Google Earth stuff

[waterboy 2.0]

I use Google Earth a lot....a real lot....work and play.

So I thought I might tap a few things here and there about the program when I can be stuffed...lol

May be useful to someone at some stage.

...yes I do read maps like some read books.....but remember " the map is not the terrain"

For a start here is a handy place to get kmz. grid files if your into that kinda thing:

http://www.earthpoint.us/Grids.aspx

I you have a need for a circle around a point....which can be handy:

http://kml4earth.appspot.com/tools.html

[paradox]

apart from the internet itself & maybe a couple of other things i reckon google earth is the best thing that has come from industrialized civilization. people seem to take it for granted but it is so fucking excellent. to think, it wasn't that many decades ago that most of the world didn't even know Australia existed let alone have halfway accurate maps of the world. it wasn't that long ago people didn't even know the earth was spherical..

WB do you know how or if you can overlay contour lines on google earth? have been meaning to look into it, would be endlessly helpful for my design work.

also i don't want to distract this thread from practical or useful things but i was checking out the Murrumbidgee the other day & well.... wtf is this?

is it a giant salt 'farm' in a salt pan? or one of those strange glitch pattern thingamajigs you see from time to time (like maybe a software thing or whatever) or crops being grown in a drained lake?

edit: thanks for the links btw

Edited April 14, 2014 by paradox

[waterboy 2.0]

yep can be done....depends on what you have to work with...there are a few ways to skin the cat.

If you have GIS files like .tab(mapinfo) of .shp (arc) you can produce pimpin maps with a bit of mucking around. I've produced a few regions I work on from very accurate LIDAR info....yeah carto sexy...lol. I use GE Pro at work so I can also import Shape files (.shp) directly , but at home I use the work around below:

But the easiest is to get an image of a topofile like a geoTiff and import it (region of interest) as an overlay and adjust transparency to suit, can also 3D drape this way (but its a little ghetto). I also use historical aerial photography over a time series for an example old landfills to establish extents using the overlay method, then pick points and go a huntin...lol

If I have some ideas of what you have to work with I can most probably get you a work around

As an aside Paradox may be of some interest, have a look at the LIST , through the Listmap link. We use this a lot which is a public interface to a lot of the states catographic and gis data, this beast now allows us to link google earth imagery (amongst others) and overlay heaps of shit over it.

http://maps.thelist.tas.gov.au/listmap/app/list/map

Lol...I'm happy to see any GEarth stuff in here Paradox if anyone sees fit, was also going to post some bizarre shit I've found before.

I'd also guess thats a salt farm, not a glitch and appears to be on a single image tile.....too big and complex for sewage treament

Quick snip out of a recent project to give you an idea

Edited April 14, 2014 by waterboy

[teonanacatl]

I use this site for qld data- contours, cadastral, ecosystem, soil etc. The cadastral maps are invaluable when searching for land, as are the soils etc.

You can convert them and overlay on google earth, I use QGIS as well.

[paradox]

awesome info WB cheers man, i will look into all of that. looking forward to chatting more soon, i think i was waiting for this thread & didn't even realize it eh,

i just realized that lake image i posted is from just near menindee.. the reason i thought it might have been a glitchy thing is that nearby there is other water bodies that have strange looking lines in them

not sure what the deal is..

[waterboy 2.0]

I am glad another of my ramblings on may be of some use....lol....

Will drop the lat/long in on the weekend and have a good look Paradox...will see what conspiracy I can come up with....lol

I am intrigued now Those ones look a little bit more sus .

I'll think of a few tricks that may prove useful, that I've found by mistake, googled before to crack, and those moments of "...how the fck did you do that..."....while looking over colleagues shoulders. I often get "what are you overlaying now.....crafty bastard...."...lol ...have solved a lot of problems using overlays ....always take the time to get the right fit though , or it can lead you astray.

Could also go into how I used google earth to find the best tower to get the best speed for internet out in the boonies as an example of how to use visual elevations (and worked out I was pointing at the wrong tower...lol)

Will admit I am a Mapinfo fiend, but also use ArcGIS/Pad (Arcpad for in field stuff) a bit as well but find it clunky. Really only go hard with those packages for spatial analysis these days though. Oziexplorer is another useful program which can do some great shit (the Ozi3D module is really wicked). Lol...mappping gets me hard.

Elshayal smart GIS map editor is another free one with a few good features, QGIS has become very solid over the years.

[waterboy 2.0]

Interesting Paradox...

When I zoom in I get better detail (eye altitude under 25km and less), and the lines go on the Landsat . Definite tiling/scanning glitch the waterbodies to the west on other side of the river system have it as well. Can see obvious tile overlap on those ones.

That first one is some sort of cropping having a good look at it, there appears to be some flood irrigation channels.

Could be a good spot for seed production for some species, lol..not green enough for the government secret chronic operation.

I wanna know know...lol

Just checked some imagery over a familiar area and water body shows it (banding) on Landsat imagery, but higher resolution imagery from other recent satellites does not. Must be the way Landsat scanned the imagery ? I usually zoom straight in into the higher resolution stuff down here and lose that detail.

Another useful place with some epic examples of how it can be used, and some handy little tools:

http://earth.tryse.net/

[waterboy 2.0]

Can also search a few different ways to establish when and where Google updates the imagery.

http://maps.google.com/gallery/details?id=z4f-ZuCLmiKg.kz3qtKM-Oia4 is an example.

Generally if you go to histrorical imagery and the current tile is not in the slider bar, then its fairly new imagery I find

[paradox]

interesting indeed..

i was just wondering about the new imagery the other day, my property just got into one of those red blocks taken on the 3/4/14.. which is good in some ways, is awesome to see such recent imagery but less good in terms of privacy etc.. is kinda cool to be able to see the reforestation work ive been doing in the last few years.

awesome links thanks!

that LIST thing is excellent, is there something similar for NSW i wonder? will be checking that out next time i'm trekking in tassie for sure

Edited April 26, 2014 by paradox

[waterboy 2.0]

lol....wasnt until about 2009 I could actually see me neck of the woods due to clouds and forestry burn smoke in all the previous imagery

Recent years I've been getting updated regularly ....can also see the changes I am up to as well.

Some crafty Councils do use it to see if you are putting up non-approved buildings and such I have heard....(bastards...lol).

[paradox]

hang on, it is crops. i can see much higher resolution now.. theres also an airport on that lake