Users of 3DNature’s landscape visualization software like World Construction Set ($500) and the more GIS-friendly Visual Nature Studio ($2,475) can export their work to other file formats using Scene Express ($399-$699).

Now Scene Express (finally?) exports to KML. At that price, I’m a bit underwhelmed. I’m only judging from their sample KML output page, but it appears to me that 3DNature is shoehorning its own content formats into KML with only partial success. Notes from the sample page:

Vegetation is implemented as KML Icons. Google Earth seems to bias Icons slightly closer to the camera when deciding if they are or are not visible behind structures like buildings. This results in vegetation sometimes being visible through buildings. Also, Icons maintain their apparent screen size no matter how close or far away you are from them, so they only properly represent their real-world sizes at a certain range of distances.

But Google Earth is not indended to be used from just a certain range of distances. Had this been an experimental hack, I would have cheered it on, but for a pro tool, I think that using icons for something they are not intended to represent is not a good idea.

The problem is most apparent in the Adirondacks KMZ file, where icons are are made huge in order to represent text as a bitmapped graphic. Why do this, if in Google Earth icons have proper (searchable) text labels? (I suspect the answer is that those bitmaps already existed in VNS.) The upshot is that huge parts of Google Earth’s view screen are not usable to “grab” the earth and navigate — you accidentally click the icons instead, which brings up an oft-unused popup.

In other words, Scene Express’s KML breaks Google Earth’s user interface, at least in those examples proffered on the sample page. If you produce content with WCS or VNS and your clients just have Google Earth, then maybe this is better than nothing, but as 3DNature writes,

For projects that require high-detail realtime 3D visualization but don’t require a full 3D globe, we recommend other formats/viewers such as our [free, Windows] NatureView, which was specifically developed for these types of scenes.

The changelog for NASA World Wind 1.3.4, officially released last night, shows that ShockFire‘s KMLImporter plugin is included by default after all:

KMLImporter

• Imports placemarks from kml and kmz files
• Supports NetworkLinks with periodical refreshing
• Handles scale, rotation and other style-related features
• Supports icons that have to be downloaded from the web

(Via Bull’s Rambles)

I tried out Google Calendar a few days ago. I switched immediately and I haven’t looked back. It really is that clever. Now there’s a Google Data API as well. I noticed these Google data “elements” in the developer’s guide:

gd:geoPt – “A geographical location (latitude, longitude, elevation).”

gd:where – “A place (such as an event location) associated with the containing entity.”

gd:postalAddress – “A postal address.”

Elsewhere, coders are told, “Locations that work as Google Maps queries are recommended.”

Clearly, Google calendar and Maps/Earth are dying to be mashed.

If I didn’t have a day job and a night blog to attend to, I might have given the following project a go myself; instead, I’ll throw it out there as a request to the GIS coding community. What I’d love is:

A network link that maps any iCal/RSS/Atom calendar feed onto Google Earth by location. And while we’re at it, if in the US, why not also show me the shortest route between successive events? And if I block off a week and label it “Berlin”, how about offering the ability to automatically search for cheap flights on the first and last days of my holiday? In fact, how about a calendar you can subscribe to that automagically suggests holidays given criteria like maximum cost, length of stay and flexibility? Import a suggestion into your own calendar to order. All this should be possible with the GData API.

Pardon my vacation fantasy just now. I realize those last bits aren’t strictly GIS-related:-)

Do I spot a new trend? Consider this: This morning I blogged some compelling new content for Sweden in Google Earth. Just now, Belgeoblog details the bits of Belgium that were upgraded in the latest dataset update (KMZ file). Digilondon covers just London sights. As Google Earth’s global mindshare grows, it makes sense for exquisitely niched regional geospatial blogs to bloom, using their superior local knowledge to add value, all the while writing in the local language.

Just as most blogs on the web today are not “about” Internet Explorer or Firefox, I imagine that one day soon the dominant consumer GIS blogs will not be “about” Google Earth. Instead, a myriad of geospatial content blogs will cover specific regions exhaustively. There will be geospatial equivalents to Digg or Boing Boing that allow the best local 3D/GIS content to percolate to global visibility. And a final incentive: Targeted Google ads will jostle for the attention of tourists checking out the area.

Or maybe not:-)

Sweden is now well served in terms of Google Earth network links. The latest addition is a dynamic network link for Bloggkartan.se showing the locations of georeferenced Swedish blogs that ping the country’s main blog aggregator service.This makes it much easier to keep tabs on Swedish blogs spatially — and it helps that author Johan Larsson is a perfectionist.

Bloggkartan.se’s network link is joined by Ticnet’s network link, which shows all of Sweden’s venues and what’s playing there and when, a subway map overlay of Stockholm and a placemark collection of all Swedish universities. Anyone know of more?

[Update 2006-04-21: I’ve been apprised of some more sites. Here are Swedish numismatics sites in Google Earth.]

• 3PointD.com blogs a 3D data extraction tool by ImageCat that uses ordinary satellite imagery as its source.
• Valery35’s KMLer application, an ArcGIS 9 extension that does all manner of conversions to and from KML, not only has a slick new home on the web, but has a new version out, and new examples. Impressive stuff.
• Juice Analytics‘ Excel Geocoding tool gets a revision.
• Brian Flood writes up a detailed case study of how his Arc2Earth application can be used to turn ArcGIS data into something anyone can view on Google Earth.
• Google Earth’s newfound ability view place names in French, Italian, German, Spaish, Dutch and Portuguese certainly hasn’t pacified speakers of Catalan and Basque.
• On Google Earth Blog, Frank Taylor has collected further undocumented changes in Google Earth’s latest dataset update.
• PHP coders: A PHP KML generator for you to check out.
• GEOIP Lookup will show you where an IP is located on Google Earth.
• Le Blogue du CFM de Guadalajara has amassed a neat little personal collection of favorite content for Google Earth, nicely presented. (LBdCFMdG also notes that there is a brand new version of World Wind 1.3.4 — Beta 7, as there were some caching problems in the previous 1.3.4 beta.)

Excellent, more Google eArt in time for We-make-money-not-art‘s curating stint at Sonar. Brazilian Rick Silva uses “glitchy” Google Earth views as raw material for some very sophisticated video work set to a soundtrack. You can watch his work on his website or catch it at Futuresonic 2006 in Manchester UK in July. (Via Juan Freire)