the pamap.xml into the World Wind/Config/Earth folder and start WorldWind.

Screen shots:

PASDA Imagery

Steamtown, PA

I was going to say something about this post yesterday.. but held off (and glad I did) because datum shift did a nice reply. That I will just link too instead.  He really got irked by this part of freegeotools post, probably more irked that I had gotten.

Imagery in Google Earth is copyrighted, and using it for any other purpose than viewing in Google Earth falls under the restrictions of copyright law and fair use.

Fair use…  Google does not use that term with talking about imagery in Google Earth (though they use the line, “Our imagery providers will not let us”),  even Frank from Google Earth Blog came in against the post.

I’ll second what Erik just said. Anyone planning to use an image from Google Earth for a business application should read the GE user license first. The imagery in Google Earth is mostly restricted by those who have licensed it to Google. You can seek permission to use imagery from Google Earth, but some of the license holders will require you to buy the imagery for a business application, or not allow it. Some of the imagery is license free (like those from NASA).

Which make sense, but highlights another sticky point, the way GE has mushed ALL the imagery together, all but makes it useless.  I may want to use imagery of location “X” and the imagery in that location is public domain imagery but there is OTHER imagery in that location that is not public domain and I don’t have the rights to use that imagery.

So now, this almost effectively locks up public domain imagery that Google Earth shows and now you can only use Google Earth and Google Maps to view said imagery.  (Unless you have the knowledge and skills to located the source provider, download the imagery and process it into the images you need.) You no longer have “Fair Use” of the imagery because of all the other licenses for other imagery.

Now, you can go an spend some money to get Google Earth Pro, but why should I have to pay $400 to get Public Domain (license free) imagery?

This is probably why there is a steady upswing in World Wind users I guess, they all like the license free use of the imagery and tools (save for the Virtual Earth imagery).