jimthompson.org » Maps

Making Music Videos With Google Earth

Jim — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:27:23 +0000

As many of you know, I’ve made a hobby in the past couple of years of making music videos. Well here’s a new twist on that idea: use Google Earth to generate some video, set it to music, and you have a nice geographical music video. Here are three nice videos made with Google Earth:

“My Odyssey” comes from blog addict GingerD:

“Wonderful World” is from the videoblog The Random Show (you will need the Quicktime plugin to watch this one):

Finally, “The Mirror World“, my favorite, comes from videoblog “Lean Back Vids” (Quicktime required here, too):

I would like to make my own Google Earth video, but for some reason its animation is very jerky on my system. I suspect maybe the jerkiness is because of my very old video card, which doesn’t have much texture memory. It wouldn’t cost me much to upgrade to a card with more memory; maybe I’ll get a new one and see if Google Earth’s playback quality improves.

Houston Hybrid

Jim — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 00:19:41 +0000

The whole Internet seemed to be abuzz today with news of the latest Google Maps innovation: a hybrid map that combines map graphics with satellite photos (the detailed photos of urban areas are not satellite photos, but aerial photos taken from airplanes). I really like the hybrid views, but I think the image generation heuristics need some fine tuning: look at how many times I-610, the "loop", around Houston is labeled in this hybrid map:

If I-610 is over-labeled, then I-45 and I-10 are under-labeled. I-45 is coincident with US Highway 75, but the road is repeatedly labeled 75, and is only once labeled I-45. I-10, the major east-west highway through Houston, is coincident with US 90 and State Highway 53, but it not once labeled I-10. Most maps give precedence to the Interstate designations over the US and state highways designations. Google has apparently decided to do things the other way around.

Aerial Sightseeing: the Mississippi River Delta

Jim — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:41:18 +0000

Many years ago, I flew over the Mississippi River delta in a helicopter. The view was amazing, the river branching over and over again. Its structure looked just like a computer generated fractal. It looks different in this view, but still beautiful in a fractal kind of way.

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: Cadillac Ranch

Jim — Fri, 13 May 2005 23:13:42 +0000

The guys over at Google Sightseeing did a good job of finding these Caddies buried in a field just west of Amarillo. I looked for Cadillac Ranch myself, and I found the area, but I never found those ten half-buried cars. As with some other locations, the Terra Server has a better view. Now if only I could find that Texas Stonehenge.

Aerial Sightseeing: The Oklahoma City National Memorial

Jim — Wed, 11 May 2005 12:46:41 +0000

This is one of those places that you can see much better with the Microsoft Terra Server than with Google Maps:

Click to enlarge.

The place in question is the Oklahoma City National Memorial, built to remember the victims, rescuers, and survivors of the terrorist bombing that destroyed the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building over ten years ago. In the Terra Server image, you can clearly make out the individual stone chairs on the lawn, one chair for each of the 168 fatalities (do not forget that many victims survived the blast).

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: Amusement Parks

Jim — Thu, 05 May 2005 14:19:23 +0000

The Astroworld amusement and water park, just south of the Astrodome in Houston.

Moody Gardens and its pyramids, down the road in Galveston.

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: Johnson Space Center

Jim — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 18:45:16 +0000

Here’s a nice view of the heart of JSC. Over at Flickr, I have an annotated version showing the various places I’ve worked (and eaten) within JSC.

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: the Fred Hartman Bridge

Jim — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 14:03:32 +0000

This is the Fred Hartman bridge and its shadow. The Hartman is a relatively new and beautiful bridge that carries Texas Highway 146 across the Houston ship channel, joining Baytown and La Port.

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: State Capitol

Jim — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:36:26 +0000

Here is the Texas State Capitol building, located on Congress St between 11th and 14th streets in Austin.

I had intended to accompany this photo with an aerial photo of the Alamo. Unfortunately, the aerial photos of downtown San Antonio are fairly low resolution and uninteresting.

Aerial Sightseeing Around Texas: Dealey Plaza

Jim — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:51:51 +0000

Here’s the most infamous place in all of Texas, Dealey Plaza, where John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. You can see it all in this aerial photo: Elm Street, the Texas Book Repository, and, of course, the grassy knoll.