So the new Google Earth is out. Frank is covering it in detail but I thought I'd do a quick post about what it means for educators. For clarity Google Earth the program I refer to as 'GE classic' and the new version as 'GE Web'.
Why the web: I'm guessing there are several reasons for this move:
- You can use GE web on Chromebooks, key for educators in the Google ecosystem
- Enables integration with G drive so your maps will be on the web
- All sorts of other reasons for which you should Google 'advantages of the cloud'
Usability: In making the leap from GE classic to web Google have had a long hard think about their usability of GE and I think they've come up with good solutions to old problems that were in classic. For example:
- Content is now mainly in a tile based graphic 'Voyager' section which is sumptuous and intuitive.
- Other base map type layers, that used to be in the places column, are now much more hidden away in 'map style' (in the three lined section, top left of screen) which presents you with three main options about which layers to have showing in your base map. You can choose more options by choosing 'custom' at the bottom.
Both these interface elements are cleverly designed to direct people to the cool content they're most likely to use (Voyager) and little used layers that used to just confuse users are hidden away (Map Style > custom). The tile based Voyager is quick to access and easy to understand.
The GE web navigation tool (bottom right of screen) is a lot better than the classic version, its more intuitive and I especially liked the ability to see the main screen view projected onto the mini globe (as a red border) as you navigate around.
Content: Google has gone all out with this tool to link their great content (primarily youtube and streetview) to place (the main screen). You can create and import your old KML but Google is making it quite clear that they think that this content/place link is the main reason for using Google Earth and map creation is less important. It's interesting to compare this approach to Esri's approach with ArcGIS Online, IMHO they have gone the other way, tools for creating your own map are the priority and curating content for users is secondary. This is an important fact to bear in mind when using GE web in the classroom, its probably good as a tool at the top of a lesson to showcase some content but maybe you'll want students to switch to Esri or GE classic at the back end of the lesson when they create maps?
Tours?: I have been convinced for ages that student created tours are a great tool to teach simple GIS to students. Google Earth Tour Builder has been lagging behind Esri Story maps for a while now IMHO. I would expect to see GETB brought into GE web at some point in the future, again, Google don't see this as a priority as it isn't in this release.
Conclusion: As Frank points out, to get GE web operating at a similar frame rate (how smoothly it works) as GE classic is a huge job, this will have occupied most of the developers time in producing GE web. As a result, and in common with all software making the jump from program to cloud, functionality is lost, and generally comes back with time. However, Google have invested time in sorting out some of the usability issues with GE classic and trying to link their great content to place. I think they've done a good job. In educational terms they're leading ArcGIS online in terms of usability and wow factor (from the content), however, they're lagging in terms of creation and measurement tools which are still only in GE classic.
Showing posts with label Google Earth Tour Builder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Earth Tour Builder. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
Three Geo-Animations for Atlas Tours (Google Earth Tours, Esri Story Maps)
Just less than a year ago I published a post about 3 types of Atlas tour (1). I've been thinking about the topic over the last year as I've been writing papers so I thought I should develop that post with some more detail. I discussed this in my recent Google Education talk.
Types:
Just as you can have different types of PowerPoint (fieldwork briefing, photo slide show, talk etc. etc.) you can have different types of Atlas Tour. Esri Story Maps (ESM) have identified a number of different types which emphacise text narrative, I believe most Atlas Tours should be narrated using audio, so I'm not going to discuss those. My sorting works on two axes:
I give examples of the four groups in this videod section of my Google Education talk recently.
Geo-Animations
Within an Atlas Tour, you can have different types of animation that are highly suited to the format, I've identified 3 which I think are particularly useful and to illustrate them I've prepared a story board of an Atlas tour discussing the famous Snow cholera map:
1] Map Sequence: using annotations or revealing layers (build animation) of a map one by one in order to explain a complex map. The sequence above illustrates the build animation with street names added and then the pump. It becomes much more important on complex maps.
