Global Mapper v25.0

Need help on creating Google Earth Maps

mjmfgm
mjmfgm Global Mapper UserTrusted User
Hi there,
I wonder if anybody knows a good instruction manual or source on how to create Google earth maps. I need to create / enhance my Google earth maps, what I am trying to do is this.

I would like the user to be able to turn on and off area shapes.
I would like to be able to show only certain information of the data on the pop up balloon ( user overs over an area and shows only certain information not all the information about the data ).

I exported my map via the KMZ export feature and GM did what I asked to, it my lack of knowledge on how to use GM.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Comments

  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2011
    First make sure to use the File->Export Vector Data menu command so that you can maintain your vector features on export. While there aren't any specific tutorials on KML/KMZ export, see http://globalmapper.com/helpv13/Help_MenuBarAndToolBar.html#file_menu_export_kml for the help on that topic. The Feature Descriptions section will allow you control of what information is available for each feature. The data should automatically be layered by the type name in Global Mapper so if you classify your areas in Global Mapper they will be available as separate layers in Google Earth.

    Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • mjmfgm
    mjmfgm Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited September 2011
    Thank you Mike,
    I looked at this and I am still puzzled by this. I was wondering about the "HTML" feature in the export option as well.

    I would be nice if one could edit the information in the balloon export prior of exporting, I don't know if this is possible? I read in the help file something about edditing the registry information for custom baloon export. However that seams to be a bit harch for me.

    Ps: The link you gave above points to OSM export? Is this what I should use for Google Earth Export?
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2011
    The help link should go to the vector KML export section, it does for me. In any case here is the pertinent text:

    The Feature Descriptions section allows you to setup what is contained in the description for each feature in the generated file. You can choose to include only the feature description and links to any files associated with a feature, you can choose to add attributes to this, or you can choose to provide your own HTML text to use for the feature description. If you use the HTML text option, you can embed the values of attributes from the feature in the text by enclosing the attribute name in percent signs, like %ATTR_NAME%. In addition to the name of attributes, you can also specify <Feature Name>, <Feature Desc>, <Feature Type>, <Longitude>, or <Latitude> as the attribute name to get the feature display label, description, type name, point longitude, or point latitude embedded in the result. If you need to embed an actual percent sign in your result, simply use two percent signs consecutively as an escape sequence.

    The following additional options are also available:

    Character Encoding - this option controls the character encoding value encoded in the header of the KML file. You will typically just keep the default of iso-8859-1, but if your loaded data includes text encoded with a different character set, like UTF-8, you can select that or even type in your own encoding if something else fits your data best.
    Create Compressed KMZ File - if this option is checked, a compressed KMZ file will automatically be created. This will result in much smaller files and is highly recommended unless you plan on manually editing the export result yourself in a text editor.
    Hide Point Features by Default When Loading File - if this option is checked, all of the point features exported to the file will be hidden by default in Google Earth so as not to clutter up the display with a bunch of point icons.
    Use Displayed Point Symbols Rather than Push-Pins for Points - if this option is checked, each point feature will be rendered with the same symbol displayed in Global Mapper rather than using the default push-pin symbol from Google Earth. This will result in a separate PNG file for each symbol used in the output file being included with the output data to provide the symbols.
    Display Area and Line Labels - if this option is checked, each exported line or area feature with a display label will also be marked with a clickable placemark displaying the label for that area or line feature. This is the only way to get line or area features to display labels in Google Earth.
    Highlight Areas in Google Earth when the Cursor Goes Over Them - if this option is checked, area features will highlight when you move your cursor over them in Google Earth. In addition, if you checked the option to display area and line labels, the area label will be hidden until you mouse over the area, at which time the label will popup.
    Generate Index KML File - if this option is checked, an additional index KML file will be generated which indexes all tiles exported by the export command. This is very useful for dealing with very large data sets as it will automatically load and unload individual KML tiles as needed for display in Google Earth, much as a map catalog does in Global Mapper. With this option you can load massive data sets into Google Earth and they will still display quickly. The drawing style of the index tiles is controlled by the selected drawing style for the Coverage/Quad area type on the Area Styles tab of the Configuration dialog.

    For advanced users, you can also customize what is displayed in the balloon text that appears in Google Earth when you click on a point. You are able to customize the <Balloon Style> tag to use text with the string value stored in the registry at 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Global Mapper\KmlExport_BalloonStyle'. If that value is empty the default setting from Google Earth will be used.


    Currently the custom balloon text editing is only available through the special registry key editing, it hasn't been implemented into the user interface yet. It's just a single registry key though, so once you figure out the text to use it is easy to set.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • mjmfgm
    mjmfgm Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited September 2011
    Mike thank you for your fast response,
    I will take a look at this and play around with the settings. There is a lot to learn here, I found a web page on google earth that dipicts what I want to do, here is the link: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/skytruth_green_valley_n.kmz

    this will open a KMZ file in Google Earth.

    On left side you will see the different options to turn on layers and this file also shows descriptive values in the panel.

    I know that this is beyond GM export features and I just need to find a way to get these type of options into my maps.

    I like GM and not asking for improvements, this is just something I need to be able to offer my customers.

