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doublep · Dec 10, 2005, 12:04 AM

I'm surprised nobody has written about it yet...

MacUpdate includes a link to the unofficial beta of Google Earth for OS X.

I've tried it - great app. Ugly interface (still in beta, I hope).

Have a look for yourselves!

rickey939 · Dec 10, 2005, 12:06 AM

I've been enjoying it for the last hour...not bad at all thus far!

macforray · Dec 10, 2005, 12:12 AM

I've been waiting for the Mac version since I tried the PC version. A great resource and educational too. I'm sure it will undergo improvements.

tikki · Dec 10, 2005, 12:16 AM

Apparently Google doesn't hire UI engineers. This thing is unusable.

Cadaver · Dec 10, 2005, 12:22 AM

While the UI isn't up to typical Mac standards, it is the same as the Windows version though.
The app itself is very cool, especially on my 30" display. Flying through the Grand Canyon with the terrain mapping on is way nifty!

new newton · Dec 10, 2005, 01:43 AM

The UI isn't identical. They've botched the mouse button functions that they had in the PC version.

For those of you that say it's a bad UI, you're not thinking in terms of manipulating a 3d world where you pan, tilt, rotate, and zoom. Having worked in an industry that has all of that as a primary focus, I can tell you that Google's implementation of the controls is as good as you'll find. Not everybody takes to it naturally, but then again it's not a simple thing.

mania · Dec 10, 2005, 10:46 AM

ahh - they took the link away!!! I want

rickey939 · Dec 10, 2005, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by mania

ahh - they took the link away!!! I want

Ask and you shall receive...

http://69.93.171.68/Google_Earth.zip

jamil5454 · Dec 10, 2005, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by rickey939

Ask and you shall receive...

http://69.93.171.68/Google_Earth.zip

Ahhh... Thanks. Was looking for it for about an hour now.

Jacke · Dec 10, 2005, 11:59 AM

Can't get it to run on 10.3.9. Says a Quartz framework is missing. 10.4 only?

mania · Dec 10, 2005, 12:16 PM

yes tiger only.

thanks ricky

mania · Dec 10, 2005, 12:22 PM

yes tiger only. thats reason enough to upgrade not to mention dashboard.

thanks ricky.

so great app, my only gripe is that the detail is missing on much of the remote areas of the earth and even the US. i mean who needs to pan around a building - i need to explore the wild rivers of the world - its freakin cool you can see actual rapids on the grand canyon - but then try that on most other rivers and you get a blur. this is not an actual limitation of the software but of the data of course.

so who wants to go rafting?

mania · 02:19 PM

double post

barney ntd · Dec 10, 2005, 01:52 PM

I found a nasty bug!

On my 400MHz sawtooth/radeon 8500, it pops up a dialogue box saying "The minimum requirement for Google Earth is a Pentium III 500MHz, which you don't have. Click OK to try it anyway." (I've forgotten the exact words, but that is the gist). If you're not quick, it then pops up another box saying "Connecting to server" which never goes away. You have to force quit.

If you're quick, you can click OK before the "Connecting to server" box appears, and the program works fine. Runs perfectly fast enough, shows my house, but the picture of our allotment is more than three years old!

Barney.

new newton · Dec 10, 2005, 03:13 PM

There's going to be lots of bugs. It's pre-release software that is not supposed to be available to the public. What did you expect? If it was ready for public consumption, it would be released by Google.

new newton · Dec 10, 2005, 03:15 PM

There's going to be lots of bugs. It's pre-release software that is not supposed to be available to the public. What did you expect? If it was ready for public consumption, it would be released by Google.

slugslugslug · Dec 10, 2005, 03:44 PM

Has anybody used it while iTunes is playing something? Does just moving the mouse over the Earth cause crazy stuttering of the audio? Does for me..

mdc · Dec 10, 2005, 03:53 PM

the stuttering on itunes isn't _that_ bad on my 1.67ghz 17" powerbook, but it is there. hopefully the final release will have fixed this.

monkeybrain · Dec 10, 2005, 04:04 PM

I have that stuttering on my Mini too.

The images of the UK are disappointing, we don't all only want to look at London.

barney ntd · Dec 10, 2005, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by monkeybrain

The images of the UK are disappointing, we don't all only want to look at London.