2] Time Animation: Showing a sequence of maps to show change due to time. This is well discussed in the cartographic literature. Note that I've invented data, the spread was actually not recorded.
Avatar animation: flying down from a symbolised map view into a 'human' view. This is an original idea of mine and IMHO is very powerful, you can illustrate spatial relationships and then follow up with showing what they look like in real life. In this case, on the street.
these aren't the only animations you can use and you can certainly usefully link out to static imagery and non-map video from within a Atlas Tour. However, they are all very spatial and so worth highlighting above other formats in an Atlas Tour.
1] at the time I called them Google Earth Tours but to include people interested in using Esri Story Maps I now use Atlas tours as an encompassing term.
Types:
Just as you can have different types of PowerPoint (fieldwork briefing, photo slide show, talk etc. etc.) you can have different types of Atlas Tour. Esri Story Maps (ESM) have identified a number of different types which emphacise text narrative, I believe most Atlas Tours should be narrated using audio, so I'm not going to discuss those. My sorting works on two axes:
- 3D or 2D: ATs can be used to discuss both landscape (3D) or map views (2D).
- Realistic base map vs Symbolized: showing realistic imagery works well when illustrating landscape but symbolising is endlessly useful in paring down a map to simlyfy it to the elements needed (e.g. temperature and wind but nothing else bottom right below)
which produces 4 groups. These are illustrated in an image grid below (2):
I give examples of the four groups in this videod section of my Google Education talk recently.
Geo-Animations
Within an Atlas Tour, you can have different types of animation that are highly suited to the format, I've identified 3 which I think are particularly useful and to illustrate them I've prepared a story board of an Atlas tour discussing the famous Snow cholera map:
1] Map Sequence: using annotations or revealing layers (build animation) of a map one by one in order to explain a complex map. The sequence above illustrates the build animation with street names added and then the pump. It becomes much more important on complex maps.
 |
| Click to expand. The audio narrative script is found under each image. |
2] Time Animation: Showing a sequence of maps to show change due to time. This is well discussed in the cartographic literature. Note that I've invented data, the spread was actually not recorded.
 |
| Click to expand |
Avatar animation: flying down from a symbolised map view into a 'human' view. This is an original idea of mine and IMHO is very powerful, you can illustrate spatial relationships and then follow up with showing what they look like in real life. In this case, on the street.
 |
| Click to expand |
1] at the time I called them Google Earth Tours but to include people interested in using Esri Story Maps I now use Atlas tours as an encompassing term.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
New Paper: How to make an Excellent Google Earth tour
We (myself and Artemis Skarlatidou) have just submitted a paper to a cartographic journal about a successful experiment we did on users' understanding of Google Earth Tours. The work produced two rules of thumb to consider when making Google Earth tours so I thought I'd blog about it. Note that the title of this post isn't how to make a 'cool' Google Earth tour that grabs users' attention, this is about how to use them as an effective communication tool.
Why should I care about Google Earth tours?
Before we get to the two best practices its useful to think about the media we're discussing. Is it worth using? My answer to that is that Google Earth tours are common on the web and the wider generic group of Google Earth like animations (Atlas tours) are everywhere! e.g.:
- TV (e.g. weather forecasts)
- The web (e.g. National Geographic)
- Mobile satnav apps
As an example of Atlas tours in satnav apps, both Google Maps and Apple Maps in driving directions mode will zoom into tricky road junctions when you approach them but then zoom out when you are on a straight road section to show you the wider view.
So you should consider creating a Google Earth tour (or Atlas tour if you prefer) as a way to tell your spatial story.
