By Grant Warkentin
Mirror Staff
May 24 2006
The earth from space is green, blue and
lush.
The camera is zooming in – the globe shape
disappears as North America gets larger, filling the screen.
The camera shifts to centre on B.C. The Lower Mainland comes
into view. We’re still zooming. Finally, signs of
civilization are apparent – roads and even cars are visible.
We’re at the Vancouver Airport.
The camera zooms out. We can see buildings
but it’s like looking out of the window of an airplane.
We’re travelling to Vancouver Island, stopping in Victoria,
zooming in to see what the city has to offer. Then it’s on
to Campbell River. We pause for a moment then continue on to
Knight Inlet Lodge, our final destination. Even from miles
up we can see the clean, deep blue water and the thick green
trees that surround the lodge. Clicking on the little
balloon pinpointing our destination brings up photos and
information about the lodge, and about the grizzly bears
which make it a hot destination every year for tourists.
It’s been a fascinating, fun and interactive
tour of a trip to the lodge using Google Earth, computer
software which allows people to explore and zoom in on any
point on earth using a virtual globe, satellite images and
aerial photographs. The company which designed the tour is
based in a tiny office in Black Creek.
“That was a tour operator in Vancouver who
contracted us to build that,” said Tim McGrady, national
sales manager for CanadaPlacemarks.com.
McGrady, whose “day job” is operations
manager for Knight Inlet Lodge, said when Google Earth
started becoming popular last year he started looking at
what could be done to promote his business.
“We said, wow, what are the applications for
us in selling Knight Inlet Lodge?” he said.
McGrady found out about placemarks, plugins
for Google Earth that add specific places, tours and
information to the software including travel distances and
times, hotels, places to eat and more. He decided to start a
side business to create placemark files for companies
interested in using Google Earth to promote themselves. It
was more successful than he ever imagined.
“It kind of took off on its own,” he said.
“We have people beating down our doors from around the world
to construct customized placemark files and SketchUp models
of new and existing developments.”
SketchUp is software which allows a designer
to manipulate Google Earth and add almost anything to the
landscape they can imagine. One of the most popular
applications so far has been placemark files for realtors,
McGrady said, which allows them to show exactly where all
their properties are on a map, even allowing potential
customers to zoom in on the property, see other photos and
information and see its size and layout.
He said he also sees other applications and
suggested the software could help bring clarity to conflicts
over land use.
“Even the Wal-Mart thing – you could plunk
Wal-Mart down and see how it impacts the area,” he said,
suggesting a designer could create a virtual Wal-Mart store
and overlay it on actual aerial photos and satellite images
of Campbell River.
He said another idea he is working on is an
electronic community map of Campbell River which would add a
layer to Google Earth where businesses can add their stores
or people to add whatever they like. He said he’s already
seen a local Grade 4 class create a plugin for Google Earth
that shows the favourite places of each student in the
class.
“That’s cool – that’s what the community
layer is all about,” he said. “People are really putting on
some cool stuff.”
McGrady said the best part of the software
is how easy it is to use.
“That’s the magic – all you basically need
to know how to do is use the Internet,” he said.
Google Earth is available for Windows XP and
Mac OS X at earth.google.com and McGrady’s business is at
CanadaPlacemarks.com
