Where Is the Google Earth Topo kml?

[+Rumpled]

I'm pretty sure I would have found it here or a link to it from here.

I tried searching, but the search wants five letters, leaving out topo and kml.

 

Anyone know or remember where the link was for the kml that adds the topo overlay to GE?

 

Thanks

[+rambrush]

It is on the Geocaching.com website bottom right I think it is or was.

 

I'm pretty sure I would have found it here or a link to it from here.

I tried searching, but the search wants five letters, leaving out topo and kml.

 

Anyone know or remember where the link was for the kml that adds the topo overlay to GE?

 

Thanks

[foxtrot_xray]

You may be thinking of mine. Has two overlays - one for USGS Quads, and the other for NGS Benchmark Stations:

 

http://ngs.tsqmadness.com/ge/index.html

 

If you're NOT thinking of mine, I would be curious to know if there's any other out there.

[AZcachemeister]

You may be thinking of mine. Has two overlays - one for USGS Quads, and the other for NGS Benchmark Stations:

 

http://ngs.tsqmadness.com/ge/index.html

 

If you're NOT thinking of mine, I would be curious to know if there's any other out there.

 

Only one I'm aware of...but I do live in my own little world.

[+rambrush]

my bad thought you were looking for the one for the caches.

 

I have the other that overlays with topo maps as well not quite sure where I found that one I have gelib.com or historicmapdvds.com as possibilities or maybe the one posted above is where I tracked em down.

[+Rumpled]

foxtroxray,

Pretty sure I'm using yours. This came about because someone posted on some hiking sites that I frequent about a method to get topos on GE.

Here's the method

Blog About Topo Overlays

 

I added that I had a kml (l or z?) that was seamless and didn't require selecting each quad; but I couldn't remember where.

 

Now I know.

 

I will pass it on to those hiking sites, you may see a little more traffic.

Those threads are here

San Gabriel Mts

and here

San Jacinto Mt

[foxtrot_xray]

Be my guest!

 

Let them know that the transparency option isn't working at the moment, unfortunately.

 

Let them know that I'm open to any comments.

[wister6813]

 

If you're NOT thinking of mine, I would be curious to know if there's any other out there.

 

I frequently use yours for benchmark hunting and at work. I'm envious of your skill to create the overlays. Many thanks for your contribution.

 

I recently found a kmz that includes overlays of the USGS topo maps, quadrangle boundaries, orthoimagery, grayscale and color relief, and probably more features that I haven't discovered. It was created by a engineering firm in Tampa, FL, Metzger & Willard, Inc. It is free to everyone, and has documentation.

 

Bob

[foxtrot_xray]

I recently found a kmz that includes overlays of the USGS topo maps, quadrangle boundaries, orthoimagery, grayscale and color relief, and probably more features that I haven't discovered. It was created by a engineering firm in Tampa, FL, Metzger & Willard, Inc. It is free to everyone, and has documentation.

I know when I'm beat -

Theirs is much better than mine in terms of operation. They've taken advantage of several new 4.3 features of GE that I have not. And with added imagery options. It appears they're using their own (or USGS's) server, and have better control over when to switch the image from 24k and 50k. 250k. (At least partially in the area where I was playing.)

 

The only thing that mine has - as far as TOPO overlays - is that for some reason mine appears more in-focus than theirs does? Couldn't figure that one out.

 

Thanks for the link!

-Mike.

[Tom Davis]

It appears they're using their own (or USGS's) server, and have better control over when to switch the image from 24k and 50k. 250k. (At least partially in the area where I was playing.)

 

The only thing that mine has - as far as TOPO overlays - is that for some reason mine appears more in-focus than theirs does? Couldn't figure that one out.

Hello, Mike --

 

The reason for both observations is the same -- at large scales, your image may have 4-5 times more pixels than mine, as defined by the HEIGHT and WIDTH parameters. TerraServer uses the image size and geographic extent to determine the output resolution. I use the KML parameters [vertPixels] and [horizPixels] as HEIGHT and WIDTH, respectively.

