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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

discussion / Geospatial  / 24 December 2015

Google Earth Outreach and Geo for Good conference

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A couple of months ago I had the priviledge of attending the Geo for Good conference put on by the Google Earth Outreach team at Google HQ in Mountain View, CA. (This team is great and has been very generous in supporting not-for-profits like mine further their missions.) They showcased their various tools and services that can be used to gather data, visualize it, and communicate it to the world.

The conference web site lists the full agenda and links to the various materials.They also just posted videos of the sessions. So even if you weren't there, you can take advantage of these resources.

Some highlights: The Samburu Street View had just launched, which shows the story of one of my organization's partners: Save the Elephants. It also touches on our partners Ewaso Lions and Grevy's Zebra Trust who all operate in the same area.

Google Earth Pro is now free for anyone to use as of this year. It allows you to plot points, overlay data, create tours, export video, among other things.

While not new, their Time Lapse tool allows you to build an animation showing the change of any area of the earth over a 28-year span (1984–2012) at 30m/px resolution. Here are some examples.

Some of the other tools shown:

  • Earth Engine - cloud-based service for creating geo visualizations and analyses through JavaScript code
  • Google Maps API - programming interface for creating and customizing maps for embedding in your own web pages. 
  • Google Tour Builder - A tool for building Google Earth tours and embedding them in a web page. 
  • Open Data Kit (ODK) - A free and open source set of tools for gathering data in the field then aggregating it for export/anaysis.
  • Google Cardboard - low tech VR viewer of street view and 360º photos (which they call photospheres).
  • The new Street View mobile app allows individuals to upload their owner photospheres visible to everyone.
  • Google Expeditions - newly announced; basically a Google Cardboard array for classrooms
  • Map Maker - allows individuals to suggest changes to Google's map data. (Not available in some countries/regions)

As you can see they have a lot going on. So hopefully you will find something here beneficial to your work.