EarthViewer 3-D mapping lets Web surfers play Superman

The old phrase, "Where in the world?" takes on new meaning with Keyhole Inc.’s
EarthViewer 3D Pro software, part of a family of products called EarthSystem
that may alter how people use maps.

Ken Spencer Brown American City Business Journals, Inc.

The Mountain View
company has introduced a
system that takes a 3-D
model of the globe and
makes it possible to
instantly zoom in on major
population centers to get an
aerial photograph of any
address. Thanks to the
magic of satellite imagery,
the benefits of high-speed
Internet access and some
fancy work with computer
graphics, the system
makes seeing close-up
shots of specific
neighborhoods almost as
fun as sky diving.

Imagine falling from space and landing at a specific address, or flying like
Superman from one location to another halfway across the planet. It’s safe to say
that EarthViewer is the closest most of us will come to experiencing either.

Users type in an address like any other system. But instead of simply showing
an illustrated map, EarthViewer’s on-screen viewfinder swoops down from space,
zipping closer and closer to the address until it arrives at its destination. During
the decent, the user sees every detail in photographic realism: mountains, lakes,
rivers and eventually highways, buildings and cars.

The system doesn’t include detailed photos of every inch of the globe, but it does
cover most metropolitan areas of the United States and some areas of interest in
other parts of the world, including Tokyo and Afghanistan. The level of detail
depends on whether Keyhole has access to aerial or satellite photos. You won’t
be able to make out the license plates of any cars you see, but major landmarks
such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Disneyland and New York’s Central Park stood
out clearly. (For an extra fee, Keyhole can provide close-ups that provide detail up
to 25-50 centimeters).

So there’s no doubt EarthViewer is cool. But
is it useful?

At $599 a year for an EarthViewer
subscription, that’s no trivial question.

The company is pushing the system to
professionals in real estate, the public sector,
travel, wireless communications and
high-speed Internet access.

In addition to the photographic map
information, EarthSystem offers a national
database of 4.5 million businesses along with
elevations, roads, boundaries and places of interest.

Customers also can integrate their existing location-based databases into the
system, superimposing such information as zoning regulations, demographic
statistics or annual rainfall, for example.

Businesses using the system can access the information dynamically with a
computer running Windows or in a non-animated way via any Web browser,
handheld computer or phone.

Customers may house the system on their own servers and manage access any
way they see fit, or have Keyhole host the system as a subscription service,
accessible over high-speed data connections.

As a business tool, EarthViewer might not provide any raw data that’s not
available on other mapping systems, many of which now integrate aerial
photography. What EarthSystem does well is so smoothly blending those
images with 3-D geographical data and making it so easy to "fly" from one area
to another.

That could give travel agencies the ability to inspire a sense of adventure in
potential customers or give real estate developers a more realistic sense of how
future projects would fit into the landscape.

KEN SPENCER BROWN is a member of the Business Journal’s technology
team. To submit an idea for a future review, e-mail us at
[email protected]. Product reviews are based on items
submitted for review by companies or purchased by the Business Journal. All
products (except software) received for review will be returned.

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