Best practice 1: use high paths
If you are producing a tour with two or more low points, you get to choose how the camera moves between the two low views. Users' mental map of the study area will be better when your tour following a 'Rocket' path(1) where there is a mid point where you can see the start and end of your tour. This video explains the point and tells you how to achieve it technically in Google Earth:
Best practice 2: use of speed
We haven't explicitly proved it but an animation speed of 1 second for any camera motion is a good rule of thumb(2). If the tour is more visually complex, you may want to slow the speed down. Reasons to take more time:
- You are flying through a complex 3D cityscape
- There are lots of elements on screen (points, lines, areas) that you want users to understand
As an example, these are some of the experimental Google Earth tours; only the 'low, fast' condition really troubled the users in the experiment.
Conclusion:
Atlas tours are very common as they are an effective media to communicate a spatial story or data. Google Earth is one of a suite of software that can be used to produce Atlas tours, I think the principles described here will apply whatever software is used.
I read all the studies I could find in 2011 and produced an earlier paper which discussed these and 17 other best practices for producing Google Earth tours. This is the shorter blog version of the paper.
Notes
1] In the paper, this is called the high path. Less memorable but more professional sounding.
2] our experiment ran at speeds slower than this and user's had little problem building up a mental map of the study area.
Why should I care about Google Earth tours?
Before we get to the two best practices its useful to think about the media we're discussing. Is it worth using? My answer to that is that Google Earth tours are common on the web and the wider generic group of Google Earth like animations (Atlas tours) are everywhere! e.g.:
- TV (e.g. weather forecasts)
- The web (e.g. National Geographic)
- Mobile satnav apps
As an example of Atlas tours in satnav apps, both Google Maps and Apple Maps in driving directions mode will zoom into tricky road junctions when you approach them but then zoom out when you are on a straight road section to show you the wider view.
So you should consider creating a Google Earth tour (or Atlas tour if you prefer) as a way to tell your spatial story.
Best practice 1: use high paths
If you are producing a tour with two or more low points, you get to choose how the camera moves between the two low views. Users' mental map of the study area will be better when your tour following a 'Rocket' path(1) where there is a mid point where you can see the start and end of your tour. This video explains the point and tells you how to achieve it technically in Google Earth:
Best practice 2: use of speed
We haven't explicitly proved it but an animation speed of 1 second for any camera motion is a good rule of thumb(2). If the tour is more visually complex, you may want to slow the speed down. Reasons to take more time:
- You are flying through a complex 3D cityscape
- There are lots of elements on screen (points, lines, areas) that you want users to understand
As an example, these are some of the experimental Google Earth tours; only the 'low, fast' condition really troubled the users in the experiment.
Conclusion:
Atlas tours are very common as they are an effective media to communicate a spatial story or data. Google Earth is one of a suite of software that can be used to produce Atlas tours, I think the principles described here will apply whatever software is used.
I read all the studies I could find in 2011 and produced an earlier paper which discussed these and 17 other best practices for producing Google Earth tours. This is the shorter blog version of the paper.
Notes
1] In the paper, this is called the high path. Less memorable but more professional sounding.
2] our experiment ran at speeds slower than this and user's had little problem building up a mental map of the study area.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Students creating Atlas Tours (aka Story Map, Google Earth Tour)
 |
| Screenshots from student produced ATs I've found on the web |
What is an Atlas Tour? So I’ve been writing some papers over the summer about ‘Atlas Tours’ (ATs) by which I mean a series of maps that tell a narrative. An example well known in the UK residents is the BBC TV weather forecast,
which is made up of animated time maps, camera motions through virtual space and a narrative delivered by a presenter. In UK outreach events I used to run teaching geography, this was the ‘map’ that people said they looked at most often.
ATs encourage users to watch: A great example of how useful ATs are is from National Geographic who produced this site about tracking the illegal trade in ivory across Africa . The web logs of this resource show that atlas tours encourage people to engage more with content than other non-narrative, interactive maps (Kaitlin Yarnall Presentation at 18.40 minutes).
