Google Earth For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 How to Use This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 Conventions Used in This Book 2 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part I: Getting to Know Google Earth 4 Part II: Personalizing Google Earth 4 Part III: Becoming a Cybertourist 4 Part IV: Advanced Features 4 Part V: The Part of Tens 4 Part VI: Appendixes 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 5 Part I: Getting to Know Google Earth 7 Chapter 1: The Earth According to Google 9 The View from Google Earth 9 Exploring the Earth Online 11 Google Earth Gives You Options 13 Starting with what’s free 14 Looking at Plus and Pro versions 15 So What Can I Really Do with Google Earth? 16 Plenty of personal uses 16 And businesses might want to 17 Joining the Google Earth Community 18 Getting Geekier with GPS, KML, and Overlays 19 Downloading the Program 20 A Note for Mac and Linux Users 22 Chapter 2: Finding Businesses, Places, and Things 23 Flying Down to Rio (Or Anywhere Else) 24 Right on the dot: Understanding latitude and longitude 25 Deciphering geocoding 28 Searching for a Tailor in Tulsa: The Find Businesses Tab 30 Getting Directions 31 Going Global: The Overview Map 32 Surfing with the Integrated Web Browser 35 Chapter 3: Adjusting Your View on the World 39 Rock the World: Dragging and Zooming the Map 39 Gaining a New Perspective: The Direction and Tilt Controls 41 Three-dimensional viewing 43 The compass and status bar 44 The Bigger They Are: Figuring Sizes with the Scale and Ruler 45 Using the Scale Legend 45 Using the Ruler 45 Part II: Personalizing Google Earth 49 Chapter 4: Fine-Tuning the Program 51 Relieve the Pane: Manipulating Screen Areas 51 Setting the Options 56 The 3D View tab 56 The Cache tab 60 The Touring tab 61 The Navigation tab 62 The General tab 63 Chapter 5: Adding Layers and Points of Interest (POIs) 65 Peeling the Onion: A Guide to Layers 65 Built-in points of interest 66 Displaying Layers 68 From School Districts to Earthquakes: Types of Layers 70 The Google Earth Community layer 70 Featured Content 74 Location layers 76 Boundary layers 76 Geographic/geological layers 78 Transportation layers 80 Picking a good place to live 81 Chapter 6: Pinning Down Placemarks 85 Exploring the Built-in Sightseeing Placemarks 86 X Marks the Spot: Creating and Naming Placemarks 88 Editing Placemarks 90 Customizing styles and colors 91 Changing the placemark icon 93 Adjusting the view 96 Setting the altitude 97 Organizing Placemarks 99 Saving files 100 Sorting — by hand! 102 Part III: Becoming a Cybertourist 103 Chapter 7: Going on Tour 105 Real Roads: Getting Route Info 105 Animating placemarks and routes 108 Touring a path 109 Working the Touring Tab 110 Fly-To/Tour settings 110 Driving Directions Tour options 112 Making Custom Tours 113 Planning your tours 113 Constructing the tour 114 Chapter 8: Mingling with the Community 117 Using the Keyhole Forums 117 Joining the Google Earth Community 119 Signing on to the forums 121 Browsing the forums 122 Searching the forums 125 Getting Help 127 Exploring Outside 129 Chapter 9: Importing Data and Images 131 Adding Custom Data to Google Earth 131 Using image overlays 132 Transparency 135 Positioning, rotating, and scaling 136 Precision location 138 Importing from GPS Devices 140 Chapter 10: KML: It’s Sorta Like HTML 145 Creating and Saving KML Files 145 Mastering the Syntax 147 Tags and elements 147 Attributes 148 Containers 148 The root element 149 Comments 149 The Most Useful KML Tags 150 Placemarks 150 The Snippet element 158 Altitude and altitudeMode 161 The address element 162 Working with Styles 163 The Style element 164 The styleUrl element 164 LabelStyle 165 IconStyle 169 Radio buttons and check boxes (listStyle) 170 Part IV: Advanced Features 177 Chapter 11: Designing with Google SketchUp 179 The Google SketchUp Interface 181 Touring the toolbars 181 Chapter 12: Designing with Google SketchUp, Part 2 195 Creating a 3-D Model 196 Creating a yard and a house 196 Adding the deck, porch, and patio 199 Adding a swimming pool 204 Allowing entry and light: Adding doors and windows 206 Driveway 211 Stepping stones 212 Moving Your Creation to Google Earth 215 The Google SketchUp Community 217 Chapter 13: Creating Polygons and Other Complex Structures 221 Joining Shapes 222 Designing with the Offset Tool 225 Creating Polygons 228 Making a simple polygon 230 Making an arrowhead 231 Chapter 14: Digging Deeper with Google SketchUp 237 Slicing and Extruding a Stairway 238 Understanding Lines and Faces 241 The Follow Me Tool 245 Lathing a Polygon 248 Setting Leader Text 251 Understanding the Tape Measure and Dimension Tools 253 Part V: The Part of Tens 257 Chapter 15: Ten Great Places to Get Coordinates 259 Aliensview Sightseeing 259 Lat-Long.com 262 fallingrain.com 265 NASA WorldWind 266 World Gazetteer 267 How Far Is It? 269 Heavens Above 270 U.S Gazetteer 271 USGS Geographic Names Information System 272 Maps of World 273 Chapter 16: Ten Reliable Sources for Data Files 275 WebGIS 275 USGS Geographic Data Download 277 DIVA-GIS 278 Clary-Meuser Research Network 279 GIS Data Depot 281 Free GIS Data by Region 282 FreeGIS.org 283 Global Elevation Data 284 NGDC 285 National Atlas Raw Data Download 286 Chapter 17: Ten Cool Tools 289 IrfanView 289 Arc2Earth 290 Juice Analytics Census Files 291 Juice Analytics Geocoding Tool 292 MyFsGoogleEarth - Link Google Earth with Flight Simulator (FS2004, FS9) 293 KML2X3D - Google Earth to Web 3D Converter 294 EarthPlot and EarthPaint 295 Google Earth Hacks Image Overlays 296 GPS Utility 297 GE-Path and GE-Graph 297 Part VI: Appendixes 299 Appendix A: Glossary 301 Appendix B: Default Content of the All Layers Pane 309 Appendix C: Latitudes and Longitudes of Major Landmarks 319 Current Events 319 Historical Conflicts 321 Monuments, Statues, and Historical Addresses 322 Items of Geographic Importance 324 Religious Sites 325 Major Cities 326 Engineering and Architectural Achievements 328 Index 331