Thursday, May 30, 2013

Adding local images into Google Earth placemarks... and IPERNITY

While running a Google Earth course last week in Birmingham, I went through how to add an image to a Placemark. The first issue was that FLICKR has recently changed. This means that it is less straight forward than it used to be
On the plus side
One disadvantage of this is that many schools may find FLICKR and other possible places to store images are blocked in some schools.

There are other alternatives: a blog could be used for examples, although once again these may be blocked in some schools.

A website called IPERNITY now has the option to transfer up to 200Mb of photos per month from FLICKR.
Some browser add ons need to be installed for this process to work...
Once they are installed, it's very easy to add in your photos one chunk at a time... I'm currently doing that so that my photos 'live' in three places. Check my photos HERE.

A bigger problem was that the facility to add local images: from a laptop or other location that wasn't online had stopped working. This would be useful in a school environment where files could be created which will work within the classroom, and not require images to be fetched from an online location.
It was a bit embarrassing that it was no longer working though as I was expecting to show it in action.

I delved into various forums and found quite a few work arounds for adding local images which didn't seem to work very well, but then found one which did....
The first step apparently is to ensure that LOCAL images can be used with Google Earth, which is a setting in the OPTIONS.
This is not checked by default, but I think needs to be ticked for local images to be available for placemarks.
A particular folder path is then required to add to the code that is provided for adding an image: a KML tag which looks like this - which basically points Google Earth to the location where it can find the source of the image.
Instructions follow - added to Slideshare - hope they're helpful...

 
Getting local image files to work in google earth from GeoBlogs

By the way, the next Google Earth course is in London in June, but it's fully booked.

They'll be running again in 2013-14.
Watch the GA website for details as they emerge.

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