Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

KML 3 and KML-related News

posted by Satri on Thursday August 09, @04:03PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the how-kml-became-king dept.
Data Sharing Google Open Geospatial Consortium
Numerous geoblogs discussed KML lately, here's some of them. The High Earth Orbit provides four informative entries on the "KML 3" format: a discussion on the next version of KML, the Core module, the styling module and the metadata module. Ogle Earth also provides some more links on KML 3 and a Firefox extension to show KML data directly in the browser. Finally, Spatially Adjusted display the KML Home Companion 3.0.2 just released and discuss the demo of Arc2Earth V2, the tool to publish ArcGIS data to Google Earth. Make sure you're aware of previous stories below about the standardization of Google's KML by the Open Geospatial Consortium.

Related Stories

Property: KML vs GML [+]
Spatially Adjusted discuss KML and GML in relation to this lptf blog entry. One of the arguments from the lptf blog: "The salient difference in the marketplace is that KML is usable and hand-editable, whereas GML is rather too complex for use without tools."
KML to Shapefiles and GML Scripts and Arc2Earth: ESRI to Google Earth [+]
Spatially Adjusted and Ogle Earth, amongst others, pointed to KML conversion scripts. Meanwhile, Spatially Adjusted also links to an update about Arc2Earth (ESRI to Google). From the update: "Anyways, one of the features I stuffed into A2E recently was the ability to open KML/KMZ files directly in ArcMap. Parsing multiple levels of KML Folders and correctly placing their geometry data into the correct feature class can be a challenge, the parser will do the best it can however folders in KML are too flexible to infer exact placement. A Personal GDB is created in the background and feature classes are created for each possible geometry type. Symbology is maintained and even links to Google Earth root icons are maintained (if you have GE installed on your machine)."
Slashgeo: Google's KML Standardization Poll Results and New Poll [+]
Our last poll about the potential standardization of Google's KML by the OGC provided interesting results: out of about 120 votes, 54% of users believe the OGC should in fact hold the standard for Google's KML. 6% believe it should be standardized but not by the OGC, while 26% believe Google should keep control over KML. 11% answered maybe or that it does not matter. The new poll is about your excitement provided by your geospatial projects, which is somehow related to this previous one.
Arc2Earth Publisher Released [+]
Spatial Data Logic announced Arc2Earth Publisher has been released. Here's the feature list. From the Arc2Earth website: "Arc2Earth was created to convert and publish your ArcGIS data to view in Google Earth, Google Maps or Virtual Earth with a click of a button. [...] Arc2Earth does not limit users to exporting to a single product. Users have the ability to quickly and easily export their data to any one of the three products mentioned above, which makes Arc2Earth an extremely versatile product that will meet the needs of your projects now but is also prepared to meet your project needs in the future. Regardless if you are using Google Earth, Google Maps or Virtual Earth users will have the ability to disperse their GIS data to their fellow users with ease using Arc2Earth." Update: 05/05 14:54 GMT by S : Spatially Adjusted runs a story with numerous comments on why ArcIMS is dying due to competition such as Arc2Earth.
Industry: Raj Singh on KML and the OGC [+]
Raj Singh shares his thoughts in two entries about KML and the OGC. See the few previous stories below to get the context. From the former entry: "First of all, there’s a widespread misconception that KML is a data format. This viewpoint doesn’t do justice to the complex problems geospatial data encodings solve, and just as importantly sells short the elegant way KML tackles a different need in the market. [...] First of all, KML is a highly successful format whose design and features have been proven in the pressure cooker of the marketplace. We do not want to damage that legacy. This new OGC Best Practices paper lays out KML 2.1 as the basis of our work. [...] The OWS-5 Testbed has a thread devoted to experimentation with KML, and is designed to spur the development of new tools to create and share these new experimental versions of KML."
Industry: OGC Moves KML Closer to a Standard [+]
Green Palolo writes "http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/44454-1.html The Open Geospatial Consortium has dubbed Google’s Keyhole Markup Language – the language used for developing Google Earth – a best practice and is working with Google and other OGC members including ESRI and Autodesk to make sure KML integrates well with such other standards as the Geographic Markup Language. Microsoft — which is continuing development of its Web-based mapping product, Microsoft Virtual Earth — is not currently an OGC member, though it is expected to join soon. Google offered KML 2.1 to the consortium last April and is working closely with OGC in further development of the language. An OGC official said the main advantages of making KML a standard are that it speeds development of Web-based mapping applications, encourages greater interoperability of products and ensures easier movement of data between applications. OGC expects KML 3.0 to be released as a standard early next year." See the several related stories below, this has been covered previously.
Industry: Microsoft Virtual Earth to Support Google's KML Format [+]
The Geothough blog informs us Microsoft has plan to support Google's kml format in Virtual Earth. From the blog: "[...] in the Microsoft "vendor spotlight" presentation which just finished, the speaker said that Virtual Earth will support the ability to display KML in a September / October release this year. [...] so I think this is a very welcome announcement (assuming it's correct), which can only cement KML's position as a de facto standard (I don't think Microsoft could have stopped KML's momentum, but if they had released a competing format it would have been an unfortunate distraction)." Don't forget Google's KML is slowly becoming an OGC standard.
Industry: Open-Source KML Library in C++ [+]
Andrew Turner from High Earth Orbit scoops this announcement from Google's presentation at an OGC Technical Committee meeting: "The big ‘announcement’ was that Google will be releasing an open-source KML library in C++ that implements and tracks the standard as it progresses. By providing a reference library it allows developers to more easily keep up to date with KML without having to maintain their own library and track standards changes...The library is expected to be available the first quarter of 2008 - and available under an as yet to be determined open-source license."
Permalink to Andrew's post

