RefreshingApps.com

This is an impressive AIR application right from the outset. Even more so when you realise that it was not developed by a large organisation but by just a single guy, Matt Giger. It is the realisation of a 5 year old dream so congratulations Matt.

If you have used Google Earth before then this is very similar in many ways, Matt has his own opinions on the Google product. A 3d globe that you can zoom in and rotate around. Like GE you can then add overlays on top of the globe to show data from various sources like weather and cloud patterns, grids and many more.

Clicking on data points like cities can show information like the weather forecast in a floating window over the globe. I found the night shadow feature to be interesting seeing where on the globe was currently in darkness or daylight.

If you have any overlay data in KML format then dragging and dropping the KML file over the app will load the data in to EarthBrowser.

Being in AIR EarthBrowser comes with built in web browser and can be seamlessly updated from the web when new versions are released. It is shareware and occasionally a window appears giving you the option to purchase in addition to the demo watermarks on the globe. So if you like the AIR app go and show your support by purchasing a license to help fund further development. Apparently Apple co-founder Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak was the 11th person to purchase the app.

I will say that it can appear to be quite slow when rotating the globe. I’m not sure if this is an AIR of a Flash player issue but it definitely is not as smooth as Google Earth in that respect. This is a minor comment and would not affect the general usage of the AIR app.

Design eye

In my opinion the UI does look a bit cheap and an after thought. To compete at this level with a shareware product I would say to Matt that he should hire a good UI person just to get a more professional polish to the app.

There must be a better way of displaying the data set layers than is shown. I know that most GIS systems like Google and ESRI use a very similar expanding tree and check box system so there is a commonality there but I can’t help thinking it can be done so much better.

Technical eye

Built using Flash and ActionScript 3. Matt did not use Papervision3D instead opting to create his own 3d framework. Automatic updates and drag and drop KML file operations.