Google has launched Google Earth Builder, a tool to enable businesses to use Google’s cloud to manage geospatial data, create custom map layers, and share Google Earth/Maps layers.
Organizations can scale services for traffic spikes, reduce server costs, and control source data and attribution, according to the company.
“Whether you have terabytes of imagery or just a few basemap layers, now you can create multiple map layers from your data, such as shapefiles of demographic data, spreadsheets of worldwide customer locations and files of your recently acquired imagery for a new development,” says Tarun Bhatnager, Google’s Head of Geo Enterprise Sales. “You can also integrate the map layers with our own imagery basemap, road data, Google Street View, Terrain View, or Directions in order to find your next best store location.”
“In the enterprise a lot of geospatial data remains trapped on costly servers and inaccessible to those who need it,” Bhatnager says. “We’d like to help free that data and bring the same benefits that consumers have enjoyed for years to businesses and government agencies.”
If you’re interested in seeing how businesses and government organizations are already using Google Earth and Google Maps, Google has page full of case studies here. Organizations include the Air Force Weather Agency, Toyota Motor Europe, The City and County of Washington DC, Dell, and Apple, to name a few.
On a related note, Google Earth has been downloaded over 700 million times.
Earlier this week, Google launched Map Maker in the U.S. This lets users from around the world add and update locations to Google Maps.