I am working on a GE local bike mapping project, and I am using placemarks to create labels with linked descriptions for the roads/trails on the map. While it is nice for the user to click a placemark/label on the map for a description; as the map has grown, the labels can also create visual clutter. The placemarks for the label/descriptions are currently stored with the lineStrings in folders for each road.
It would be nice to be able to turn all of the labels off or on without opening each of the separate road folders to de/select each one. The names of most of the roads are also available on the underlying Google Earth hybrid layer, so the labels and descriptions are helpful but not absolutely necessary.
Download https://sites.google.com/site/tuobikes/kml/hullcrabtree.kmz for an example.
Is there any way to define a set of placemarks as a subtype in order to turn them all on or off as a group? For example, placemark type=label or placemark type=photo... This seems like useful functionality, but I don't see it in the kml reference
Is storing the placemarks for the labels/descriptions together in a folder separate from the lineStrings for the roads the only way to solve the problem?
I don't know of any way other than a Folder to turn on/off a group of related placemarks.
That said, consider using one or more KML Regions to reduce clutter:
"Regions are a powerful KML feature that allows you to add very large datasets to Google Earth without sacrificing performance. Data is loaded and drawn only when it falls within the user's view and occupies a certain portion of the screen. Using Regions, you can supply separate levels of detail for the data, so that fine details are loaded only when the data fills a portion of the screen that is large enough for the details to be visible."
Related
I'm trying to display KML polygons of all Canadian provinces and territories on Google Fusion Tables for use in an interactive map I'm making. However, when I upload the KML file containing the polygons, Nunavut appears as incomplete (missing pieces of the polygon on many islands, large gap on mainland border with Northwest Territories). As far as I can tell this is not the case with any of the other 13 regions. It is especially strange because when I open the same KML file in QGIS, all regions appear as complete.
You can view the map here: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/data?docid=1KaUE7sZWdA2PtsOV2tYHQ_qCaQA0kTGuERwfZTd_#map:id=3.
At first I thought that since Nunavut is in the bottom row of my table, the table may have just reached a limit and Fusion Tables just stopped loading it there. So, I went back to QGIS, isolated Nunavut, and simplified the geometries (which, as I understand, cuts down the number of lat/long points contained in the file). Then I uploaded that Nunavut file to my fusion tables and found that the same problem occurred. You can view that map here: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1s-aHA-rOeW8TfsOI4Ef-3rFJ0fnn_SjjIG-CDed8#map:id=3.
Even weirder, when I use other files from StatCan (all the shp files I've downloaded/converted into KML have been from here the Canadian government's statcan website), such as Census Divisions or Census Subdivisions, Nunavut always appears incomplete (and is the only province to do so).
I've tried making the conversions both in QGIS and using ogr2ogr to no avail. The Nunavut polygon always looks the same.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
-A
I've searched the various forums and can't find this question asked. If it has, please point me to it.
I'm generating a .KML file with lots of point data in a 400 mile area. When the file is opened, points labels are shown which makes it very busy.
What I'd like is for the file to open with only the points and no labels. Then when the users zooms in to let's say 20 miles, the labels are shown.
I have control over the generation of the KML file, so I can add any additional "parameters" that I need to accomplish this effect.
I'd appreciate someone pointing me to the best method to do this.
Thanks,
MEG
Add each of your points twice to your KML file and place them in different Regions. In the outer region, you can hide the labels via this technique.
I was wondering how does Nike website make the change you can see when selecting a color or a sole. At first I thought they were only using images and when the user picked a color you just replaced that part, but when I selected a different sole I noticed it didn't changed like an image it looked a bit more as if it was being rendered. Does anybody happens to know how this is made? Or where can I get further info about making this effect :)?
It's hard to know for sure, but my guess would be that they're using a rendering service similar to that provided by Adobe's Scene7.
It's a product that is used to colorize/customize a base product image based on user choices.
If you're interested in using the service, I'd suggest signing up for their weekly webinar. I attended one a while back and was very impressed with their offering. They showed the Converse site (which had functionality almost identical functionality to the Nike site) as a demo.
A lot of these tools are built out in Flash using a variety of techniques:
1) You can use Flash's BitmapData object to directly shift the hues of the pixels in your item. This is probably the simplest technique but often limits you to simple color transformations.
2) You can pre-render transparent PNG's (or photos, I guess) containing the various textures you would want to show on your object (for instance patterns or textures) and have them dynamically added to your stage at runtime. This, I think, offers the highest fidelity but means you need all of your items rendered upfront.
3) You can create 3D collada files and load them via a library like Papervision3D. Then dynamically change the texture at runtime. This is the most memory intensive technique and tends to result in far worse fidelity, but for that you get a full 3D object that you can view in space.
I'm sure there are other techniques but those are the top 3 I can think of. I hope that helps!
I need to create dash boards showing geographic regions and show sales, hot spots etc on a map.
What have you tried and what do you recommend?
I like the look of both Fusion Charts and Dundas
I will be using asp.net for the site but any control's or library's including flash or javascript are good options.
Most important is the look and feel followed by functionality in South Africa.
After my last post looking for commercial mapping solutions, it looks like they are very expensive and now I am investigating alternatives to full mapping solutions.
thanks
Have a look at http://www.geoext.org/examples.html#examples a JavaScript library based opn top of OpenLayers and ExtJS.
You can limit the bounds of your map to different regions, have several pop-up maps etc.
Have a look at the OpenLayers API on what datasources you can use. GeoJSON or KML are probably easiest if you want to avoid server-side map serving software.
I'm trying to generate a KML file to display a set of features scattered around the UK. I would like the features to be grouped together at higher zoom levels, ideally displaying as an icon with a count of the number of features, so that users can see clusters of features easily.
Essentially I'm trying to do something along these lines, but in Google Earth, not Maps.
Can anyone point me in the right direction. I'm a bit of a newbie with KML :-)
Cheers,
RB.
ANSWERS :
My own research suggests I can do what I want using Regions to define bounding boxes for certain features.
It has also been suggested I should do this using network links, which I'm going to investigate as I think it's a better match for other reasons too.
Is this a standalone KML file? Or the KML returned as data for a network link?
In the first case I'm not sure this is even possible. I have seen layer transparency change with "camera altitude", so perhaps something like this is also possible on features? Then you could add both the single features and the groups features into the same KML file and make them visible based on "distance to camera"? Could be a new KML feature I missed, but you'd have the check the KML specification.
In the second case, you just return KML that matches the given network link viewport information. Based on the bounding box you get, you can subdivide that box into a grid and cluster per box. If you have one feature in a box, return the feature. If you have more than one in a box, return just a "grouped feature" for that box. The clustering will then automatically change when the user moves around in Google Earth: after each camera change your network link URL is called again and you again do feature selection and clustering with the given bounding box viewport. This makes your clustering dynamic.
Does this help?