Home > Geoespatial / GIS > Digital terrain model in Google Earth

Digital terrain model in Google Earth

lagodeyojoa-thumb1 Valery Hronusov is the kml2kml application creator; it is interesting that today has published a note in which Google recommends it, strange but not so, knowing what makes this application that only weighs 1 MB.

Some time ago I talked about how to do something like this with AutoCAD, and also with ContouringGE. Let’s see how this application works on simple things like the generation of a digital terrain model.

This is Yojoa Lake, a place where in a couple of weeks I will be on summer vacation, on the left it can be seen the protected area of Santa Barbara’s mountain and on the background it is seen the Atlantic Ocean.

clip_image001Kml2kml downloading takes 15 seconds and to install it another 15. Well, don’t take too much time analyzing this application, you must only select from the analysis tools the “3D surface” option and fill in the information in the panel that appears.

The first screen gives us the option to choose the data source, in this case GEterrain.

Then you can set the grid’s size, in this case I’ll give every 50 both in latitude and longitude.

To get the capture from Google Earth, select “Get current view”; although you can also enter data manually.

lagodeyojoa thumb3 Modelo digital de terreno en Google EarthThen in the next panel it must be indicated whether we want to generate the mesh points, the model’s silhouette, surfaces, contours and if we want the tone as a background raster.

Also at the bottom is the target of the generated file as a kmz.

Then the third panel contains the layers’ names and fills colors. It can be grayscale, and can also be defined point sizes or lines’ thickness. clip_image002

And that’s all you need to do. Once you press the Plot button it is created in Google Earth a kmz file with all what you had set.

Contours, surface, points, image adjusted to the terrain. Incredible! To see the fillings it’s better to make Google Earth’s deployment in an openGL form.

In this case I have only spoken of the terrain modeling and contour’s generation but this application is used for many other purposes. A Kml2kml trial can be downloaded for 7 days, and if you decide to buy, it just costs $ 50.lagodeyojoa thumb5 Modelo digital de terreno en Google Earth

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.