Google rolls out a beta of Google Earth 4.3 with some great new features
Posted by Peng on 3 May 2008
[Corrected the info on using Street View in Google Earth. - Peng]
Google released the beta of Google Earth 4.3 a couple weeks ago, and there are some very nice features added including the sun and atmosphere, a new set of navigation tools, and even an implementation of Street View, although the GE Street View isn’t as easy as the one in Google Maps.
With the new sun features you can see what you’re looking at in something other than the constant midday sun, which is kind of good unless you’re looking for mad dogs or Englishmen. The new Navigation system is great for those of us who never quite got the hang of the GE 4 navigation system. I know I wasn’t that fond of it so I’ll have to play with this new system and see how I like it.
One of the things I was most excited about seeing is the inclusion of Street View, but rather than having the more fluid movement that Google Maps uses with the ability to move down the street with a simple mouse click Google Earth only shows the pictures one at a a time. Once you turn on the Street View layer you’ll see all of the camera icons. Corrected information: Click on a camera icon to see the picture with the approximate location, and then click on the full screen link for the image and you’re into Street View with full 360-degree visibility. You can also get right into the Street View by double clicking the icon. (Sorry when I first tried it I was missing how to get into the full Street View.)
You can get infomation on these and the other new features in the May 2008 issue of The Sightseer magazine as well as from the Google Earth Product Tour.
There is a problem in at least the Linux beta of Gogle Earth 4.3. The fonts seem to be compressed and very hard to read, but luckily someone has posted a workaround for the problem. It’s not a perfect solution, and I’ll have to spend some time trying to get it to work with the Dejavu Sans font, but it is a starting point. Big thanks to sefs at the Ubuntu Forums for posting the link to teh workaround.
