M7 Lab: Google Earth

For the classes final lab we where instructed to export some data from ArcGIS Pro into Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format. Start and loading the data in ArcGIS Pro was a snap. The export to KML tool was straight forward and produced a Keyhole Markup Zipfile (KMZ).

With the layers population density and surface water layers as saved as a KMZ it was time to open and add them to Google Earth Pro. Empowered with prior knowledge of Google Earth creating folders and moving items from Temporary Place to My Places simple and easy.

The only thing which I deviated from the lab instructions was placing the legend. The instructions has us place the legend as an image GroundOverlay. A GroundOverlay is best suited for georeferencing an image in google earth. Considering the legend does not contain any geographic information it was better placed using a ScreenOverlay.

Original Google Earth Pro Generated GroundOverlay kml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" 
  xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2"
  xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"
  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<GroundOverlay>
	<name>Legend</name>
	<Icon>
		<href>C:/Location/Of/Legend.jpg</href>
		<viewBoundScale>0.75</viewBoundScale>
	</Icon>
	<LatLonBox>
		<north>30.39911420308843</north>
		<south>27.82322070121159</south>
		<east>-76.71995963997009</east>
		<west>-79.22200220846706</west>
	</LatLonBox>
</GroundOverlay>
</kml>

ScreenOverlay KML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"
  xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2"
  xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"
  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<ScreenOverlay>
	<name>Legend</name>
	<Icon>
		<href>C:/Location/Of/Legend.jpg</href>
		<viewBoundScale>0.75</viewBoundScale>
	</Icon>
	<overlayXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/>
	<screenXY x="25" y="95" xunits="pixels" yunits="pixels"/>
	<rotationXY x="0.5" y="0.5" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/>
	<size x="0" y="0" xunits="pixels" yunits="pixels"/>
</ScreenOverlay>
</kml>