If anyone is curious what some current day areas look like in 3D, Google has a new feature called Google Earth. I did a forum search and didn't find that anyone had posted this yet (I may be wrong ). In case they haven't, its a relatively small download that allows one to meld satellite imagery with a three dimensional layout of the buildings of almost any area in the USA. Pretty sweet features also.

Check it out. I imagine it would help out somewhat with getting the feel of an area in which a gamemaster is trying to describe.

I've been messing around with it today after learning about it off User Friendly the webcomic. It's fun, but I would like a better mag on it. For example, as a resident of the UK in a city NOT under a detail square, it's impossible to make half the stuff out. And Newcastle upon Tyne is one of the biggest cities!

It says temporarily closed...

Can someone put up the free version's download file?

I actually think google is wrong about my region. I looked up my house, and it has the door of it facing east, where my door actually faces west. I'm also sad because I have jack for detail.

Are you sure you don't have a disused door there, or one that's listed as a door in the original schematics?

It's satellite feed, so it shouldn't be wrong. Then again, they put Gateshead in Newcastle City Centre, so...

The detail thing really bugs me. After all, EarthSat is capable of better.

Doesn't one also pay for EarthSat?

You get what you pay for, methinks.

In terms of quality, though:

As a way of checking it, I dialed in the lat/long of Vatican City, figuring I'd see the (rather recognizable) Via del Conciliazione and St. Peter's Square.

No go. I scanned along the Tiber, and couldn't even find the Vatican.

That says something.

EarthSat is what it uses to get the images on the globe.

The detail level is shocking; Metrocentre is one of Europe's biggest shopping centres (actually, it IS the biggest), and yet it's nigh-on indistinguishable from the landscape.

Still, as long as you stick to the "detail patches", you get good data... I can see cars on Toronto, for example.

You just should make things bigger. You can see damn near everything in America, and that's without zooming!

it's still broken, it makes me sad...

Try GlobeXplorer.

It is watermarked, but I could see the chimney on my house.

Or Earth Viewer.

Or GEsource

I'm hosting a copy of the install at my ftp, if you can't get it elsewhere.

ftp://63.198.190.173/

I could see my apartment windows on google earth, pretty cool.

Probably have to wait a month or so now while they build up more server capacity & wait for people to get bored with it.

This is excellent. I've always been something of an urban landscaping buff And I always found the city/Sprawl hard to describe to my PCs.

Sadly, my Windows machine is MIA, so I can't access this yet.

Hopefully, after a few iterations they'll fix the little things. Like the fact a large amount of the placemarkers are out of place. And the fact I can zoom in in great detail to look at Donington Raceway, and yet can see next to bupkiss of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Wonder if the $200/year version fixes all of that?

A great deal of the placemarkers are out of place, yes. But not by so very much - a couple of yards, maybe.

One that that does deeply disturb me is the high comercialism. You can find an accident laywer in southern floria by his tag that's visible at 40,000 feet, but you have to manually scan for the White House, or the Chrystler Building (never did find that, though I did find the Empire State,) or Kenny Space Centre.

Just a side note, this thing crashed my system twice in a half hour period. It's beta, so I am not upset (much), and it is more functional than the other sites I listed earlier...

Never crashed me, and I was running for about four hours straight.

Yeah, I was wrong. Turns out I have two compasses that point South, not North.