The Google Earth Library showcases add-on content for Google Earth. Some of the content you will find here was created by myself, and some of it created by others. To view an item in Google Earth, simply click on the "Download With Google Earth" button, which will be at the end of each post.
If you're looking for something specific, you can try the Search box below, or the Site Index
www.marinetraffic.com tracks the locations ships equipped with an Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder, which is now required for ships over 299 gross tons. The data for presented for each ship includes:
Name of ship and flag
Type of ship
Speed and course
Photo of the ship
Link to further details about the ship
The data is collected by about 500 land-based receiver stations throughout the world, so it doesn’t include ships that are far out at sea or in remote areas. But it’s still an impressive amount of data.
Many other features can be found a their website, including a Google Maps version of the data that displays a bit more information and has a few features lacking in the Google Earth version.
Golf Nation makes extensive use of Google Earth in providing information about golf courses throughout the United States. No surprise since it looks like the website is run by the same person that runs Google Earth Hacks.
A handy little network link is provided by the website that will populate Google Earth with information for golf courses.
Some of the prominent courses have a special “Detailed KML” overlay that will show detailed information about each hole, such as distance and par.
First of all, I recompiled the index to be much easier to use. You no longer have to navigate through two index levels. Now, simply zoom down and the index will appear automatically as you navigate around the US. Click on one of the map outlines to open up a window with a button to download the map.
At the same time, the new index fixes a major bug that prevented many maps from loading. You should now be able to view all of the maps south of 48 latitude. If you find one that doesn’t work, please let me know so I can fix it. I hope to have the remaining maps north of 47 latitude done by next month. When done, this collection will have about 55,000 maps (~150 gigabytes) available to view in Google Earth. I’m also going to try to add Alaska.
Several people have asked about Canadian Topo Maps. I have been downloading them and I could add them to the collection. But I think those will be another 200-300 gigabytes, and I don’t want to push my luck with my web host. So that project is on hold until I figure out a way to host them. If you happen to have a 200-300 gigabytes of server space laying around and want to help out please contact me.
Lastly, I am still working on my Historic Topographic Map collection. I know there are some maps in that collection that are broken. The update I’m working on will fix those and probably double or triple the number of historic topo maps in the collection. Sorry, but no time frame on when that will roll out. The historic maps are a lot more work than the current maps.
This website and its author are not affiliated with Google Inc. Google and Google Earth are trademarks of Google Inc. Screenshots from Google Earth are Copyright Google Inc.