off topic: earth.google.com

[Brent Fraser]

Norman,

  Good points.  It really is just a simple geographic data viewer, but it's
the usability in that context that is impressive.

And here's the Top Ten Things I DON'T Like about Google Earth (but then I
haven't done much digging):

1. No direct support for WMS (and WFS, etc)
2. No map scale, no arrow pointer for mouse (which finger does that lat/lon
reference?)
3. Rough vectors outside of U.S.
4. Thin API
5. No spec on Horizontal or Vertical datums
6. No transparency setting (e.g. white is transparent) on Network Link
raster data sources
7. Streaming server (Keyhole) is proprietary
8. No ability to add your own DEM (without Keyhole server)
9. No min/max scale setting for layers (?)
10. Local images require manual warping (no support for Geotiff tags etc)

On the other hand Google Earth could serve as a functionality to-do list for
osgPlanet:

http://www.ossim.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=3

Brent


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Norman Barker" <nbarker at RSINC.COM>
To: <MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 9:05 AM
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] off topic: earth.google.com

<snip>

Everyone is saying it is amazing, and I like it, it is fun.  But you can't
really
do that much with the KWL service provider interface, and the streaming
technology
is proprietary.

When they release an API so that I can change the visual appearance of
controls, add
my own gui panels, add processing functionality, then I will be really
impressed!!

Norman