Archive for the ‘network-link’ Category

Making a View-Based Refresh efficient when tilted?

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

I guess this only is really of interest to Google Earth network link builders… And rather that rewrite again what I wrote on the GEC, will quote the juicy bit and then provide a link (laziness!)

 ” As is probably common I use the BBOX returned during a refresh of a View-Based refresh to return some results to the user.

This works well when the view is directly overhead as there is very little wastage and the bbox represents the region of interest quite well.

However as soon as the view is tilted it becomes less useful as lots of the bbox is wasted in encompassing the distant area toward the horizon. “

I then go on to discuss my potential solution, add a demo and a link to the source, hopeing that somebody else is working or at least thinking of something similar…

View post here

Google Earth Version Stats

Saturday, September 16th, 2006

In trying to debug the KML for the Geograph exports, I had to make a decision about weather to move to KML 2.1 (GE4+ only), this set be wondering what versions are actually still in use and is it work still supporting GE3.So to that end produced this page. This aggregates all accesses to the various network links hosted on Nearby.org.uk, which of course is only a small corner of the net, wonder how this compares to Googles stats?

(disclaimer: I have a fondness for arbitrary stats!)

Conclusion: GE3 is still has about 27% market share, but could be dropping rapidly as people rush to try the new beta. (or could just be nobody using GE3 at the moment, to try the new features, but will go back for day-to-day work)

[OT: Oh and regular users might recognize that I finally got round to doing a little bit of personalization of the WordPress theme used around these parts, much nicer IMHO]

Geograph goes Temporal in GE 4

Saturday, September 16th, 2006

Have made a minor update to the Google Earth (KML) exports from Geograph, so that each image if possible will include the date the photo was taken to allow the new shiny Time Slider to function in the very Latest version version of GE 4 Beta (ones since 14th Sept ’06).

For example: Reflections on Geography topic. [Link takes you to webpage to choose download type, the Wide Area option is recommended as that allows you to move around and Zoom and still see a number of images. ]

GE 4 does UTM

Thursday, September 14th, 2006

Another rushed post but excited to see that the latest beta of Google Earth 4 (beta) has support for UTM references. Also pleased to see that the my gridlines line up well with the imbuilt references, in fact it seems that the gridlines go more accurate than the ones in Earth at the moment!

…updates, updates, updates …

Thursday, July 6th, 2006

After a comparatively quiet period, have finally begun some development work again on these sites, so far: The Nearby API now has a SOAP interface. And two new features for Google Earth: IARU Locator Echo and Worldwide MGRS Grid-lines Layer.
Oh and deformedweb.co.uk is now hosted on the same dedicated server as this site, should mean can do more there….

Google Earth v4 (beta)

Monday, June 12th, 2006

As already mentioned at Google Earth Blog, Google Today announced at their Google Geo Developer Day, version 4 of the client. The first noticeable thing is the UI had undergone a radical revamp, (in fact see images at OgleEarth and the Google Download Site), my favorite the tri-state tickboxes!, there are are tweaks to the inbuilt layers and terrain.

However most interestingly (for me), is the new KML features. Firstly 3D models can now feature textures, (using Collada XML file format), which introduce a new ‘object’ type for Models.
NetworkLinks, Overlays and placemarks, can all specify a Region that they apply to. Firstly it can conserve bandwidth by only fetching network links when the area that the link knows about is in view. But it also extends to make nice ‘Streaming KML’(tm) layers, that can incrementally load in imagery as you zoom in, so you can create a nice image layer (eg) much like the inbuilt imagery.

Also individual placemarks, overlays and even folders can have Level of Detail information specified, which can greatly improve the presentation of many layers, without resorting to server tricks to manipulate the data.

There is also the beginnings of support of for ‘Updates’ via network link, so the whole content doesn’t have to be refreshed each time, just ‘incrementally’ updated, haven’t got this to work yet.

Also in the News: Google Maps API had added Geocoding for US, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, Spain and Germany (other contries to follow). {edited to add:} Also you can overlay KML’s directly in Google Maps, Neat! (that link is a demo of overlaying recent images from Geograph!)

RSS to geoRSS and Google Earth

Thursday, May 11th, 2006

Over at geonames a new RSS-to-GeoRSS converter has been added, whats significant is that because its at geonames it has access to the worldwide gazetteer, and therefere can attempt to geocode just about any RSS feed. Of particular interest is that it will maintain any georss in the original (all there flavours) and has a KML output, so it will visualise just about any (geo)RSS feed in Google Earth! (and will even work via a network link!)

Read about it here in the geonames blog.

Maps in Google Earth

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Haven’t had a chance to try it but this (from gpsvisualizer) looks really promising, basically allows you to easily overlay various maps on the Globe directly in Google Earth. (or an alternative from 3D solar)

Take a look at the announcement in the GEC.