Shape2Earth4GPS Alpha

I have been working on a Google Earth based application that uses their new Plugin in a .NET Form called Shape2Earth4GPS. It is an experiment on being able to edit spatial data (in this case, GPS data) directly on the Globe.

Currently, it works very well for digitizing your waypoints and routes, and then saving them as GPX files to upload into your favorite GPS receiver. You can also load and edit your existing waypoints, routes, and tracks.

If anyone would like to act as a beta tester for Shape2Earth4GPS, please send me a note at sabin21@gmail.com

ArcGIS Explorer - Color Coding Shapefile Data

I’ve been working on an ArcGIS Explorer stand-alone application that needs to let users select buildings inside of a buffer that is created around a user defined point. The attributes of the selected buildings and their colors need to be changed to indicate their status. The user will also be able to click on a building to select it, and then be able to change the status of the building (by changing the color/attribute of the selected building).

Using shapefiles, a file based personal geodatabase, or an ArcSDE geodatabase won’t work, because it does not look like you can have an attribute based coloring scheme. There also does not appear to by any way to extrude the shapefiles, and the building need to be 3D.
I can use KML to extrude buildings and change the color of individual features, but I cannot run any of the spatial operations on a KML file.

I am getting around this by using both shapefiles and KML. I’m using the ArcGIS Explorer API to generate KML form the shapefiles on the fly. Each KML Placemark has an ID that is equal to the shapefile FeatureID. I’m using the API to select features from the shapefile based on a point (for selecting an individual building) or by area (to select t group of buildings from a buffer). I can then open the XML/KML file, get the associated Placemarks by matching their Id to the FID, change their style to reflect the change in attribution, and then reload to view the change.

This seems to be a nice way to get around some of the limitations in ArcGIS Explorer to make it quite a bit more useful for my application requirements. This method also seems to work with file based personal geodatabases and ArcSDE.

Create and Edit GPX In Google Earth

The Google Earth plugin is offering many new opportunities for writing custom web-based and desktop applications. iEarth is an experiment that uses Google Earth as the map for interacting with GPS and GIS data.

The Google Earth plugin is intended for use in a web page, but can also be embedded in a desktop application in a web control or referenced as an ActiveX control.

A common method for embedding the Google Earth plugin in a desktop application can be viewed online as a part of the Google Earth code samples.

Part of what makes the Google Earth plugin so much more flexible than its desktop counterpart is the programmatic control that is given to developers through its API.

Not only can spatial data be loaded as KML, but the source data can be directly manipulated through the Google Earth interface.

An example of this is the GPX editor seen below.

GPX is an XML based exchange format for GPS data such as waypoints, routes, and tracks. The GPX editor in iEarth can load existing GPX data for viewing or editing, and also lets users digitize and edit data from scratch. The data is translated into KML for viewing in Google Earth, but is kept in internally in the GPX format for saving.

This same method can be used with Shapefiles. The next release of Shape2Earth will embed a link to the shapefile so that editing spatial or attribute data in iEarth will also edit the shapefile.

Google Earth Plugin in iEarth

Digitize a GPX Waypoint and enter data


View the GPX attributes in the Google Earth Balloon

Digitize Routes in Google Earth and save as GPX for use in GPS Receivers

Right click on existing data to edit the attribute data

ESRI Online Services + Microsoft Virtual Earth

An announcement from ESRI and Microsoft.

Users of ESRI’s ArcGIS will now be able to directly load base map data from the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform into the ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop and Explorer. Data layers will include the high resolution street maps, imagery, and hybrid that we have become accustom to seeing in Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

Access to this data requires a subscription to ArcGIS Online Service.

Imagery can be previewed at http://resources.esri.com/arcgisonlineservices.

Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control

Using the Virtual Earth map in your web page is nothing new. What is new about this control is that you can drop it into your ASP.NET project in Visual Studio and get it running without the need for any client side JavaScript. All of the parameters can be set in Visual Studio and all of the code to manipulate and interact with the map and map data and can be written in server side .net code.

The Windows Live Dev Blog points out that the map can be made even more interactive through the use of ASP.NET AJAX.

This control is one of several that Microsoft is offering as part of their Live Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio.

Shapefile to GeoRSS for Google Maps

The most recent version of Shape2Earth includes a functional prototype for converting shapefiles to a GeoRSS format. It currently works with simple lines and points. Attribute data can be selected to be embedded in the GeoRSS feed.

Select the attributes you wish to export to GeoRSS

Attributes can be embedded in the xml, listed as a table, or both

GeoRSS is a very popular format, and is particularly useful for serving data to web mapping applications such as Google Maps.

View the Google Map/GeoRSS sample to see how point GIS data can be viewed.

Google Earth Custom Icon Editor

The Shape2Earth icon editor for creating KML files has been greatly enhanced recently. Users now have an interface that is very similar to the one they use in Google Earth, and the ability to add their own custom icons to point data.

New icon selection window pulls icons from the Google Earth folder

Custom icons can be added to the pallete

Custom icons will stay in the icon window for later use

Shape2Earth icons can be changed when the user 'hovers' over an icon in Google Earth

Leica TITAN

Leica Titan has actually been out for a while. There is a post on OgleEarth from December 2006 when the first product was just coming out. My first try with it was not so smooth. But recent updates have gone much better.

It appears to be your standard 3d earth browser, but is oriented more towards data sharing and collaboration. It has a built in instant messanger to share your spatial data with others.

Leica Titan Globe

Search for a Place and zoom

Load a shapefile. It seems to be able to handle many different formats.

You can change feature colors (not based on attributes).

Click on a loaded feature to view attributes

You can also load photos and place notes on the Earth to send to others. Performance was not to bad, though navigation was a bit touchy and took some getting used to. It seemed to me to be a bit like ArcGIS Explorer, but without the extensibility.

Leica TITAN is available for download.