I was pretty impressed. Here are some sheep on the West Pennine Moors (near Bolton, but a long way from London):

monkeybrain · Dec 10, 2005, 09:17 PM

Originally Posted by barney ntd

I was pretty impressed. Here are some sheep on the West Pennine Moors (near Bolton, but a long way from London):

Ha ha, yeah that's pretty good. The 3D mountains are quite nice as well. But the photos of Leicester (where I am now) are terrible, no detail at all.

Where do they get their images? And how come the coverage of a place like the UK is so patchy?

new newton · Dec 10, 2005, 09:30 PM

They license them from third parties. Most of the detail shots are done my ariel surveying, and that only happens when an organization or government decides to pay for it. Rural areas are usually last on the list.

Commerically, 15m satellite data is available for much of the industrialized world. It's expensive stuff to license, however.

Sarc · Dec 10, 2005, 10:35 PM

Take a look at cambridge, massachussets, according to wikipedia (... nevermind) they are 0.15m resolution. Either way, those are scary pictures.

barney ntd · Dec 11, 2005, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by monkeybrain

And how come the coverage of a place like the UK is so patchy?

It is patchy, isn't it. I was hoping to plan some walks in the Lakes, but the hi-res stuff seems to stop at the Lancashire border. As soon as you get to Cumbria, you can see the mountains and lakes but not much else. Let's hope it improves soon!

Barney.

monkeybrain · Dec 11, 2005, 09:37 AM

Yeah Barney, I was looking at the Lakes too (that's where I'm from!). I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers. Being able to take a detailed 3D flight through the Lakes would be awesome.

barney ntd · Dec 11, 2005, 10:52 AM

If you're a walker monkeybrain, have you looked at the Pyrenees? Most of it is low res, but there are a couple of patches of hi res which are just stunning. You can see paths, vegetation, scree etc. and combined with the 3D effect it really makes you want to get your boots on. If we could have that for the Lakes...

Mastrap · Dec 11, 2005, 11:53 AM

It's pretty darn cool. Calling the UI unusable is a bit harsh IMO - it works just fine for me.
Shame about the patchiness of the high res data but I suspect that that'll get changed and improved as time goes on.

iamnotmad · Dec 11, 2005, 12:56 PM

no longer works to d/l at macupdate where can I get this?

slugslugslug · Dec 11, 2005, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by iamnotmad

no longer works to d/l at macupdate where can I get this?

Umm, might want to scroll up a bit right now...

iamnotmad · Dec 11, 2005, 01:03 PM

oh boy - embarrassing. Dunno how I missed it. Thanks.

cla · Dec 11, 2005, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by tikki

Apparently Google doesn't hire UI engineers. This thing is unusable.

I guess that would be due to the "Beta" part. I think Google in many respects set a good example gui-wise. Try gmail for instance, or www.google.com =)

cla · Dec 11, 2005, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by new newton

For those of you that say it's a bad UI, you're not thinking in terms of manipulating a 3d world where you pan, tilt, rotate, and zoom. Having worked in an industry that has all of that as a primary focus, I can tell you that Google's implementation of the controls is as good as you'll find. Not everybody takes to it naturally, but then again it's not a simple thing.

Tell that to the people who think 3D user interfaces are "the next big thing". But then again, the same people tend to think Quake has a 3D interface...

CharlesS · Dec 11, 2005, 07:26 PM

edit: ugh! never mind, I must be blind!

inkhead · Dec 11, 2005, 09:22 PM

Well "having worked in the industry" as you have you should realize that it's full of elite people who know the field very well. 3D technology is NOT user friendly in any way. It's very complex.

There are much better ways to navigate a 3d map. From using the windows and mac one the fuction much in the same way that navigations do in every 3d program in existance. All of them just use this type of UI because they don't care to rethink or retool a new way.

Bryce was one of the first 3d programs that had a unique way of navigating the 3d scenes, and still to this day it's navigation is considered to be the best of the best...

If you ever visit Alias "yes i have" you'll find an entire team dedicated to finding new UIs and ways to navigate and create 3d information. They have some really cool ideas going around.

I don't fault google for their UI, they just used standard off-the-shelf type stuff, nothing that impressive. They could have developed a new way to navigate or something better but the point of the application is finding locations on earth, not earth-shattering 3d.

Originally Posted by new newton

The UI isn't identical. They've botched the mouse button functions that they had in the PC version.

For those of you that say it's a bad UI, you're not thinking in terms of manipulating a 3d world where you pan, tilt, rotate, and zoom. Having worked in an industry that has all of that as a primary focus, I can tell you that Google's implementation of the controls is as good as you'll find. Not everybody takes to it naturally, but then again it's not a simple thing.

new newton · Dec 11, 2005, 11:14 PM

You're confusing 3d-design tools with navigating a digital globe. Those are very different tasks.

