UGO: June 2007 Archives

Google Earth camera visualisation part II

June 24, 2007 (20:17 CET)

Along the same path as the previous post, this .kmz file shows a visualisation of the GE camera movement in the rare case you are planning a hiking trip from Stanford to Stockholm (including the swimming part ;)

Google Earth camera visualisation

June 24, 2007 (19:11 CET)

One of my original motivations to program something like UGO was to be able to have a look at the smooth camera movements of the build-in GE camera when you play through a predefined list of placemarks (such as the default GE-tour or when you play through GE-provided driving directions). Using the current UGO version, I finally managed to get a respectable visualisation of this movement. Below .kmz file for example shows the camera movement while touring through GE-provided driving directions between Eindhoven and Amsterdam. Included in this .kmz file are the original driving directions of Google Earth and the extruded and non-extruded UGO visualisations. Its nice to finally see a visual representation of the peculiarities of the GE camera movement such as the slow retracting movement before diving towards the next focus point

UGO predator

June 24, 2007 (18:52 CET)

Aha, just found another interesting aspect of Google Earth / kml. Tweaking with the transparency level of various UGOs, it seems there is a treshold after which the extruded trajectory blocks the elements behind it (something that came up a while ago already). If you look at below .kmz file from the west, you'll see that the most forward UGO, which has a certain transparency, obscures the red lines behind it but keeps the green visible. Looking at the same bunch of UGOs from the east, the higher transparency of this particular UGO blocks everyting (.kmz file). What would be really cool is if the UGO surface starts acting like a mirror ;)

Back to working on UGO

June 24, 2007 (17:15 CET)

I am back to the UGO c sharp code challenge. Seems to be getting closer. There are still some issues with the update speed of getting the coordinates through the API which I have a hard time resolving. For example, when you look at below .kmz file you'll notice the irregular pattern in some of the UGO's. To be continued...(.kmz file)

Update: no real update

June 14, 2007 (02:19 CET)

Its been a couple of weeks since I reported back here. I had some other obligations the last couple of weeks (among which spending some time at the beach in Belgium last week), so not much news on the UGO front I'm afraid. Back in Amsterdam, I am getting back into the spirit of finishing the first version in c# and objective C (for the mac), so I am planning to make some progress over the weekend.

In the meantime, and in case you're not subscribed to my other blog, have a look at this video by NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden, cause he gives an interesting hint at where things might be going in the not-too-distant future...(served with some Belgian Crop Circles:.kmz file).

UGO

User Generated Orbit

June 2007 Archives