Easy enough for students to do: The cool thing is that the technology (and I'm thinking Esri Story Maps and Google Earth Tour Builder here) has made it easier for students and other non-specialists to produce ATs almost as sophisticated as the Ivory trade example. As a result a number of assignments have been set asking students to produce ATs, a good example is the PSU and Esri MOOC which asked students to produce a map based story as a final project, many chose to produce ATs via Esri Story Maps (Anthony Robinson and Colleagues paper (2015) )
Other Examples of students’ ATs on the web include:
- The Mt St Helens 1980 eruption - one of my students!
- Fuzzy logic applied to wind farm location
- Guarani aquifer depletion
- Oil fields and prostitution
One of the papers promotes ATs as a good assignment to set students, watch this space for more!
Monday, February 29, 2016
Three Types of Google Earth Tour
I happen to have been thinking about the different types of Google Earth tour recently. I've come up with three main types:
3D Flyover:
This type uses just camera motion and is through an area of significant topography (think mountain range) or other 3D structure (think buildings or Geology). Its immersive in the sense that it is close to flying through the actual landscape presented. Here's an example:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/
I think this type is a bit old, people were very excited by them when they were first possible but now we've all grown used to Google Earth they don't impress that much anymore.
Map Tour:
In this type the viewer is flown from location to location with other media being used e.g. photos or overlays on the topography. It may use other map animations such as time animations but these are more minor. It doesn't really try to be immersive, the power of the camera movement is to explain the relative locations of things or to illustrate maps over two or more scales. A couple of examples:
Time tour:
This final type is more an animated map than a tour, it is mainly time animation with camera motion being a less significant animation type. Like the map tour, it doesn't aim for an immersive experience but instead uses Google Earth as a base map on which to present thematic data over time. A good example is this sea ice animation from NSIDC:
3D Flyover:
This type uses just camera motion and is through an area of significant topography (think mountain range) or other 3D structure (think buildings or Geology). Its immersive in the sense that it is close to flying through the actual landscape presented. Here's an example:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/
I think this type is a bit old, people were very excited by them when they were first possible but now we've all grown used to Google Earth they don't impress that much anymore.
Map Tour:
In this type the viewer is flown from location to location with other media being used e.g. photos or overlays on the topography. It may use other map animations such as time animations but these are more minor. It doesn't really try to be immersive, the power of the camera movement is to explain the relative locations of things or to illustrate maps over two or more scales. A couple of examples:
Time tour:
This final type is more an animated map than a tour, it is mainly time animation with camera motion being a less significant animation type. Like the map tour, it doesn't aim for an immersive experience but instead uses Google Earth as a base map on which to present thematic data over time. A good example is this sea ice animation from NSIDC:
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Ten new Google Geo tools for the Classroom
Googler John Bailey (Program Manger for Geo Edu) recently did a talk for Google Education on Air on Google's Geo tools:
Being able to tilt the view over a crater in the Moon bought to mind a teacher quote in one of my sessions last year
1] 7:10m Distance: measure distance tool in Google Maps
2] 7:40m Area: that it also measures area in Google Maps
3] 8:27m Carousel: geolocated photos in Google Maps taken by users uploaded to google by users
4] 9:20m Tilt: how to tilt to see 3D Google Earth like pictures using tilt button bottom left Pisa location used: 10:05 Globe View: zoom out to globe view which will rotate which click and dragged
6] 11:08m Mars and Moon View: zoom out to full extent and now you rotate around the globe when clicking and dragging and can access mars and the moon.
7] 11:19m Two Map system: compare and contrast maps using geteach.com
8] 38:25m Streetview historical imagery: see street view before and after the Japanese tsunami on Google Maps (location near the site with historic street view available).
9] 43:42m Tour Builder
10] 47:28m Time Lapse using Google Earth Engine. 48:25 Great moment showing Peruvian river meander dynamically.
