Thursday, 2 October 2008

Introducing Earth Atlas

Earth Atlas is a prototype web application showing how KML files can be visualised directly in the web browser.


The Google Earth API and the Ext JS library are used to create a responsive user interface. Earth Atlas contains KML files from the Thematic Mapping Engine, a few KML SuperOverlays as alternate background maps, and KML files from external sources.

Other KML/KMZ files can be visualised by adding a link in the left panel, or directly in the Earth Atlas URL:
http://earthatlas.info/?kml=http://www.nature.com/nature/googleearth/avianflu1.kml

First release today - to be continued!

7 comments:

  1. Unknown3 October 2008 at 15:25

    Nice site Bjørn! Congratulations...
    A suggestion: It would be nice if you could make some changes to allow those kml that contains unchecked network links or other unchecked components, to show up their structure so users could navigate them as in GE. Example:
    http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=979197

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  2. Mano Marks3 October 2008 at 17:09

    Another great one Bjørn! I like how you pulled it together and also simulated the Earth environment but not too much.

    One suggestion though, this looks best under 1400X1050 resolution, but for presentations, usually at 1024X768, the two screen overlay legends for much of the data overlap with each other.

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  3. Anonymous3 October 2008 at 18:47

    Very cool; great job.

    Are you planning to release this as GPL3, or are you sticking with the commercial ExtJS license?

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  4. Bjørn Sandvik4 October 2008 at 12:02

    Thanks for your feedback!

    Gerardo: I agree that this would be a nice feature.

    Mano: I've now reduced the height of the title and source panels.

    Jason: Not decided.

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  5. Anonymous9 October 2008 at 14:09

    Fantastic look and feel! (... and great content as well of course ;) )

    I'm new to the Plugin and Javascript and the ExtJS libraries look like something that could help me in visualising/navigating some quite complex KMLs I have with a bit more ease.

    Thanks Bjørn - a real eye-opener!

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  6. Anonymous9 October 2008 at 15:25

    Great stuff Bjorn. Really like the look and feel of it. Loe seeing the range of thematics you can make in the browser. Hopefully gets more people excited about what you can learn through good data visualization.

    best,
    sean

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  7. Anonymous6 November 2008 at 03:00

    in the google earth, Google Earth Provide "terrain" option. you can remove terrain height. In the "Earth Atlas", Polygon height is smaller then terrain height

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