Google has released Google Earth 6.2, a new version of the very popular software. The app comes with several new features and improvements, the biggest and most obvious being that the entire planet is now covered by one smooth satellite image.
Technically, it's still made up of many smaller images, but they form a unified picture. Until now, Google Earth just stitched together different image patches taken by satellite at different times.
These patches didn't blend well into each other, so Google has now updated the imagery to provide one smooth look across the globe.
"We’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smooths out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world’s most defining geographic landscapes—without the quilt effect," Google
explained.
The changes affect all Google Earth apps, both the mobile and the desktop one. It also applies to previous version of Google Earth, since all imagery is downloaded from the cloud, regardless of the version.
One uniquely new feature though, an expected one, is Google+ sharing. You can now share a screen shot of whatever it is you're looking at in Google Earth straight to Google's social network.
The feature works if you log into your Google Account and if you've created a Google+ profile of course. The Share feature is the same one found across Google products and services.
"We’ve also made some updates to the search feature in Google Earth. Aside from streamlining the visual design of the search panel, we’ve enabled the same Autocomplete feature that’s available on Google Maps. We’ve also introduced search layers, which will show all the relevant search results (not just the top ten)," Peter Birch, product manager for Google Earth, explained.
There are more additions, Google Earth has finally caught up to Google Maps and has included biking, transit and walking directions, along with the existing driving directions option.
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