You’ve seen tree maps used before: They’re a visualization technique for showing hierarchical data inside a fixed space, like so.

Datasets about influenza virus mutations are hierarchical — there are ancestor- and offspring strains — so these naturally lend themselves to a tree map visualization technique. But such data can also have a geographic component, related to where the strains are reported — and this is what led Andrew at Guiology to perform a remarkable experiment: Using Google Earth as a geospatial alternative to tree maps for visualizing such data.

The results are very pretty indeed:

Andrew has a thorough write-up, with much more eye candy. [Update: Andrew will post again when the research is complete. In the meantime, consider the image above to be a teaser.]

Imagine what this could look like when Google Earth gets a timeline. (I’m trying to get my hands on an actual KML file of this unexpected, highly creative use of Google Earth.)

What you may have known: GPS Visualizer, a Swiss army knife for getting geographic data into Google Earth and Maps, lets you upload data files to produce KML. Just add the relevant column titles to the first line of the document (i.e. “name,desc,latitude,longitude,color,URL”) and GPS VIsualizer automatically knows how to parse rest of the file to output KML (or Maps, JPEG, etc.).

News: Adam Schneider, the author, has now gone one better. Uploaded files can now contain “thumbnail” and “photo” as column headers, with the fields pointing to URLs. The result? Instant georeferenced photo collections in Google Earth, with thumbnails as icons. Click on the marker, and you see the photo in its original size.

Here is an example KMZ file made by Adam from this CSV file.

Adam says he’s working on beefing up the documentation to catch up on these undocumented features, and feedback is appreciated. In the meantime, he adds some details:

I know people are starting to geo-tag their digital photos more and more, so this could definitely be useful; the question is, how to make it easier for people? Do geotagging applications have an “export” function that could take advantage of this?

This stuff works in ordinary Google Maps as well; the thumbnails don’t initially appear on the map, but they’re in the mouseover labels, which is pretty slick.

The only thing to note is that a line can’t begin with a blank field (i.e., a comma or tab) or with a pound sign (#); that’s so that you can “comment out” some lines with “#” if you need to. So, just to be safe, it’s never a bad idea to make the first column “type” and put a “W” (for “waypoint”) on each line. (Obviously, this also comes in handy if you want to include trackpoints in the same file.)

The names don’t even have to be THAT precise. Anything starting with “lat” or “lon” will work for the coordinates; altitude just has to begin with “alt” or “elev”; speed can be “speed”, “velocity” or just “vel”; “color” can be spelled “colour”; and so on. I’ve tried to make it as clever as possible.

Make has an excellent business idea involving SketchUp, woodwork projects, and entrepreneurial DIY stores:

Eventually you might be able to send off your files to a fabricator, lumber yard or whatever supplier – the stuff shows up, you make it! How cool will that be! Maker-aware suppliers could have all their parts/tools/things available as Sketchup components so we can use them to build our projects (and eventually order).

Why not take this concept and apply it pre-fab homes (within reason)? And perhaps there will soon be a day where you can download a car chassis, different interlocking component panels and then build your own “custom” car. I hear GM is in need of a new big idea…

• Simple things done well can be so impressive. Take a look at these spectacular georeferenced photos of Namibia, taken by Andrea and Christian Heinrich. There is no better way to lure people to Namibia. And all it took was a KML file. (Via this GEC post)
• Another recent best-of-breed example is this travel guide for Prague, replete with 3D models, subways stations, walking tours…
• AECnews reports on a company with an intriguing concept: AfterCAD will soon be releasing InSite, a product that marries AJAX with 3D CAD in a browser. AECnews has the details.

SketchUp resources, cont.:

• CADlab points to [pushpullbar]2, an “architecture + design forum”. It began life as a SketchUp bulletin board, but now offers much else besides. Worth looking into if you’re shopping around for a SketchUp community.
• Form Fonts 3D is a commercial, subscription-based 3D content and script library for 3D authoring tools like SketchUp. It predates Google 3D Warehouse, and offers content made by pros. It’s $11 a month for download access, but the overall quality of the models is impressive. Form Fonts 3D is offering some freebies in a clever bit of stealth marketing on 3D Warehouse.

Over in the UK, a campaign started by the Guardian, “Free our data“, argues that government-funded data, such as the geographic data collected by the UK’s Ordnance Survey, should be made available to tax payers at no additional cost, as they have already paid for it. Perhaps. Perhaps not, in that paying for usage defrays costs that would otherwise raise the tax burden for everyone. But this post is not about the merits of the argument, it is about this sentence in the manifesto:

It cannot make any sense that Google, an American organisation, is presently more popular with people aiming to create new map applications.

I want to know:

• What difference does it make what nationality Google is? Would it have been okay if Google had been British?
• Why can it not make any sense that Google is “presently more popular”? Google is a company. Companies tend to be acutely aware of market opportunities and rush to exploit them — while governments do not, on the whole. Remember the origins of France’s Géoportail virtual globe? Said project leader Patrick Leboeuf: “It was the arrival of Google Earth that spurred us, by showing how much the public wanted this kind of information.”
• If Google were to get data for free, eiher as a result of the “Free our data” campaign or because enlightened local city councils decide there is a major silver lining for local businesses, wouldn’t Google Earth become even more popular, not less?

• Yay for the City of San Mateo (California), which hired a company called Farallon Geographics to develop a system that publishes all its GIS data, including aerial imagery, as network links to Google Earth, for public consumption. More layers are forthcoming, promises the press release.
• Let’s Push Things Forward has some initial comments on WWML’s chances — WWML being NASA World Wind’s mooted future geospatial markup language of choice.
• Navigadget reports that Speed Sentry, “a GPS-enabled speed monitor/car computer” for Pocket PC, now exports to KML.
• Until this morning I had never heard of Groboto, a Mac-only 3D authoring tool intended to foster learning. It exports in file formats that SketchUp can read, and hence you can now place some pretty strange structures in Google Earth, as this blogger has done.
• WorldCAD Access does actual reporting (good blog!) and asks the makers of VectorWorks what exactly they meant with “We plan to continue our compatibility work with SketchUp.” The response.
• GIS for Archaeology and CRM gets a makeover and moves to www.gisarch.com.
• GeoRSS gets its very own press release.