PureDigital · Dec 12, 2005, 03:15 AM

Well, it sure is nice, and I hope it gets better, but there are at least two MAJOR bugs on a Mac Mini using dialup

First one, it will cause the Mac Mini Dialup Panic, which usually only ocurrs when you have internet sharing ON and are using TCP Compression, this is a known problem with Mini's on dialup, but Google earth makes it even worse, it will cause the panic even if sharing is OFF, Checking TCP Header compression back on (which needs to be off if using internet sharing to aviod the Mac Mini Dialup Panic in Gameranger and other apps) solves the problem for Google Earth

But not THIS problem:

Second one, somehow, dont really know what is going on here, it wll KILL ANY dialup connection after about 2 minutes max, there is nothing in PPP logs, it just kills the connection, is this somehow Google killing the connection ? (reminds me of the ATZ hack years ago on IRC, where users could send you a escape code, then a ATZ and it would kill your connection)

And before you guys says its your internet, dont be a fool, I hold connections for WEEKS with my provider, and have for 6 years (earthlink)

PPP Log after launching Google Earth

Dec 12 01:54:09 pixels-mac-mini pppd[285]: Modem hangup
Dec 12 01:54:09 pixels-mac-mini pppd[285]: Connection terminated.

I will try some other settings and report

moonmonkey · Dec 12, 2005, 05:06 AM

London is very high res now including all suburbs, but whats that giant black thing floating over Hemel Hempstead?

barney ntd · Dec 12, 2005, 07:25 AM

Originally Posted by moonmonkey

London is very high res now including all suburbs, but whats that giant black thing floating over Hemel Hempstead?

I'm getting Hemel Hempstead in low res, and I can't see anything like that. Maybe they accidentally uploaded some bad data?

elrah · Dec 12, 2005, 08:22 AM

Barney ntd it is time you took a look at the news

barney ntd · Dec 12, 2005, 08:35 AM

Bit slow this morning!

Barney

SomeToast · Dec 12, 2005, 01:12 PM

Google Earth OS X: meet the Ugly Stick.

new newton · Dec 12, 2005, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by moonmonkey

London is very high res now including all suburbs, but whats that giant black thing floating over Hemel Hempstead?

It's likely to be the shadow of a cloud. Most of the detail photography is done by aircraft.

new newton · Dec 12, 2005, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by PureDigital

Well, it sure is nice, and I hope it gets better, but there are at least two MAJOR bugs on a Mac Mini using dialup

Without broadband, you don't meet the minimum system requirements.

phillryu · Dec 12, 2005, 04:43 PM

Regarding navigating in the app, couldn't you just implement fps style wasd movement with mouse aim? That seems pretty intuitive to me. (I remember playing a mod of Quake 3 that enabled flying, and it worked pretty well.)

analogika · Dec 12, 2005, 05:06 PM

Originally Posted by new newton

It's likely to be the shadow of a cloud. Most of the detail photography is done by aircraft.

Humor based on current events just isn't for everyone, I guess.

new newton · Dec 12, 2005, 05:09 PM

It'd be more humorous if the photos were real-time, and there weren't large shadows in many of the photos.

TimmyDee51 · Dec 12, 2005, 07:18 PM

Given that this is a beta, I'd say it's impressive. I only get some slight stuttering on my dual 2.0 G5 (weak GPU, though -- 5900). Compared to the PC version, which is final, this is pretty good. Also, they might have just borrowed the PC version of the interface so they could get this version out the door for Mac users. I wouldn't be surprised to see it improve in subsequent versions. In the end, I'm just happy this is going to be out for the Mac soon. It's some wonderful software, ugliness aside.

cenutrio · Dec 13, 2005, 06:43 AM

Ok, very impressed for a beta I've used it for 4 days now. I've run it on a tiPB 400 and a original Cube 450. It runs in both if you shortcut the first window that appears.

If it runs in such old hardware I can assume lots of promissing performance in up-to-date gear.

Interface needs a new more Mac-like look.

A heck of a good start. Extremely fun piece of software to play with.

cheers

johnhood · Dec 13, 2005, 12:07 PM

The power of edutainment!

workerbee · Dec 13, 2005, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by cenutrio

A heck of a good start. Extremely fun piece of software to play with.

Indeed.
Now where has that week-end of mine disappeared to?