Making Animated Maps? Google Earth?
 

I notice that many docu's that show location or the destination will show an earth image that zooms in to the location. I know Google Earth will do that, but not as a movie.

What suggestions and workflow do you all suggest to show location as a moving image system?

Thats one way, recently I had to do several of these and found a quicker way.

Get Google Earth and fraps

Fraps lets you capture the viewport of google earth to uncompressed .avi :)

Fraps is Windows only, not Mac....I'd boot my Mac in a Windows environment, but I don't have Windows yet...but I am going to research all the links offered up....thanks

Earth Zoom seems to require on have Adobe Elements....I only have Final Cut Pro


crap! lol

Google Earth Pro:
 

With the pro version, you can create movies. HD quality looks great.

I use it often.

Expensive though.

Simon

If you create movies with it, how do you deal with zooming in from afar with the time it takes to download or it will be blurred?

Google Earth Pro:
 

Hello,

There is a trial for google earth pro:

Google Earth

Try it out.

You create a tour first and then record the tour which records each frame after the frame has been downloaded. The quality is excellent.

Then you can take the video in your NLE and do what you want with it.

Simon

What I am finding with Google Earth, whether it be the pro version or otherwise, is that when you zoom in all the way to whatever your end zoompoint is, then let it download, then zoom out, and repeat while recording it, that is looks great on screen. BUT, whether recording it using Snapz Pro X or Snow Leopards screen movie capture protocol, the video loses all its smoothness and becomes real steppy.

Does make any difference whether you import it into Final Cut pro and render it, it is still really jerky, whereas animating it onscreen it looks great.

So I am still stuck..

That jerkiness / stuttering on the screen recorded video is likely to be a CPU / resources issue with the computer that you are working on.

Got a faster computer by any chance? Or maybe screen capture a smaller area?

Andrew

You have to use Google Earth Pro (movie maker) option to record not another program.

Andrew also might be right. Is your computer powerful?

The movie maker option works in Google Earth Pro (trial version).

Simon

The computer was a Mac dual core 27" iMac. I find it odd it looked good on screen, the zoom was slow, the buffer was downloaded....

I hate to buy Google Earth Pro for $400 and have it not work smoothly.

Hello,

It is not clear from your post if you tried the trial and if you used the movie maker INSIDE google earth?

It does work and the quality is excellent. Not sure what else I can say to help you out.

Sorry.

Simon

Dave,

Download the pro version of Google Earth and use the option for a free 7 day trial.

Let us know how you go.

Andrew

Google Earth Pro isn't just expensive, it is absolutely mind blowingly astoundingly expensive.

Even if you pay for it and record a video, Google still have to give you written approval for using the resulting video in your production.

It is such a shame that NASA's own equivalent to Google Earth isn't going anywhere, because that was free, and from what I have been told the video recording could be better than Google Earth. But I haven't used it because I'm also on a Mac.

Simon, do you have a link to this NASA equivalent?

NASA World Wind:
 

NASA world wind:

NASA World Wind

Google Earth Pro permissions:
 

It's called World Wind.
World Wind JAVA SDK

There is also Flash Earth
http://www.flashearth.com/

But you can't do animation with it.

Thanks, Simon.

Simon,

If Google Earth Pro is "absolutely mind blowingly astoundingly expensive" at $400 per year, how do you manage to pay for the other software you use in video production?

Andrew

Andrew, a program like Photoshop or FCP I use every day. $400 for something that will be used only occasionally is very expensive. It simply isn't viable or a good use of resources. What is more, as I also mentioned previously, Google won't just let you record a video and put it into your edit. You have to show it to them first for them to approve its usage.

I can understand the approval process issue being a hassle. Mind you, if a TV news service can show a map fly-through in a news-cycle timely manner there must be some pre-arranged approval process you can have.

Any thoughts on billing the customer extra for the extra animation service? At least the burden is then on your client re this optional extra. Let them decide.

Andrew

Hello,

No doubt, google earth pro is expensive. But ignoring the price for a moment, the movie maker option on the latest version of google earth pro works great. I know, because I use it that way via After Effects and PPCS4.

As for how I can afford it, I have my own video company business as a hobby and also am a project engineer for a firm 4 days a week. Oh yeah and I don't have any kids or pets. That saves a lot of money for my video equipment and software.

:)

Simon

I have a client that has me create land auction videos. I have used the earth zoom effect as shown in the Video Copilot tutorial. I realize you can get permission from Google, but then your video says "Google" in it and I don't want that. I get my images from the USGS EarthExplorer. Our tax dollars paid for them, we might as well get some use out of them.

I've filmed my screen and set Google Earth to a slow speed, set the cache to a larger amount, and run the move back and forth a few times to ensure the data is cached. Then speed it up in post adding averaging for a motion blur look.

We tried to buy the Pro version direct from Google, when it was PC only. We wanted to pay them for 'something' but in the end the chilled out Google guy said 'don't worry about it...'

He didn't want the bother of taking our money.