Orient Yourself

The navigation controls (pictured here) debuted with Version 4 of Google Earth and represent a vast improvement over similar controls in older versions of the software. The navigation ring within these controls offers a great way for you to orient your perspective in the 3D viewer. You can do the following with this ring:

• Click the north up button to reset the view so that north is at the top of the screen.
• Click and drag the navigation ring to rotate the view.

The navigation controls only appear once you move the cursor over the right corner of the 3D viewer. Until you do this, a compass appears (unless you have turned this off using View > Compass).

Learn more about using the navigation controls.