Google Earth is so ubiquitous that it hardly seems worth mentioning. The first release of EarthViewer 3D in 2001 (created by a company called Keyhole Inc.), and the EarthViewer 3D project were funded by the non-profit venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, which in turn, is funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence agency. This spy agency lineage and the subsequent purchase of Keyhole by Google to create and distribute Google Earth brought global attention to the geospatial analysis field.
Since the first release of the software as Google Earth in 2005, Google has continually refined it. Some of the notable additions are the creation of Google Moon, Google Mars, Google Sky, and Google Oceans. These are virtual globe applications, which ...