Andrew has been blogging about the development of KML3 within the OGC at Mapufacture giving us an insider's view and insightful commentary on the standards process.
Industry: KML Documentation from Google and Patent on Geolocated Objects [+]
The Google Earth Blog informs us Google has published a few articles about using KML with their Maps API: "The first article talks about the features which enable time animations in Google Earth. [...] The second article is by Valery Hronusov from Perm Russia on the subject of "Using KML in the Google Mashup Editor"." Related to Google, APB discuss a new Google patent on ranking/clustering geospatial information and Paul Ramsey reacts to it. From the ZDNet entry: "A new Google Patent application entitled Ranking and Clustering of Geo-Located Objects appears to describe a method in which geographical location objects of the type seen in Google Earth and Google Maps would be more efficiently classified in a database."
February Google Geonews: New Street View Cities & Imagery Update, Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0 and more 2 comments [+]
Here's Google geonews not already covered. There's the announcement of data for a dozen new Street View cities in the U.S.. Google released the Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0 tools allowing you to easily create KML layers using Google Docs. Google had a data update this month including new high resolution imagery (go here for the answers to the usual riddles and full list of affected areas). Google announced a static map API: "[...] the Static Maps API embeds a static snapshot. The snapshot map loads fast, making it ideal for content-heavy and multimedia-rich pages." Google also informs us about the South China Sea Project, providing environmental information in this area of the world. There's also a new feature for Google Maps searches: refining by neighborhoods or user ratings. They also offer a new tutorial on how to use the collaboration capabilities of Google Our Maps. For your curiosity, Google Earth has been downloaded 350 million times and is available in 13 languages. And while we're at it, there's two new games out there, the first is a World of Warcraft-like beta game played in Google Earth (via GEB), the second one is a point-and-bomb type named Covert Warfare (via OE). The GEB shares a few links regarding the competition between Google Sky and Microsoft World Wide Telescope (WWT). And finally, a nice analysis of the conflict over Google Earth Community's content regarding Palestinian and Israel information.
Industry: LIBKML Released By Google [+]
High Earth Orbit brings us news about this new library. From their summary : "libkml is interesting in several ways. KML itself is just an XML specification for geographic data. Nothing really special compared to other XML formats. However, as I’ve championed there is a big difference between types of developers that use and read schemas, and those that use libraries or simple examples and documentation to implement parsers or tools. This is justified in that developers (both consumers and producers as discussed here) are usually trying to solve some other problem and want to use a format like KML merely as a mechanism to publish and visualize their information. By providing a stable and full-featured library, developers are free to build tools around the library without having to deal with the intricacies and issues of the format itself."

For a pretty detailed article with more information, visit the High Earth Orbit article.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
KML 3 and KML-related News | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 2 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.