Download Google Earth

Virtual Earth is a free or open source product and therefore anybody having a computer and an internet connection is free to download, install and use it. It is designed and owned by Microsoft Corporation. It is actually a platform, through which developers can develop applications having data and virtual images of different localities and countries.

Virtual Earth provides high-resolution imagery of the different parts of earth. These images are real photographs taken from satellites in the space. The accuracy and quality of Virtual Earth is the best among the several similar products. The imagery is associated with names of places, cities towns, political borders, etc. in some select countries Virtual Earth also provides street level imagery, which has the street names, names of important buildings landmarks, etc.

Country and state (only for USA) borders

When you are viewing the maps at a higher resolution, the borders are lesser precise and as you would zoom in, they would become more and more clear.

The important use of these borders that the NASA World Wind provides that, it displays them in combination with the 3D imagery. Therefore, you can study the borders and the geographical features in comparison with one another. This may also tell you about the role, if any, of the geographical features in deciding of the borders.

Place names:

Earth browser is easy to use and generally, you would not have to face any problem while using it. Nevertheless, some problems do occur however, they can be resolved easily. Below given are some of the common problems and answers for them.

What to do, if the screen turns blank, while trying to run Earth Browser on Windows?

This is one of the common problems. It can happen if you have installed the new version of QuickTime namely 7.1.0 on a computer having Windows operating system.

National Aerial Photography Program(NAPP):This is a set of aerial photographs covering conterminous US. These images are free from clouds and they are over five to seven year cycles. This program was started in the year 1987 and from then onwards it has been providing images to earth explorer. Earth explorer regards it as the most recent as well as consistent source of high quality aerial photography.

These photographs are obtained from an altitude of 20,000 feet. They are available as black and white or colored infrared. This depends on the location and date when they were taken. Each of the photos is centered on a 1/4th section of a 7.5 minute USGS quadrangle. An mile area of 5.5 X5.5 is covered by each of the photos.

Live search maps permits the users to print most of the data that it offers to them. There are some options for printing as well. Problems can occur while printing, which are mostly related to your own system.

Getting public transit directions

After you get the transit directions for you desired route, you have the following options for you.

You can view the systematic directions for the desired route. For this, select the desired route by clicking on it.

You can reverse the transit directions by just clicking on the ‘Reverse’ button.

Even after a successful install some problems can occur. However most of them are just minor ones and can be solved easily. Some of the problems are discussed below.

NASA World Wind is showing a dialog box saying World Wind Fatal Error.

In such a condition when NASA World Wind loads attempt to change the display settings to either 16 or 32 bit color. Most of the users have reported that the 24 and 32 bit setting is related to the issue and the problem does not occur if the display is set at 16 bit.

The Virtual Earth provides the users interactive online maps and images of the world. it is similar to the products as earth browser, NASA World Wind, etc. However the Virtual Earth is known to have the best images among all of these earth browsing programs. For this reason, it is becoming popular day by day since it was launched. It is developed by MSN and is available free for everybody. However, note that paid versions are also available.

NASA SVS

NASA SVS is a set of intense animations of different events like hurricane, cloud movements, seasonal changes on earth, etc. these are developed by Goddard Space Flight Center. This form an important feature of NASA World Wind because it can displays them directly on the virtual globe that you see while using NASA World Wind. This proves to be very useful because you view the animations directly the area where the event is taking place. Therefore you can study the different characteristics like the areas affected, the direction in which they are moving, etc.

MODIS

Earth browser is a product, which will help you browse the different parts of the world just sitting at your home. Just sitting in front of a computer you can virtually experience as if you are practically viewing the different places on earth. It provides virtual images of different places on earth. These images are available the resolution of about 15 meter per pixel. Note that this resolution is available for the whole world unlike the other similar products, which offer this resolution only for some limited part of the world

Searching a location

For searching a location, access the live search maps. The home page of live search maps has a search box. In this search box, enter the name of the locations, which you want to search. There are options for below the search box. The option ‘Locations’ as well is present over there. Choose it by clicking on it and then click ‘Search’.

The live search maps will display the list of locations having that name. The location, which you desired also, would be there in that list. From this list, choose the appropriate one.