Ryan Arp’s Google Earth Enterprise Blog does exactly what the title suggests: Blog Google Earth Enterprise, the version I know nothing about:-) It’s a great niche to fill. Here is Ryan’s inaugural post and mission statement. James Fee has already added the blog to Planet GeoSpatial.
What I like to know about Google Earth Enterprise: How is it different from Google Earth Pro? Specifically, how does the time browser work? (And are there other cool features like that?) How is GEE different from ESRI’s ArcGIS offerings or other competing products? (Better? Worse? At what price?) What file formats do you end up using? What hacks or third party solutions do you end up using? What’s the tech support like? How do the different bundles and components compare? Oh, and lots of eye candy please.
Thanks James Fee for getting the word out. I’ll answer some of your questions here. Please realize that some questions were left out.
Q: What I like to know about Google Earth Enterprise: How is it different from Google Earth Pro?
Enterprise is different on a number of different levels. First, you are responsible for putting everything (roads, boundaries, shapefiles, DEM’s and imagery) into a project and publishing it via a server. Second, you can set display rules for geometry and labels. Third, the published project runs a lot faster than (kh.google.com) Google Earth does because you are running the project from your own server source (in our case).
Q: How is GEE different from ESRI’s ArcGIS offerings or other competing products? (Better? Worse?
So far, I like GEE better than any ESRI map server that I’ve encountered (even the new IMS app that run with Flash). The end-user is interested in rapidly viewing data in a 3D environ and showing clients key deals on the landscape. Thus, the value of our GEE published project is visualization. We are, however, using the same projects to visualize point data on land transactions and entitlement statuses. Unlike ESRI products, the end user is not able to select records en masse with the click of a mouse.
Q: What’s the tech support like?
The technical support borders on phenomenal. If I have a question I call a direct number and talk to a human (or a cleverly designed bot).
Eye Candy is forthcoming.