 

-- Tom

Edited February 20, 2010 by Tom Davis

[foxtrot_xray]

Hello, Mike --

 

The reason for both observations is the same -- at large scales, your image may have 4-5 times more pixels than mine, as defined by the HEIGHT and WIDTH parameters. TerraServer uses the image size and geographic extent to determine the output resolution. I use the KML parameters [vertPixels] and [horizPixels] as HEIGHT and WIDTH, respectively.

 

-- Tom

Tom, good to hear from you, thanks for the information. I purposefully overshot with the pixels because I had issues where I'd get 'letterboxing' in one format or another depending on screen resolution. I'm not - never have been - strong on KML, so I wasn't even aware of those options when I threw that together.

 

Thanks for the comments!

 

-Mike.

[foxtrot_xray]

Just a notice to anyone who uses m KMZ -

 

If you use it for NGS Banchmark data and USGS Topo Overlays, it will be off-line until farther notice. Due to a misunderstanding between myself and the original hosting company, they took down the information before I was ready for it to go live with the NEW hosting company. So it will be about a week or so before I can get it back up and running on the new servers.

 

Apologies.

-Mike.

[+billwallace]

Just a notice to anyone who uses m KMZ -

 

If you use it for NGS Banchmark data and USGS Topo Overlays, it will be off-line until farther notice. Due to a misunderstanding between myself and the original hosting company, they took down the information before I was ready for it to go live with the NEW hosting company. So it will be about a week or so before I can get it back up and running on the new servers.

 

Apologies.

-Mike.

Thnx for the post..

[foxtrot_xray]

Quick update -

Database is back up and configured, dataloading will start tonight. California will be first since it's the largest state and will let me know if I broke anything.

 

All data wil be new - as of the 3/1/10 archive of the database, too.

 

..whew.

[mloser]

I for one am counting the minutes! I LOVE this GE tool.

[foxtrot_xray]

'K guys, all states(*) are back up and working - you're good to go!

 

Note that about 50 stations (out of the 700k+) had the odd "no coordinates" issue I posted about in the NGS typos thread. For some reason, now, only the two Florida ones still come up blank (but DaveD's working on it.) The other ones that ARE blank in the archives pull up fine now.

 

States: 85

Total stations: 723,338

 

(*) Florida is the exception. There's a few odd marks in that state that breaks my parsing program, so I'm working on that state. Numbers above don't include Florida. But then, not much does.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

'K guys, all states(*) are back up and working - you're good to go!

 

States: 85

Total stations: 723,338

 

Where did the other 35 states come from and when were they added to the Union?

 

 

John

[foxtrot_xray]

Where did the other 35 states come from and when were they added to the Union?

John

Uhm, let's see.. Remember you asked for it. :

 

AA - Aruba

AC - Antigua and Barbuda

AS - American Samoa

AV - Anguilla

BB - Barbados

BF - Bahama Islands

BQ - Navassa Island

CJ - Cayman Islands

CP - Curacao

CQ - Mariana Islands

DO - Dominica

DR - Dominican Republic

ES - San Salvador

GE - ??

GJ - Grenada

GT - Guatemala

GU - Guam

GY - Guyana

HA - Haiti

HO - Honduras

JM - Jamaica

JQ - Johnston Atoll

MQ - Midway Islands

NI - Nicaragua

NU - Managua

PR - Puertu Rico

SJ - St. Maarten

SN - St. Kitts And Nevis

SR - Suriname

ST - St. Lucia

TD - Trinidad And Tobago

TQ - Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

VC - St. Vincent and Grenadines

VI - British Virgin Islands

VQ - US Virgin Islands

WQ - Wake Island

WV - West Virginia

 

"GE"'s not included in my count, since there are no station in .. that whatever it is, so I don't know what 'GE' stands for. West Virginia is a country all it's own. Yes, these aren't states, but for the purpose of my database and how the NGS organizes it's monthly archives, I'm calling them states.

Edited March 5, 2010 by foxtrot_xray

[+Klemmer]

GE = Google Earth

Of course.

[+GrizzFlyer]

Foxtrot_Xray.... Thanks for all your hard work, it is much appreciated.

[foxtrot_xray]

Hey guys - FLorida is up now, so all is good to go. Enjoy.