Critical error in Google Earth 5.0

[Sims2789]

Apparently, Google doesn't tell you, nor make it intuitive to figure out, how to see beneath the ocean (as Google's video does at 1:02), which is the main feature they're touting in their recent update of Google Earth.

Selecting new ocean layers, as the video suggests, does not work. The intuitive control would have the user switch to under-the-sea view when he or she zooms in all the way on a body of water, but instead the user runs into the surface of the water as if it were land.

 

[Perfection]

MY GOD.

 

[Godwynn]

MEIN GOTT.

 

[Red Door]

DIOS MIO.

 

[Sims2789]

MY GOD.

My God indeed, since I got my hopes up that I'd actually be able to explore the sea floor of an area where I fish at a lot. But Google doesn't make their underwater view easy to figure out how to use nor do they say how to activate it, thereby rendering it utterly useless.

 

[Mowque]

SAY...IT...AIN'T....SO

 

[PeteAtoms]

y-may Od-gay!

But seriously, how does looking underwater help you scope out good fishing spots...it's not like you'll be ably to find nemo or anything.

 

[Sims2789]

I figured out the bug: It thinks that the San Francisco Bay Area (and by coincidence, all the other areas I tested) is land, so I can't view the ocean floor beneath it.

I'm still amazed that Google designed a product that took the better part of an hour to figure out how to use. By the way, you may have to double-click on the text next to the "Underwater Features" checkbox, even though doing this in any other Windows program would deselect then reselect the checkbox.

 

[Sims2789]

y-may Od-gay!

But seriously, how does looking underwater help you scope out good fishing spots...it's not like you'll be ably to find nemo or anything.

Google Ocean might be more precise than depth charts. For example, there might be an area with lots of steep crevices a couple feet deep that won't affect whether a boat can pass over that area without running aground (and thus won't be on depth charts) but where rockfish like to hide when the tide's out. If said crevices, and other ocean features, appear on Google Ocean then I'll know which spot on the rockwall to fish off of next time I go.

 

[History_Buff]

Google Ocean might be more precise than depth charts. For example, there might be an area with lots of steep crevices a couple feet deep that won't affect whether a boat can pass over that area without running aground (and thus won't be on depth charts) but where rockfish like to hide when the tide's out. If said crevices, and other ocean features, appear on Google Ocean then I'll know which spot on the rockwall to fish off of next time I go.

I kind of doubt it. There's no real reason to do a hydrographic survey unless it's going to be trafficked by sea going vessels, let alone do it in high quality. Your best bet might be with old lead line charts if they're available. And while LIDAR and I think some of the radar birds can see through shallow areas, they can't do it with any accuracy.

 

[LightFang]

ON TOPIC though, I really don't see how looking underwater can be helpful. It doesn't seem like something I'd use all that much.

Although, you know, maybe if you were a fisherman or something...

I'm sorry, an angler.

 

[Bigfoot3814]

It would be cool to look at shipwrecks and submarines and whatnot.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm surprised they have all that stuff mapped out. I thought there were all sorts of things we've never found on the bottom of the ocean because we just can't cover all that area. Unless you can see underwater with satellites now...

 

[LightFang]

I'm surprised they have all that stuff mapped out. I thought there were all sorts of things we've never found on the bottom of the ocean because we just can't cover all that area. Unless you can see underwater with satellites now...

Yeah, exactly...

I've always sort of vaguely known that they could map the ocean floors based on like sonar, but come to think of it, wouldn't that entail picking up shipwrecks and such too, since they'd be part of the detritus scattered about on the floor...?

But anyway, technology that's actually able to see underwater and not just construct what it should look like based on depth readings is pretty badass.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Well we still hear about discoveries of new shipwrecks and stuff all the time, so I don't see how we could have Google Earth quality images of the bottom of the ocean.

 

[cubsfan6506]

I imagine they'll improve it.

 

[History_Buff]

I'm surprised they have all that stuff mapped out. I thought there were all sorts of things we've never found on the bottom of the ocean because we just can't cover all that area. Unless you can see underwater with satellites now...

They don't. General bathymetric data is available, but the resolution is really low, because we haven't really needed to see it any better yet. We know where mountains and trenches are and the like, but that's really it.

Nor do satellites have a real shot. In areas where the water is less than a meter or so deep, you could probably make out the bottom, but the distortion is huge. RADAR or LIDAR is better, but just as depth limited. As you move further out to sea, I don't think it would be feasible to try and georeference all those images.

Hell, we're not even really sure what level the ocean is at - contrary to common knowledge and common sense, the sea is not flat. The level of the oceans varies with the geoid, and then ocean currents distort that even more, until you've got variations of about a meter up or down on the sea surface.

 

[Zelig]

It's about on par for Google programs.

 

[El_Machinae]

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