    Thanks Mike.
  • mjmfgm
    mjmfgm Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited September 2011
    Hi there again Mike,
    Got one more question for you. When you export to KML or to KMZ is there a way that I could export the complete map to XML? If so I could edit the data and add my own XML code to add, change lables.

    Also is there a way to group the data headings in such away so that it only displays in Google earth as a group?

    Thanks again Mike
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2011
    The KML format is an XML format, so just export to KML and then edit that directly.

    I'm not quite sure about grouping the data heading, what exactly do you mean?

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • mjmfgm
    mjmfgm Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited September 2011
    9-22-2011 3-32-22 PM.jpgSo if you open the exportded kmz file in Google Earth on the left side of the menu: please see attached picture.

    Mike see the "no name" text, it is grouped in the Area Features. Currently you only see the "state park" if you scroll down you will see 13 more shapes, what I would like to do is at least group them together so that if you one would like to turn of the "state park " layer it would not display anymore.

    So I need to group them together in the Google earth display, I need to know how I can change the KML file so that the display correctly in Google Earth. Once I have done that I need to load the ne KML file into Global Mapper and export the new file to a tiled KMZ file.

    The KML file is 114 MB and it takes about 2 min to load, thank you Mike for your help.
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2011
    There is a way to override the default folder name of 'Area Features' for your areas and group them differently. If you add an attribute named KML_FOLDER to your features with the name set to what you want the folder name to be for those features, that will be used. So you could edit your state park areas and add an attribute named KML_FOLDER with the value of 'State Park', then that will be used for the folder name. You can also add this to the default attribute list for a particular feature type on the Styles tab of the Configuration dialog, so then you can just classify your features to get the right folder and not set an attribute for each feature.

    Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • mjmfgm
    mjmfgm Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited September 2011
    Great thanks that helped, I assume that you are talking about editing the "KML" file and not in GM? ( correct)

    Also after I made the changes is there an option to get this back into GM to "Tile" the data? Or do I need to tile the KML / KMZ file prior before editing ( 114 MB file size )?
    Thanks
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2011
    If you want to directly edit XML, just edit the KML generated by GM in a text editor. Assuming your changes still conform to the KML specification you should be able to load that back into Global Mapper and then re-tile the data as needed.

    Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • Amanda McDermott
    Amanda McDermott Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited November 2012
    Hello Mike / All,

    I am trying to remove the driving directions when exporting a .kmz file...

    I have managed to customise the content of the balloon through the html option when exporting, but not remove the driving directions - I wonder if there is a way to do it there but I haven't worked it out?

    Seeing the paragraph above...

    "For advanced users, you can also customize what is displayed in the balloon text that appears in Google Earth when you click on a point. You are able to customize the <Balloon Style> tag to use text with the string value stored in the registry at 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Global Mapper\KmlExport_BalloonStyle'. If that value is empty the default setting from Google Earth will be used."

    I wonder if I need perhaps to go into the registry, and what would I input there please to get rid of the driving directions?

    Thanks,
    Amanda
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited November 2012
    Amanda,

    Which driving directions are you seeing? Unless they were there already those aren't something that Global Mapper would add. Perhaps Google Earth is showing those and it's a setting to turn off there? If you load the KMZ into Global Mapper do you see the driving directions anywhere?

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com
  • Amanda McDermott
    Amanda McDermott Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited November 2012
    Just to let you know I've worked it out :)

    In registry I have put in

    <BalloonStyle id="ID"> <name> </name> <text> </text> $[description] </BalloonStyle>

    This allows me to still use the custom HTML I had prepared, but doesn't show the driving directions

    Thanks anyway!
  • Amanda McDermott
    Amanda McDermott Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited November 2012
    Mike,

    Apologies, being new to the forum I had somehow managed to miss seeing your post when I replied, which is why I didn't actually answer your question!

    I was talking about the 'Directions: [URL="earth://kh_directions_to"]To here[/URL] - [URL="earth://kh_directions_from"]From here[/URL]' that automatically appears at the bottom of the balloon in google earth.

    thanks,
    Amanda
  • Amanda McDermott
    Amanda McDermott Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited April 2013
    Mike/all,

    I am trying to create a script for automating the kmz export process I was undertaking before (earlier in this thread), when I successfully eliminated the 'Directions: [URL="earth://kh_directions_to"]To here[/URL] - [URL="earth://kh_directions_from"]From here[/URL]' that automatically appears at the bottom of the balloon in google earth.

    Going through the same process but using a script, and putting the exact same html code into the script using 'KML_HTML_DESC_TEXT=' is resulting in the driving directions appearing again, I wonder if you have any thoughts.

    thanks,
    Amanda


    Mike,

    Apologies, being new to the forum I had somehow managed to miss seeing your post when I replied, which is why I didn't actually answer your question!

    I was talking about the 'Directions: [URL="earth://kh_directions_to"]To here[/URL] - [URL="earth://kh_directions_from"]From here[/URL]' that automatically appears at the bottom of the balloon in google earth.

    thanks,
    Amanda
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited April 2013
    Amanda,

    Can you show me your script command line so I can make sure it looks correct? If you look at the raw generated HTML are the descriptions as expected?

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/