I purchased the EarthNC+wGPS Bundle. I’ve done quite a bit of research on GE and was surprised that I could not find answers to my questions here, via Googling or at Google Earth’s forums. I also downloaded and used GEVoyager successfully (for 40sqkm but not for 200sqkm). I have used Google Maps since it was available but just recently discovered GE and ENC. I’m hoping you can help with my remaining questions.
1) Is there any way to determine what areas are in the GE Cache (that is on my computer)? Writing software to extract the info is no problem, are there any APIs that exist that would help?
2) Why isn’t Google (or an existing company tied to GE) selling precached areas (regions, states) on DVDs or other? While I can use GEVoyager to force area caching it is limited by the cache size, I would not be adverse to paying (a reasonable$) for precached areas. I googled this and even looked on eBay but no luck, however I did find someone actually selling Google Earth. We boat throughout Michigan (lots of inland lakes and of course the Great Lakes). We are also planning a number of trips (some trailering our boat outstate, some just driving) within the US and Canada and using GE and ENC with GPS would be a better solution than alternatives (Delorme, Garmin, MS Live Maps, etc). I do not believe that it is possible to precache all the areas I need (even swapping files), it just too much work to do it with GEVoyager multiple times and unlikely that I could maintain a net connection on the road.
3) Why the 2GB Limit and are there any plans to enlarge that in a future version?
4) Given the 2GB limit, has anyone implemented a virtual server to hold say 500GB ($100 for a .5T HD) of GE Map data? Any plans that you know of (GE or otherwise) to do something like this?
1) I’m not aware of any software that will do this at present. This feature request (along with a built-in cache management system) was submitted to Google at last year’s Google Developer Day.
2) I suspect this is a direct function of Google’s licensing agreements with their imagery providers - most of whom have established, high-dollar business models for reselling their imagery beyond Google Earth. Google generally does not own the satellite imagery used in Google Earth - rather they license it from over 100 different providers.
3) Again, the 2GB limit is likely related to licensing restrictions from their imagery providers - most of whom need to maintain the value of their traditional channels.
4) Not at the ‘retail’ scale. Google markets an enterprise version of Google Earth which allows for custom data serving (although at the cost of paying for/providing all of your own map data). The price point for the enterprise server isn’t targeted at single-user applications.
I will be attending the Google I/O developers conference in May and will certainly be raising issues related to EarthNC and offline use during the various discussions with the Google Earth engineering team.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize that Google does not own the Imagery. That makes the situation understandable regarding how the Imagery is made available.
I’ve looked at and used many GPS systems and of them all, GE/ENC+ has the most potential (especially when coupled with Google Maps) and that is why trying to use it offline is so tempting.
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