Not able to use the ruler on Google Earth? Here’s why

Google Earth allows you to perform a host of exciting actions, that make you virtual trip around the world that much more immersive and vivid. Over the years, Google has improved and introduced many new features within the Google Earth platform, and one of the most iconic and quite frankly, useful features, is the ruler. The ruler feature allows you to measure the distance between two places on the planet, and while this may not be of much consequence to the average user, there are some who really go deep in their trip planning and getting a fairly accurate distance between their home and destination, can be really helpful, especially when planning the transit options.

 

 

There are cases where you will see that the ruler button has been greyed out, and right off the bat, this is not because your PC can’t run it. The ruler feature works on all the devices that support Google Earth, which completely rules out the incompatibility issue. So then what causes this?

Let’s take a look –

Google is working on a critical change for the feature

This is a very rare occurrence, but the feature could get greyed out if Google themselves are working on a change for this feature, or have spotted bugs in this feature that may have far reaching consequences. Usually, if the feature is getting an upgraded, Google will still keep the older version running, but on the off chance that the feature is totally broken, it will be greyed out until a fix can be obtained.

If you are in Street View

If you are exploring a place on earth in street view, then what you are essentially looking at is images that have been stitched together, and this is not really a clean frame of reference to calculate distances between two places, compared to the more authentic satellite imagery. Thus, in order to discourage inaccurate distance calculation, this feature get greyed out when you enter street view. So, if you are in street view and want to calculate distance between two places, just exit street view and the feature should be re-activated instantly.

 

 

If you are in a virtual tour

Google Earth also offers virtual tours of popular spots around the world. This offers a lot of insight and an immersive way to experience your favourite tourist attractions, without stepping out of the house. Whenever you initiate a virtual tour on Google Earth, the ruler feature automatically gets greyed out. This is done with the intention to keep you invested in the tour, rather then getting distracted by the other features. So, if you are one of these virtual tours, and you want to use the ruler, simply exit the tour and the feature will get re-activated.

 

 

The ruler feature on Google Earth is a game changer and truly offers users a new way of exploring the big, wide world. Enjoy this feature and enjoy your next virtual adventure.

You can download and run the Google Earth application on your PC using this link.