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The Earth is a big place, and with 196.9 million square miles to explore, we could all benefit from being able to explore more, faster.

Today’s update lets you do just that. With Street View navigation, you can take in all the sights without ever leaving Street View mode. As long as an adjacent 360 photo exists, you’ll be able to stroll along the streets and roads as if you’re there.

Additionally, we’ve worked hard to make changes that more efficiently use your bandwidth, resulting in faster load times. Over the holidays, check out medieval architecture in Sofia, fly over the monastery of El Escorial in Spain, or walk up the Selarón steps in Rio. And as always, happy exploring!

Release notes [drive.google.com]

• Street View navigation: Ability to navigate between Street View 360 photos by selecting icon in the direction of the next connected 360 photo. Note: this feature is only available upon entering Street View mode by pointing the laser at the preview sphere and pulling the trigger. It is not currently supported when placing the preview sphere over your head.
  
• Improved imagery load times: Changes to more efficiently use bandwidth. This will improve imagery load times on Internet connections that may have been slow in the past.

With Google Earth VR, you can go anywhere in virtual reality. Whether you want to stroll along the canals of Venice, stand at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, or soar through the sky faster than a speeding bullet, there’s no shortage of things to do or ways to explore. We love this sense of possibility, so we’re bringing Street View to Earth VR to make it easier for you to see and experience the world.

This update lets you explore Street View imagery from 85 countries right within Earth VR. Just fly down closer to street level, check your controller to see if Street View is available and enter an immersive 360° photo. You’ll find photos from the Street View team and those shared by people all around the world.

If you need a fun place to start, check out a couple of our favorite spots. Make your way out to the old ballgame at AT&T Park, or head to the Old Port in Westeros … er, Croatia to see King's Landing from “Game of Thrones.”

Happy exploring!


Release notes

• Street View: If you fly close to the Earth, the globe on your non-dominant controller will become a preview lens and indicate whether or not Street View is available. To enter, peek into the preview lens for a quick look, or point and click to enter an immersive 360 photo.
  
• Renamed “Allow human scale” preference to “Restrict altitude”; limits how close users can fly to the ground.
  
• Fixed human scale (experimental): Turn this feature on via the menu to stay human-sized at all altitudes.
  
• Tutorial improvements: Added progress indicators and improved explanation text.
  
• Refreshed pre-installed data cache for faster startup times.

Full release notes[drive.google.com]

Check out the upcoming total solar eclipse in virtual reality. From the menu, select Total Solar Eclipse to head straight into the path of totality.

Today we pushed a minor update to refresh the UI of the mirror window. We also upgraded the cache system — please note that upload size is larger than usual due to this change.

When we first launched Google Earth VR, we knew there was something powerful about being able to point anywhere in the world and start flying. You could soar over landscapes and cities, and discover locations you didn't even know existed. But we also know people want to quickly find and revisit the places that mean the most to them, whether it's a childhood home or favorite vacation spot.

So, today we’re launching an update to Earth VR that gives you the ability to search. Just type an address or location name, and you can quickly visit anywhere in the world.

We’ve also added 27 new hand-picked locations to help you discover some of the world's most incredible places. You can check out Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle!), stand on the top of Table Mountain in South Africa, fly over Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina, and much more.

And today we're bringing Earth VR to Oculus Rift with support for Oculus Touch controllers. Now, go explore!


Release notes

• Search — integrated Google Earth’s search backend with new keyboard
  
• Oculus Rift and Touch controller support
  
• Advanced caching settings (ability to customize location and size) and
• Improvements to caching performance
  
• New introductory tour and 27 additional featured locations
  
• Ability to switch dominant controller via game settings or desktop window
  
• Fixed: Surround sound audio. Note: Stereo headphones recommended for best experience.

How to access advanced cache settings:

• Navigate to AppData directory (e.g. C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Google\VR\Earth\)
  
• Locate “earth_vr_preferences.json” file
  
• Open in text editor and replace default values (bolded) for "diskCacheDirectoryPath": "C:/ProgramData/Google/VR/Earth/earthdata" and "diskCacheLimitInMb": 2048.

The world has so many beautiful and amazing places to visit. If we're lucky, we're able to travel and see a few of them. But even the most active travelers can only see a fraction. What if we could see them all?

Ten years ago, Google Earth began as an effort to help people everywhere explore our planet. And now, with more than two billion downloads, many have. Today, we are introducing Google Earth VR as our next step to help the world see the world. With Earth VR, you can fly over a city, stand at the top of the highest peaks, and even soar into space.

Now, at 196.9 million square miles, we know the world is pretty big, so we’ve made it easy to find great places to visit. Earth VR comes with cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations that send you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps, and more.

You can download Google Earth VR today on the Steam Store for free. Like Tilt Brush, Earth VR is launching first on the HTC Vive. Stay tuned for more updates on Google Earth across other platforms next year.