off topic: earth.google.com

Sat Jul 23 16:57:44 EDT 2005

Bob,
	I did it using the OpenDesign libraries and C++ but it would be very easy to 
do from Lisp as well. I have used Lisp in the past to write HTML and SVG 
markups of drawing files. The hard part with Lisp would be re-projecting the 
data from whatever you map in to WGS84. We map in UTM because a single 
network can span multiple states so state plane doesn't work for us. I wrote 
a Lat/Lon <-> UTM library for C++ which is what I use. At the time I was 
unaware of Proj4 which had I known about it I would have just used that vice 
writting my own. You could always write a quick Arx that wraps simple 
coordinate conversions from Proj4 and exposes them to Lisp for whatever 
projection you map in if you were serious about wanting to do this on a 
continuous basis. You would just have to be sure you ran an appload for your 
custom arx before you started your Lisp routine. After that it's just List 
and String processing which which Lisp rocks at doing. You probably wouldn't 
even have to use any V-Lisp to accomplish it just plain old AutoLisp should 
work just fine.
Andy


On Saturday 23 July 2005 11:38, Blammo wrote:
> Andy Canfield wrote:
> >I wrote a simple writer the other day to translate all my companies
> > relevan= t
> >telecom design from AutoCAD DWG's into kml format which is what
> >Keyhole(Google Earth) uses. The file spec is
> >here:http://www.keyhole.com/kml/kml_doc.html
> >It reminds me a lot of SVG without all the weird path stuff you have to
> > dea= l
> >with in SVG.
>
> Did you use AutoLISP to do the translation or ???  I would be interested
> in doing something similar with our data as well, which is mostly
> AutoCAD based.
>
> bobb
>
> >It's mostly a display format and there isn't a real good way t=
> >o
> >store much information so that the user can access it. Basically what you
> >display on the screen in the form of labels or the little blurb you can
> > put in as a description is about it. So writing a translator isn't hard
> > you jus= t
> >bring the geometries over. Everything must be in WGS84 or it won't display
> >correctly. Also you will have to break your data sets up if you have large
> >ones because it gets really, really, really slow as it seems to have to
> > par= se
> >the entire xml document in order to load it. Which is weird because they
> >buffer the imagery as it comes in but they have to parse the entire
> > documen= t
> >before they can load the geometry rather than draw it as it parses. Double
> >buffering would be even better but it seems like everything in the
> > interfac= e
> >other than the Satellite imagery was put in as an after thought. I put
> > 1,40= 0
> >boundaries into it and that dataset usually takes a second or two to load
> >into MapInfo or ArcGIS takes 15 to 30 seconds to load into Keyhole. Just
> > fo= r
> >fun I tried loading in 650,000 polylines that are aerial data routes in an
> >eleven county area and that took 45 plus minutes to load on a dual Zeon
> >processor machine. So definitely break up your data sets and let the users
> >load them when they need them vice making seamless data sets. On Monday if
> >anyone is interested I can put up some screen shots of what a telecom(VoIP
> >and HSI) network loaded into Keyhole looks like.
> >Thanks,
> >Andy
> >
> >On Saturday 23 July 2005 00:39, Daniele Margotti wrote:
> >>You said:
> >>9. You can overlay data (vectors and raster) from your computer.
> >>10. You can connect to web data sources (like WMS with about 10 lines of
> >>server-based scripting).
> >>
> >>So, how can overlay data? Can I overlay a shape file? How can I define
> >>colour, labels, and so on (as in a Mapserver mapfile)?
> >>
> >>And how can I connect to a web data source like WMS?
> >>I have a webserver with Mapserver configured for WMS/WFS requests, how
> >>can I tell Google Earth to connect to my Mapserver?
> >>
> >>      Daniele
> >>
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> >>Behalf Of Brent Fraser
> >>Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 4:58 PM
> >>To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> >>Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] off topic: earth.google.com
> >>
> >>
> >>Flavio,
> >>
> >>  Google Earth (not to be confused with Google Maps) is more than just
> >>mind blowing.  In my business (Satellite imagery sales and service) it's
> >>world shaking.
> >>
> >>The top ten things I like about Google Earth:
> >>
> >> 1. It's free, with upgrades for a fee.
> >> 2. The entire world (almost) is covered with pan-sharpened Landsat (15m
> >>pixels).  3. All (most?, some?) of Digital Globe's Quickbird imagery is
> >>shown (0.6m pixels).  4. The user-interface is dead simple.  5. The
> >>fade-in/fade-out of vectors and annotation on zooming is great.  6. The
> >>performance fantastic (like streaming video).  7. It's 3d. You can tilt
> >>the world and fly thought canyons.  8. It's even more 3d. It will render
> >>3d objects such as buildings.  9. You can overlay data (vectors and
> >>raster) from your computer. 10. You can connect to web data sources
> >>(like WMS with about 10 lines of server-based scripting).
> >>
> >>The application: http://earth.google.com (after install, do View -> Play
> >>Tour)
> >>The community: http://bbs.keyhole.com
> >>
> >>
> >>Brent Fraser
> >>
> >>
> >>----- Original Message -----
> >>From: "Flavio Hendry" <flavio at TYDAC.CH>
> >>To: <MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
> >>Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 11:55 PM
> >>Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] off topic: earth.google.com
> >>
> >>>hi all
> >>>
> >>>as google is obviously a hot issue, have a look at
> >>
> >>http://earth.google.com/.
> >>
> >>>just mindblowing.
> >>>
> >>>Mit freundlichem Gruss / Best Regards
> >>>Flavio Hendry
> >>>
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