Google Earth tryout

I finally got the chance to check out Google Earth for the first time last night. Of course all of my comparison will be against NASA World Wind, but that is to be expected.

On the whole, Google Earth is a nice competitor to World Wind. I can't really say one is better than the other though. They are just different.

World Wind seems to be more responsive, better looking, has more satellite feeds, and has a better documented plug-in model. Also, you can pan or tilt in any direction.

Google Earth, while sluggish, has more features. It seems to integrate with Google Maps so you can find your house, find the nearest restaurant, golf course, super market, and directions. But, many of those features only work in America (I also tried them in The Netherlands -- didn't work as well). Also, you can only tilt in one direction. One cool thing that Google Earth does let you do is set bookmarks on locations. You can then "fly" between those marked points. It is a really cool feature.

But, Google Earth did seem to have better close up pictures of places like Boise. I could see my house, and my trailer parked in the driveway. Or was it my car? I don't know, it was still kind of fuzzy -- but that is Boise for you. I had a slightly harder time with World Wind.

The part that I'm not sure about yet is the sluggishness. I know World Wind is written in C# using DirectX, while Google Earth can use either DirectX or OpenGL (default). The Google Earth UI has a smell of Java to it, but I'm not certain yet.

Lastly, when mapping from real world locations to virtual ones, things will be slightly off at times. Google Earth was defiantly off, by over a mile at times. World Wind seems a bit more synced up correctly.