While on a recent trip to the States, took this photo, stiched together from many shots with AutoPan Pro. Traditionally I have provided a GoogleEarth model using DigitalUrban’s panorama object, however this time will simply link to the placemark as provided by Gigapan.org:

View in Google Earth (but requires 4.2+ to take advantage of the PhotoOverlay – in full resolution glory!)

View in a Web Browser (using a flash viewer)

Thanks to Gigapan for providing this really super (and quite fast!) hosting for these high resolution images…

I’ll try and create a PhotoSpot out of it for Google Earth when get a chance, but would love to try this with the Image Pyramid and Photo Overlay system that might be coming soon!

Update: Uploaded the image to GigaPan.com, which takes the heavy lifting of getting the pano into Google Earth 4.2 plus. (which can display it using the Pyramid system mentioned!) Highly recommended. It’s possibly a little buggy, but the new version of GE has only been out a day!

Open in Google Earth:

1. Inside the Trees (341kb)
2. The Trigpoint (276kb) - you expected that right
3. Down the Path (489kb)

This set presented a special challenge in locating the photos, because as well as absolute accuracy in placing the set (thanks to the trigpoint!), also needed to get the relative positions correct – in step some Getmapping imagery.

And if that isn’t enough then I also release the code under GPL – note its the first time written anything for WordPress, so might not be a tidy as could be!

Anyway see it in action on my series of PhotoSpots:

• As a Auto Updating Network Link
• or direct Google Earth KML file

• or even on Google Maps! (will also auto update!)

- as all these list the PhotoSpot category, each post includes a link to open the actual spot, so just click the world icon in the balloon to open

Download the Source or view the source: WordPress KML Generator and NetworkLink Wrapper

Installation: This is not a proper plugin, so just drop the .php files into the root of your WordPress folder and you should be done (but you can configure the icon to display if you wish by editing the wp-kml.php file)

Use: Normally you would only provide a link to the Wrapper – which in turn links to the feed itself, but the feed is useful like in the above example to plot directly on Google Maps. You can also specify a particular category to display like the above example or otherwise will include all geocoded posts.
Important: Requires the GeoPress extension be installed (to get geocode info)
Only tested on WordPress 2.0.1 – Works For Me – Your Mileage May Vary – no guarantee, implied or otherwise

This one is higher resolution than some of the others and ways in at 525kb,
but the extra resolution is useful to see the distant mountain ranges.

Anyway download it here: Google Earth Version

Download the Google Earth Version (262kb KMZ file).

Used in the making of this: AutoPano*, Paint Shop Pro, DigitalUrban Panorama viewer for GE, (of course) Google Earth, a SpaceNavigator and Winzip 10#.

* (demo version, hence the watermark, first time used but really good, just got to make a usecase to someone to buy it for me

# using Winzip to create the KMZ file seems to manage to squeeze some compression out of the jpg itself

Top of Snowdon

Really impressive! Just in case you don’t have a SpaceNavigator to really explore, have created a few views, just double click to move around. (idea from Google Earth Blog – except I used folders, so don’t have icons).

To really enjoy the feel of the mountains, I recommend setting your Terrain Exaggeration setting to about 2.0, although having said that the included Snapshot views are designed for when TE is set at 1, as that’s probably the most common.

I should note that I scaled up the model, to make it easier to use, so it does leave a rather large blob on top of the hill! This is also only a rectilinear panorama, rather than spherical, so it will be nice if DigitialUrban can work in support for such images.