Google Earth

What is Google Earth? It is a free product made available by Google that lets you view the entire earth in 3D. Many regions are shown in enough detail that you can zoom in and view your own house! You can download it directly from Google here.

Once you have downloaded and installed your chosen version (it's available for Windows PC and Mac) you can start to have some awe-inspiring experiences! Click on this link GDBR.kml to view the Great Dorset Bike Ride track in Google Earth. When you are asked, click on the "Open" button to set things in motion.

After a few moments (how long will depend upon the speed of your internet connection) you will see an aerial view of Dorset. If you look closely you will see a thin blue line extending east from Dorchester. This is the route!

It's worth pointing out that some areas of the surface are shown in greater detail than others. For example, take another look at the area covered by the GDBR route (if you have been following this tutorial precisely, this should be on your Google Earth display right now. If it isn't - good for you for getting stuck in - just reload the route by clicking here). Much of the surface is predominently green. This is created from low resolution satellite photographs and a real close-up view is pretty ugly. To show you what we mean, click once on the "map" and begin getting closer to the ground by pressing the "+" key on your keyboard repeatedly. In order to get the whole route on display, Google Earth will have set you initially at an altitude of about 26 miles. That's too high to see any detail so have a go at zooming in to about 15,000 feet (exactly how high you are will be shown at the bottom right of your screen - where it says "Eye alt ..." .

At 15,000 feet or so you will be able to see the line of the river Frome and the outline of fields and woods. Houses will be visible but not really distinguishable from other buildings like barns. If you have zoomed in directly after opening our route file without moving your viewpoint at all, you will now be able to see our thin blue route line more clearly. It should be follwing a road fairly closely - it's not perfect but it's good enough to get the general idea. The squiggle on the right is the level crossing at Wool, and the hamlet towards the middle is East Burton. The swooping dark line south of the village is the Wool to Dorchester railway.

Good though all this is, there is another dimension to Google Earth: to see what we mean, have a go at dragging your viewpoint towards the east. To do this, click on the "map" (press and hold the left mouse button) and keep your finger on the left button and move the mouse left at the same time. Release the button and repeat this until you reach a vertical border between the predominantly green area and a mostly brown picture. Suddenly, everything will seem a lot clearer! This part of the landscape has been photographed by a much higher resolution camera. If you now zoom in (press the "+" key) to about 2,500 feet, you will begin to see individual cars, boats and other detail.

A final Trip

As a last little treat, have a look for this part of the Google Earth display:

As long as you have followed the above "tutorial", your screen should have a similar box. It is usually placed on the left of the screen. If there is a red "Places" heading with none of the white box below it, just click on the white arrow just to the left of the word "Places".

Click once on the "GDBR.kmz" item under "Temporary Places" to highlight it and press the little blue triangle (the "Start" button). This will "fly" you along our Great Dorset Bike Ride route at a height of about 2,500 feet. It might be worth pausing and re-starting the "flight" if all you see is a load of fuzzy images - sometimes the detail takes a while to download. There's a clue at the bottom of the "map" - if the "Streaming ||||||" figure is less than 100% then you haven't got all the detail. Pressing pause to let Google Earth catch up will give you the whole of the experience...

We hope you enjoy messing around with Google Earth. We at Dorchester Cycles have been to some wonderful places - all for free. We recommend taking the Sightseeing Tour that is installed with the program - make yourself a cup of tea and sit back for a guided tour of our beautiful planet!