Google earth lake & river names?

[JimBuck]

Greetings all. I am using Google Earth and have been trying to figure out if they offer names for bodies of water? I know Tonka should up but what about all of the other lakes? Is there something I could download that might offer this info? It seems like a big oversight for Google not to include the names for most bodies of water. Thanks.

[Scott K]

It used to! I just checked as well, and it didnt even have the road numbers, so I am assuming they are having issues.

[JimBuck]

Yeah, I used to love that feature! Well, I ended answering my own question. Hopefully this will be useful to the rest of you.

In your "Layers" palette on the left-hand side. Open Places of Interest>Geographic Features>Water Bodies. Happy researching.

[DTro]

Sometime you have toggle back and forth between the map types to get info

[Scott M]

Yep, toggling between the layers or comparing maps with the DNR's recreational maps works. Those topo maps work pretty well. Used to be able to use topozone

[RonZych]

Make sure you have the layer boxes checked that you want to show up. It is in the lower left corner.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I use Google Earth, but recently started using Microsoft Virtual Earth because it has a "bird's eye" view feature that is awesome (in town). Tonka in bird's eye is really neat!

[Nick Kuhn]

Make sure the layers are checked on, sometimes it takes a while to stream all the info, as that would be the last thin sent.

FYI I made a suggestion to someone who does coding on Google Earth that they should add topographic lake maps as well. I'll keep my fingers crossed, as he said it seemed like a good idea (as it already caters to astronomers, why not boaters, fisherman, scuba divers, etc as well).

[DTro]

I use Google Earth, but recently started using Microsoft Virtual Earth because it has a "bird's eye" view feature that is awesome (in town). Tonka in bird's eye is really neat!

Google maps have a street view as well. Very cool, but kind of freaky

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Bird's eye view is like photos from a helicopter flying low. Check it out on MS Virtual Earth.

[Nick Kuhn]

It's a technical loophole that allows MS to use that. For security reasons a satellite cannot have images with a resolution higher than 50cm per pixel. However aerial photos can be of any resolution. Since google uses only satellite images, they can't be nearly as clear. However, google should be able to offer the 50 cm resolution pretty much everywhere in the near future with the launch of their new satellite.