Google Earth has been an excellent Earth navigation application for many years. Newer versions, however, come with many additional tools, showing increasingly detailed representations of our planet and allowing users to use the app in new ways.
The Elevation Profile tool allows you to create a path and display its elevation profile. Additionally, Google Earth shows the elevation of the location wherever the cursor is on the map. You can find the current elevation of the cursor in the lower right corner.
Basic location search
Whether you simply want to see how high a particular mountain is or check some facts during small talk with friends over a beer, finding out the altitude of a location is as easy as finding it on Google Maps.
- Just open Google Earth
- Navigate to the location in question (either by zooming manually or by typing the appropriate name in the search box).
- In case you have found your destination location, the elevation of that specific point will be displayed at the bottom right of your Google Earth window.
Note that “eye alt” shows the altitude of the place, not the height of the location. The “elev” number is the one that shows you the elevation of the point you have searched for.
Advanced Elevation Search
Of course, basic location search can essentially tell you the elevation of the location you choose. However, you may want to view the profile of a particular route from a geographic location. Google Earth is now equipped with all the tools necessary to do this. This is very simple and direct. Here’s how to do it:
- Click Add and then Path and this will open the New road dialogue. You can access any of your routes previously saved in Google Earth.
- You can give your route a name by typing it in the Name field. You’ll want to name your route because you may want to revisit it at some point. Don’t click OK until the path is drawn.
- Go to the Style, Color tab and choose the color and width, add a description and change the units in the Measurements p.
- Once you have everything set up, the cursor will turn into a square, as long as the New road The dialog remains open. This means that you should not close it until you have finished drawing the path. Drag or click points to add points. Once you are sure your route is complete, click OK.
- For a detailed elevation view of your route, find your route name in the left sidebar, right-click and select Show elevation profile. This profile allows you to view your road in a two-dimensional view, showing the length and elevation of your road. He AND-axis shows the actual elevation, while the x-axis shows its distance.
The best part of the elevation profile is that you can click/drag your cursor across the entire graph and see the details of each point on your route. In fact, as you move your cursor over the graph, the three numbers specific to the cursor location on your path will change.
The three numbers
The number directly above the red arrow shows you the elevation of the selected location. The left arrow marks the distance traveled at that particular point on your path. The right arrow, on the other hand, shows the slope of the road at the location in question (where the cursor is).
Google Earth Rocks
Sure, you can find a location using Google Maps; you can probably even write “[location name] elevation” on Google and get a simple answer. This tremendous app has a wide range of amazing tools that can help you with a variety of things, elevation being just one of them.
Did you know about the elevation profile view? If not, how did you check the elevation in Google Earth? Feel free to discuss it in the comments p below.