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Tim Beermann at the Interactive Earth blog recently posted this precis (via Ogle Earth) of how he’s importing shape files to Google Earth using software that’s all freely available on the Internet, including his Shape2Earth open-source shapefile-to-KML converter. I’m not sure how easy it is to create shapefiles (Tim downloaded free ones) or what the interoperability of SketchUp will be in this area, but it all looks like another cool tool to consider, at the very least.

Glitchy sends news of what appears to be video of a highly detailed, 3D navigable virtual France. Of course, the video is in French — all 11 minutes of it — but the GéoPortail app it demonstrates, from l’Institut Géographique National, is fascinating. Based on the video and according to this post on the Ogle Earth blog, the app layers a lot of information atop the kind of geographical data Google Earth provides: “In addition to aerial imagery, the video shows that there will also be topo maps and property maps (7:50) available, and 3D buildings (4:48), roads (4:30), all French postal addresses (7:10), and more. Some of these features will be pay services.” And all browsable in three dimensions. (more…)

One of the cool Google Maps hacks on display at South by Southwest this year was Community Walk, a site that lets users create collaboratively tagged maps of real locations. But with the Second Life map API being open as well (see the SLurlPane at the top of the right sidebar here), I figured it couldn’t be a bad thing to hack a Second Life location into a Community Walk community. Not that the current incarnation is much of a hack, but if you dial into this Community Walk map, zoom out and look for the mint-green, upside-down teardrops, you’ll find links to the virtual version of two real-world locations: a Hawaiian island, and a coffee shop in Washington DC. (more…)

Jerry Paffendorf of the Electric Sheep Company (who sponsor this blog) is pretty excited to have gotten the go-ahead to give a brief presentation at O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference, June 13-14 in San Jose CA. Jerry will be talking about some new ways to connect the virtual to the real that the Sheep are working on, including the idea of adding a virtual layer atop Google Earth. One effect this might have is to turn an app like Google Earth into a portal to useful locations in the virtual world. Here’s how. (more…)