With just a little fine-tuning to the JavaScript code that embeds a Google Maps control in a Web page; your site can now have a fully operational Google Earth control.
Google Inc. seeking to expand the reach of Google Earth just released a new browser plugin tools that can infuse maps and other Web apps with 3-D geographic views from directly inside a webpage.
The new plugin is accompanied by an API that web developers can use to easily incorporate Google Earth into their applications, just like what they did with Google Maps a long time ago.
Website developers are now able to insert 3D maps, which can be modified using Google’s JavaScript API to add KML data, draw 3D buildings, attach callbacks, and more.
The new tools will help users “fly” over different locations on Earth or access other features of Google’s digital globe without having to run the client installation of Google Earth. Google anticipates the plug-in and API will make Google Earth as popular among developers as the company’s Google Maps application, whose API now runs on more than 150,000 sites, noted Paul Rademacher, technical lead for the Google Earth plug-in and API.
“We are aware that there are tens of thousands of Maps API sites,” he said. “We want those to all be 3-D enabled very easily, so we are making it possible for existing sites to be 3-D enabled with a single line of JavaScript code. What has been missing [in Google Earth] is the ability for developers to use Google Earth inside their own Web pages. Now inside a Web page, you will be able to fly through San Francisco or see a 3-D model of a cabin with exactly the view out the window of the mountains.”
Peter Birch from the Google Earth team emphasized at Google I/O the handiness of transforming KML-based applications from 2D maps to 3D ones within the browser. Existing Maps API developers need only to add a single line of JavaScript to their initialization code. Developers who have created KML extensions for the Google Earth desktop client can bring those into the browser as well.
The complete embedding program is powered by a unique Google Earth Browser Plugin that end users must install. Unfortunately, at present it is only available for Internet Explorer and Firefox users on Windows.
The three-dimensional, zooming and scaling 3D satellite views of Planet Earth have since a long time developed into a fixture on TV and Internet news sites, giving viewers the most photo-realistic views of the world’s hot points like Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. Now, Google’s 3D maps are finding a new home along with most of Google’s other popular tools: in the Web browser.
The new plug-in could make it easier for some to pass the time scouting through the world for famous landmarks. Not all landmarks are rendered in 3D yet, though regional anatomy is rendered in three dimensions which, coupled with the angle of the sun over hills and mountains, and tilted ever so slowly and smoothly, can create an astonishingly realistic effect.
The disadvantage is that nobody has the plugin yet, so any representation of Earth you put on your website is instead displayed as a box telling users to install the plugin.
This version of the plugin supports the following browsers:
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IE 6.0+
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IE 7.0+
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Firefox 2.x or 2.0x (Firefox 3.0 support coming soon)
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Netscape 7.1+
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Mozilla 1.4+
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Flock 1.0+
“This is a relatively rare example of Google releasing a new technology to developers first,” Rademacher noted. “Now we are very comfortable with the fact that developers do great things when you give them a new tool.”