Hello to the Google Earth Web Browser Plug-in

The folks at Google have made a huge leap today, enabling developers to not only embed maps (via the maps API) into your website but now you can extend teh functionality of Google Earth to the web... sweet! This from the Google Lat/Long blog... "Today, I'm happy to announce the release of the new Google Earth Browser Plug-in, which brings the full power of Google Earth to the web, embeddable within your own web site. Driven by an extensive JavaScript API, you can control the camera; create lines, markers, and polygons; import 3D models from the web and overlay them anywhere on the planet. In fact, you can even overlay your content over different planets, stars, and galaxies by toggling Sky mode, letting you build 3D Google Sky mashups." The Google Earth Browser Plugin is now live at http://code.google.com/apis/earth.

Details... The Google Earth Plug-in and its JavaScript API let you embed Google Earth, a true 3D digital globe, into your web pages. Using the API you can draw markers and lines, drape images over the terrain, add 3D models, or load KML files, allowing you to build sophisticated 3D map applications. If you have an existing Maps API site, you can 3D-enable your page with as little as one line of code.