The Virtual Atlas

Ever toyed around with GoogleEarth?

It's an amazing utility. A great and wonderous educational tool, you can literally spend hours just zooming around the different maps of GoogleEarth and exploring things you've never before seen that the old Funk and Wagnals could not put onto paper.

Google has managed to create a representation of Earth, complete with geological information, city information, and connections to Wikipedia to help educate about different places throughout the world. One of the great things about GoogleEarth is that not all the information needed to be gathered together by a large team of people under one roof. Call it, a large team of people under the global roof, perhaps. Because the users of GoogleEarth are the ones adding the information.

For example, Outlook's SkyTrail is noted on the map when you zoom in on Outlook. Cruise over to Saskatoon, and users have put up various facts and photos about Saskatoon landmarks. And it gets even better.

Want to take a 3D tour of the Grand Canyon? No problem. Just type it into the search, cruise on over, use the orientation tool to point yourself inside the canyon, and you see the area in glorious 3D.

The maps are updated daily, as it has direct satellite information thanks to NASA. And there's more. Ever wanted to see the New York skyline? Well, thanks to some very patient people, they took advantage of a tool in GoogleEarth and created 3D buildings to scale of those on Manhattan Island. This is slowly being spread all over the world. Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Paris... All of these cities are slowly being added with 3D representations of the different builds and landmarks. Eventually, consider Outlook in GoogleEarth, in stunning 3D.

Until then...

Keep 'em flyin'.