Today Google announced an exciting new product called Google Earth Builder. They say its purpose is to assist businesses process and handle geographic data, taking the pressure off of private servers. "It lets you upload, process, and store your geospatial data in our cloud," Google Enterprise Blog explained. "No technical expertise or GIS training is required."
Google Earth Builder is expecting clients ranging from government agencies to major corporations; essentially anyone that works that with high volumes of mapping. "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," the blog post explained. "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." This means that businesses can pull in Google imagery, roads, etc to add to their own data. They can then create custom map layers for Google Earth and Google Maps.
Google says: "In the enterprise a lot of geospatial data remains trapped on costly servers and inaccessible to those who need it. We'd like to help free that data and bring the same benefits that consumers have enjoyed for years to businesses and government agencies."