*Actually some of them are new-ish rather than new
Being able to tilt the view over a crater in the Moon bought to mind a teacher quote in one of my sessions last year
"you just made me fall in love with Geography again"I had to tear myself away... Anyway, I thought I'd point you at my favorite ten new* examples of tools/content that John showcased:
1] 7:10m Distance: measure distance tool in Google Maps
2] 7:40m Area: that it also measures area in Google Maps
3] 8:27m Carousel: geolocated photos in Google Maps taken by users uploaded to google by users
4] 9:20m Tilt: how to tilt to see 3D Google Earth like pictures using tilt button bottom left Pisa location used: 10:05 Globe View: zoom out to globe view which will rotate which click and dragged
6] 11:08m Mars and Moon View: zoom out to full extent and now you rotate around the globe when clicking and dragging and can access mars and the moon.
7] 11:19m Two Map system: compare and contrast maps using geteach.com
8] 38:25m Streetview historical imagery: see street view before and after the Japanese tsunami on Google Maps (location near the site with historic street view available).
9] 43:42m Tour Builder
10] 47:28m Time Lapse using Google Earth Engine. 48:25 Great moment showing Peruvian river meander dynamically.
*Actually some of them are new-ish rather than new
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
NACIS (carto) Conference thoughts
So I'm just back from NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society) in Pittsburg, USA. I was a newbie NACISer, I'd travelled over there as I'd heard that it was a good combination of educators, academics, techies, open source enthusiasts and working cartographers.
Tools:
My everyday tools are adobe firefox and Google Earth (you probably gathered that from the blog title) as I'm primarily concerned with educating 'sub-GIS' audiences like school students*, so it was interesting to find out what everyone else was using and finding which new tools were getting attention. Of the new tools:
- Mapbox Studio
- cartoDB
were what I noticed everyone discussing, both are cloud services based on cartoCSS - a development of CSS, the code that controls look of web pages. The difference between then (I was told) was that Mapbox Studio is better suited to finely tuning the look of a base map whereas cartoDB is better at styling data layers. I did a Mapbox workshop whilst at the conference, it isn't that intuitive but then I don't think either of the tools are good 'first map' starters, they are more tools for those with mapping expertise.
Other tools that are well used are ArcGIS, adobe photoshop and adobe illustrator. People's workflows generally consisted of processing in Arc then transferring to photoshop/illustrator to fine tune the look. Very little mention of any of the Google suite of tools.
Education:
There was a really good panel on education, convened by Matt Wilson. The format was designed to keep people talking too much, I'd term it 'meatspace twitter'. It largely worked producing some memorable nuggets:
*as in, not so advanced that they need to use desktop GIS such as Arc desktop.
Tools:
My everyday tools are adobe firefox and Google Earth (you probably gathered that from the blog title) as I'm primarily concerned with educating 'sub-GIS' audiences like school students*, so it was interesting to find out what everyone else was using and finding which new tools were getting attention. Of the new tools:
- Mapbox Studio
- cartoDB
were what I noticed everyone discussing, both are cloud services based on cartoCSS - a development of CSS, the code that controls look of web pages. The difference between then (I was told) was that Mapbox Studio is better suited to finely tuning the look of a base map whereas cartoDB is better at styling data layers. I did a Mapbox workshop whilst at the conference, it isn't that intuitive but then I don't think either of the tools are good 'first map' starters, they are more tools for those with mapping expertise.
Other tools that are well used are ArcGIS, adobe photoshop and adobe illustrator. People's workflows generally consisted of processing in Arc then transferring to photoshop/illustrator to fine tune the look. Very little mention of any of the Google suite of tools.
