Indian googler

Google has launched a new update to its Google Earth application which includes 3D trees and even closer integration with its Street View service.

Google Earth 6 also includes a big update to its popular historical imagery feature which means that viewers can find out when old photographs of the place you are visiting are available to view.

Earlier versions of Google Earth already showed buildings in 3D, but version 6.0 now adds 3D trees to the landscape. These roughly approximate the areas where trees appear in real life and the update includes highly detailed models for dozens of different species of trees.

Google Earth 6.0 view of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, complete with new 3D trees

Google has already 'planted' 80 million trees in Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Tokyo.

Peter Birch, Google Earth Product Manager, said: ‘I think we can all agree that our planet without trees would be a pretty desolate place. Besides the ever-important task of providing us with the oxygen we breathe, trees are an integral part of the landscape around us.

‘In Google Earth, while we and our users have been busy populating the globe with many thousands of 3D building models, trees have been rather hard to come by.

 

‘All that is cha

nging with Google Earth 6, which includes beautifully detailed, 3D models for dozens of species of trees, from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia to my personal favourite, the cacao tree.’

The 3D buildings layer must be on to view  the 3D trees. In some cases, trees have been modeled individually in a handful of locations, such as Disney World and the Eiffel Tower.

Elsewhere the right types of trees are used to represent what exists in real life, so palm trees dot San Francisco's front and olive trees cling to the Acropolis in Athens.