Google Earth Gets Street View Integration

Google Earth 6 is out and it's got some fancy new features for those of us looking to really immerse ourselves in the digital atlas.

Anyone who has ever looked up his or her (or someone else's) house on Google Earth will know that it can only really get you so far. To get really close, you'll need to switch to Google Map's and enlist the help of Peg-man's Street View tool. However, that won't be necessary in Google Earth 6 as it will offer full and 'seamless' Street View' integration.

Aside from Street View, Google Earth users will also benefit from thousands of 3D trees that have been placed in cities and parks all over the world. Google has figured out how to produce highly detailed, photo-textured versions of specific tree species and reproduce them at large scale for an urban tree coverage that includes San Francisco (downtown and Golden Gate Park), Chicago (Grant, Millennium and Lincoln Parks), New York City (Prospect and Riverside Parks), Athens (Thiseio Park, the National Gardens, Lykavittos Hill and around the Acropolis), Berlin (Tiergarten Park) and Tokyo (Yoyogi Park, Shinjuku Gyoen and the Akasaka Imperial Grounds). The team is also working to map rainforests in Africa, Brazil and Mexico.

So far there's 80 million of the trees on Google Earth but Google is promising more trees in cities and forests soon, so don’t be too sad if your favorite park is still 3D tree-less!