Free Geography Tools

A new utility from Valery Hronusov, Placemarker lets you create a Google Earth placemark different than the standard placemarks available in the program. No install program, just unzip the files into their own folder and run the executable:

Enter the desired text into the box; controls let you set the font, shadow or outline effects (with variable depth), and the location of the text relative to an optional icon. The default icon is shown above, but you can use JPG, PNG, TIF, BMP and TIF files of your own, and re-size the icon to your desired dimensions. “Save Image” saves the text and marker imagery at top as a graphic file. But if you want to place the text/marker in Google Earth,  click on the Open GE button:

If Google Earth isn’t already open, it will be, a marker will appear at the center of the screen (at upper left in the above picture), and the action box at the lower right. Move the image in Google Earth until the on-screen marker is positioned where you want the placemark to be located, and then click “Do!”. A PNG of the placemark image will be created, and positioned centered at the on-screen marker:

If you don’t like the position, you can move the Google Earth image and “Do!” it again. Once you have it where you want it, just save the generated “image.png” overlay as a Google Earth KMZ file to keep it for future use.

The overlay stays at a 0-degree orientation, and covers the same screen area, regardless of how you tilt the display and zoom in/out:

A useful complement to the online KML Labels tool that generates similar text labels for Google Earth, but as image overlays on top of the terrain.

Kjell Scharning emailed to let me know of his simple Google Maps tool, a basic digitizer with a Google Maps interface for creating KML polyline and polygon files. While for most purposes, the Google Maps MyMaps creation tool is a better choice, Kjell’s tool does have some useful functions missing from the Google Maps editor:

• Creating circular shapes
• Creating polygons with holes in them (something you can’t do directly in Google Earth, either)
• Get a list of vertex coordinates as created (select the “KML Coordinates option”). There’s also a separate KML “editor” that will take a link to a KML file, and give you a text list of the vertex coordinates. You can move the vertices around in the “editor”, but it doesn’t actually edit the KML, just modify the coordinates in the list.

As you click on the Google Maps interface to create vertices for the polyline or polygon, the KML text will be updated in real-time in a text window to the right of the map:

The instructions are a little unclear on hole creation. To create a shape with a hole:

• Choose the “Polygon” Draw mode
• Set the style for the shape (color, fill, perimeter) with the “Style options” button, then draw the shape in the map. Be sure to end the shape by clicking the “Close Polyshape” button.
• Check the “Hole” box; the perimeter of the main shape will turn into a polyline, and the draw mode will switch to “Polyline”.
• Draw the shape of the hole on the map, using the “Close Polyshape” button to finish the hole.
• Click the “Polygon” Draw mode option, and you’ll see your original shape with the hole inside of it.

Once you’re done, click the “Select and copy text” button, then paste the code into a text editor and save it as KML file.

It currently only seems to work in Internet Explorer and Firefox 2, but not in Firefox 3. And you can only draw one shape at a time. Not a complete editor by any means, but you may find its unique features handy.

Navimatics has created a KML network link that overlays marine charts derived from NOAA data onto Google Earth. Coverage includes all of the US coastline for the contiguous 48 states, but not Alaska and Hawaii yet. From high altitudes, coverage areas are outline with yellow lines:

Continue reading ‘US Nautical Chart Overlay For Google Earth’

While labeling items in Google Earth, you’re able to modify the font color, size and opacity. But one curious omission is the inability to change the font; you’re stuck with the Google Earth standard:

The font also stays the same size regardless of how far away you are from the labeled area, which can be useful sometimes. But if you have a lot of labels, this can result in lots of labels overlapping, and cluttering up the image. Label text is also all on one line, which can lead to long labels if you want to include lots of text.

Continue reading ‘KML Text Labels For Google Earth’