Education:
There was a really good panel on education, convened by Matt Wilson. The format was designed to keep people talking too much, I'd term it 'meatspace twitter'. It largely worked producing some memorable nuggets:
- Map selfie students produce a map based on their lives as an educational exercise
- Map global warming or perish : on the future of mapping
- Maps and mapping is always tied up with the wielding of power
- Beer fart maps the fashion for 'link bait maps' that get attention but have little value
- Candy machine gun teaching teaching what students want, in a way they want rather than teaching with academic value
These are what I scribbled down in my notes, more detailed notes
The discussion also ranged onto the 'future of maps', with discussion moving to privacy concerns about the data being gathered from mobile devices for maps and critical comments about the use of big data. This paralelled discussions going on in educational technology that I've been following mostly to do with Learning Analytics, interesting that its affecting the two parts of my career in similar ways.
Tours:
My paper (notes to come) was on the use of map tours (Google Earth tours but for any platform) as an assignment in my undergraduate course fitting in with a session on the use of narrative cartography. The highlight of the session for me was Robert Pietrusko's paper on a similar assignment:
Sumptuous design work on #maptours by Robert Pietrusko's students'. eg http://t.co/T1YxmyAFq8 Course: http://t.co/zYNoOX9kVK #NACIS2014
— Trevesy (@Trevesy) October 9, 2014
He has design students already skilled at layout and the use of design tools so they produce some fantastic looking tours compared to my students. I'll be using his student's work to show just what is possible with map tours.
Google/ESRI/Apple
Google/ESRI/Apple
These three are the big companies with serious interests and investments in maps and mapping so it was interesting to see what presence they had. ESRI had at least 4 delegates at the conference and I heard praise for them from others for integrating with the NACIS community and reacting well to criticism of their products both now and in the past. Google, lead players in maps as they are, had no presence at the conference, given the effort they've put into producing tools I think it would be sensible for them to be there to promote their stuff and get informed feedback. I think Apple were there but I didn't come across them, they certainly weren't as visible as ESRI.
Notable People
I was pleased I got to network with Alan McConchie from Stamen, I've been using their maps to illustrate points of good design to my students so it was very useful to hear where he thought things were going in cartography. I also hung out with Anthony Robinson from Penn State who teaches a terrific MOOC on GIS, he has a lot of expertise in education, maps and distance learning so I picked up a lot from him.
Thanks to all the organizers, there's a lot of work done behind the scenes and it made for a great conference. I never did get to chat to him but Lou Cross clearly has been a great influence on the conference, he has a great sense of humour and is keen to make everyone feel included so last word should go to him:
Notable People
I was pleased I got to network with Alan McConchie from Stamen, I've been using their maps to illustrate points of good design to my students so it was very useful to hear where he thought things were going in cartography. I also hung out with Anthony Robinson from Penn State who teaches a terrific MOOC on GIS, he has a lot of expertise in education, maps and distance learning so I picked up a lot from him.
Thanks to all the organizers, there's a lot of work done behind the scenes and it made for a great conference. I never did get to chat to him but Lou Cross clearly has been a great influence on the conference, he has a great sense of humour and is keen to make everyone feel included so last word should go to him:
To #NACIS2014 safe travels. Seek out a new person next year, and make them part of the family. Map on! pic.twitter.com/WFjSjsSox8
— LouCross (@LouCross) October 11, 2014
*as in, not so advanced that they need to use desktop GIS such as Arc desktop.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
San Francisco Earthquake Exercise Part II
Two years ago I posted some enhancements to an earthquake exercise by Noel Jenkins of Juicy Geography. Since then, I've worked the practical up further
It was part of a recent first level course for Geographers here at Southampton University.
New Features:
- Practical Doc (self assessment questions and answers, explicit instructions)
- KMZ file (it says it's on Blackboard in the documentation)
- Google Earth Tour Builder tour of earthquakes in San Francisco
It was part of a recent first level course for Geographers here at Southampton University.
New Features:
- Teaches students about earthquake amplification and liquefaction using YouTube videos
- Uses Google Earth Tour Builder
- Uses a 'clipping' technique for just showing a sub section of a YouTube video (howto)
- Gets students to create 3 locations and then choose one of the three and justify it in the description box.
It's published under a CC edit but share alike license so please go ahead and use it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)