An instant and interactive platform based on Google Earth Plug-in

Nowadays Google Earth is becoming more and more popular in city planning, disaster control ling, as well as entertainment. Any scene, with terrain and 3D buildings can be roamed wherever on the earth. With more and more 3D buildings brought in the city, Google Earth is viewed as an application of virtual community. However, up to now people can't communicate with each other on the Google Earth instantly. A virtual community which supports the service of geography information is needed. In this paper, a platform is introduced for a vivid community based on Google Earth. A flex application is used to transmit data and Google Earth Plug-in as well as its JavaScript API is for displaying 3D scene on the web browser. Through it a user's existence can be sensed. It not only supports data transmission between web browser and socket server but also provides a collision detection engine both on the server and the client. Furthermore, an experimental racing game and a virtual community are shown that the platform is reliable, accurate and meets the user's requirement.