Google Earth Offline for Mac?

[mrybas]

Hi,
Before I head back to my boat in the S. Pacific, I would like to download Google Earth images to use when I don't have internet access. I have found the GE images really help give a better idea as to what a new/unexplored anchorage is actually like when used in addition to nautical charts. The problem is the internet is rare, expensive, and slow in French Polynesia (at least the Marquesas and Tuamotus)....So it would be great to create an offline GE data base while I'm in the 'land of the cheap and plentiful'
I did a little bit of googling to see if there were any solutions but didn't find what I was looking for. The GE cache will save about 2gb, which is not enough as I would like to save the images for hundreds of islands from Tahiti to NZ. Some PC users are saving and naming caches for a specific area to be loaded into GE when internet is not available. Is this possible with a mac? It seem like it could be a very tedious project! Has anyone found a better solution?
Thanks!
Mike (in Philadelphia)
SV 'Hartley' (in the Tuamotus)

[mrybas]

The OS X Mavericks has a new program 'Maps' that has sat imagery......maybe this is a better solution for saving data to use offline? I don't know if the imagery is better/worse than Google Earth....I'll have to do some comparisons.

[simonpickard]

How do you save "maps" data offline?

[mrybas]

I don't know that you can. Anyone??????

[simonpickard]

Only thing I've found with maps is that you can save the current 'full screen' as a image from the File menu. That's about it.

Regards,
Simon

[Emerald Sea]

Not the most slick way but after filling my 2GB cache on my Mac I was left with the the traditional cut&paste from GE into a Word file formatted to A3 landscape. I have some large files but the images are there.

[DavefromNZ]

I spent days trying to sort this out. I have links to where to find the GE maps cache on both MAC and Win computers as I run Parallels. Once I figured that out I just spent the time zooming around the area I was to sail to and then saved. It then is a cut and paste to use them offline. I will post the file locations when i get back on to my computer, on ipad now.

However I wanted a moving map display with GE and wasted days trying to get a USB GPS to work with MAC. Far far easier on Win in fact could not get MAC to work.

[simonpickard]

I'd love to know how that works if you have some time to post the links.
I did get the USB GPS puck to work with the Mac, I had to hunt around for the drivers but will post the link to them when I get home if that helps.

Regards,
Simon

[s/v Jedi]

MaxSea TimeZero with high resolution satellite images does exactly what you want. That said, for Panama they only have a resolution that is not good enough imo.

[ShaktiGurl]

I hear "Cache for Google Earth" is good but it is a windows app. I supposed you could copy and manage the cache manually as well on mac

[mrybas]

Originally Posted by DavefromNZ

I spent days trying to sort this out. I have links to where to find the GE maps cache on both MAC and Win computers as I run Parallels. Once I figured that out I just spent the time zooming around the area I was to sail to and then saved. It then is a cut and paste to use them offline. I will post the file locations when i get back on to my computer, on ipad now.

However I wanted a moving map display with GE and wasted days trying to get a USB GPS to work with MAC. Far far easier on Win in fact could not get MAC to work.

Hi Dave,
I'm interested in what you've figured out. Can the whole process be done in Mac or do you need to be running windows via parallels?
I just bought a USB GPS for my Mac book air, and it worked right out of the box. It is made by Dual as an Apple specific model. Model xgps150a

[DavefromNZ]

You can find and store the Google Earth map files in either Mac or Windows. In both cases you will need to unhide the hidden files. This is approximately where you can find the file directories or search for "unified_cache_leveldb_leveldb2"

In Mac go to User\Library\Caches\Google\Google Earth\unified_cache_leveldb_leveldb2

Cut and Paste all content from this directory and store contents for offline regions.

In Window similar directory somewhere in

C:\Users\[yourname]\AppData\LocalLow\Google\GoogleEarth\ unified_cache_leveldb_leveldb2

Windows is naturally easier to unhide, in Mac:

Step 1: u need to open the Terminal and type the commands:
1 defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
That sets the flag to make the hidden files viewable.

Step 2: u need to restart the finder application by ‘killing’ the application:
1 Killall Finder

U should be able to view the hidden files. To revert back to hidding the files again, just follow the steps again but change the word true to false in Step 1.

[simonpickard]

So how does this work when you're offline? You just copy all the files back into that folder and Google Earth will pick them up?

[nohal]

Yes, that's how it works.

[Factor]

What about just screen shotting, i.e. find each anchorage and do a screen shot (Command/Shift/4) and then just save the files by name or maybe by Lat/Long. You can annotate them in preview and even have a a few different views? Not elegant but it works, and you can even get Lat Long out of the VCF file if you drop a pin and email it to yourself. then add the lat/long to the file info in comments and then its searchable in spotlight? As I said not elegant, but not hard and free.

For example the Manly file, has been annotated to show the names of marinas etc and the file info includes lat/long

And if you screen shot from Google earth, the lat long is in the shot