Howdi all!
Well a pretty obvious statement to make is that if your reading this blog, then you have the internet and you clearly a Scouty/Rovery person. Or not. Maybe you just used StumbleUpon, but either way this is sure to tickle your fancy.
You have all probably heard of Google Earth, and I’m sure many of ou have tried it, but how many of you have used all its features? And more importantly, how can Google Earth make your life easier?
First off, lets have a brief look at what Google Earth is. Its a cool looking 3D globe of the world that you can control by rotating, zooming and panning. You can also search for specific places. For most of us, the G.E. experience ends here. Once you have found your house, or school, or something typically generic like that we tend to lose interest.
But the true power of Google Earth comes with the use of its placemarks, polygons and paths. What are these? Lets take a
A custom Google Earth Image of the Koeberg Nature Reserve. This shows placemarks, paths and photo loactions.
look! Placemarks can be thought of as ‘drawing pins’ stuck on the earth to mark out places of interest. You can go the basic route of marking out locations such us friends houses, favourite clubs, etc. But I prefer to take this a step further. Why not use this to store ‘memories’? The placemark feature allows you to add photos and details to a marker, so try keep track of every interesting location you find this way. Who knows, maybe oneday you’ll be planning a trip and stumble on an old location you’ve forgotten about?
Polygons and paths. Basically a polygon is used to mark an area of land, such as ‘good fishing area’ or ‘Oakridge Campsite’ it will shade the land a chosen colour. Paths allow us to show routes on the map, and as a ex-Scout and a Rover this has always been fantastic for logging hikes and roadtrips.
All these points can be colour coded and placed in categories. Users can ‘turn off’ categories to free up map space, or just to print only ‘Scout related points.’ I strongly suggest giving this a go!
You can download Google Earth 5.0 here.
You can also get the locations of all the South African Scout facilities for G.E. here.
Out of general interest, here are a few more features of G.E. that you can experiment with:
- You can viwe historic imagery. Simply by turning back the clock you can view a location decades earlier.
- You can explore the bottom of the ocean, and find 3D shipwrecks.
- You can record tours and share these tours with your friends.
- Bored with earth? You can now explore Mars and Space!
- Tons of other stuff, like checking the gradient of hiking routes, measurng path lengths, Wikipedia info about locations, GPS coordinates, etc.
The possibilities are endless, and the best part: IT’S FREE! So what are you waiting for?
