Google Earth

Where have you bee See Ladd Nelson's post under Carlson GIS 2018. It's not as easy a just attaching a .kmz file.

I've been wallowing in an older version, just upgraded, thanks for the lead.

I am confused, but then again, I'm not a CAD or GIS genius.

Are we talking about something different than just bringing a kml or kmz into Carlson Survey, OEM, etc?

Because, as said by others and myself, it's as simple as creating the kml or kmz, (right clicking, save place as), in GE, and then KMLREAD in Carlson.

The process of creating a .kmz that can be imported into Carlson depends on if you have the GIS module or not. If you have the GIS module the process is fairly simple once you create the .kmz properly in Google Earth. If you don't have the GIS module there is a work around that Ladd Nelson explains in the thread Carlson 2018. Carlson can not automatically link out to Google Earth anymore due to some coding problems. If you have the GIS module email me and I'll forward Ladd's emails that got me through the process. If you don't have the GIS module you'll have to contact Ladd and get his help.

I have Carlson Survey OEM 2015 and 2018, and I can export to GE and import kml's and kmz's, in both of them.

Maybe we're talking different programs, Survey with ICAD or something else.?ÿ Thanks

I've got?ÿ the Survey and GIS modiles in Carlson 2018 with intellicad. The KMLREAD command did nothing. Ladd showed me a method to draw a polygon first around my area of interest in GE, read that into Carlson, then use Place Google Earth file. I couldn't get any of the other methods recommended to work. This method is only suppose to work if you have the GIS module. Ladd explained a work around if you only had the Survey module. The method described by the CAD girl and my 2015 Carlson Survey Manual didn't work. Until Ladd helped I was getting nowhere.

Posted by: Skeeter1996

The process of creating a .kmz that can be imported into Carlson depends on if you have the GIS module or not. <snip> Carlson can not automatically link out to Google Earth anymore due to some coding problems.<snip>

This is not entirely accurate and for the sake of future searches that find this thread, I'd like to offer some clarifications:

1. KMZ files (zipped versions of KML or Keyhole Markup Language files) can be imported into Carlson regardless of whether or not one has the GIS module. What the GIS module offers is the ability to place?ÿimages?ÿfrom various on-lines sources (such as Google Earth) into a drawing.
2. The "coding problems" being cited are/were due to Google's decision in December, 2014, to Deprecate the Google Earth API. As a result, alternative methods had to be found to continue support for this very popular command. This work culminated with a re-vamped re-work of the Place Google Earth Image command found in Carlson GIS 2018 but it no longer proactively launches the Google Earth application. As such, your drawings must first be in their proper geographical coordinate system location for the routine to be able to fetch the desired image.
3. Bringing it all together, a person can use Google Earth and point/polygon placemarks exported to a KMZ file for a given area of interest and import the KMZ file in to a drawing to establish the geographical area of interest if one does not already exist in the drawing. With this area defined, the image placement routines in the GIS module should be able to fetch the desired imagery.

I hope this information helps.

Thanks for the clarification Ladd.

I just had a demonstration of Trimble Business Center. It automatically goes to the correct address in Google Earth and downloads it onto your project. Slick and easy as it should be. I'm expecting Carlson to do a little work in that application.

In going through Ladd's procedure, yes you can do it that way, but how do I know the scale of the image when importing. I actually have to scale the inserted image based on the place marks and the kmz points? Eye balling? Why bother with setting the datum in the drawing?

The Google Earth images aren't survey grade of course. I always have to tweak GIS products to make them match survey measurements. There's always a little rotation and scaling to be done.

What are you using them for that requires precise scaling?

Skeeter,

In the 2018 OEM version, when I insert a image, I have to define a scale or pick something on the screen. The images doesn't come in to real world scale. I can scale it to the place marks and the kmz coords as Ladd mentions, but whoopie, I could do that with the old version of Carlson.

I think I have another avenue of importing a world file command. But that's not using Google Earth, maybe USGS.

TJE,

I use to have a different way of importing aerial images also, but they changed the Mr. Sid format to a newer version that my program wouldn't accept. The Google Earth images are more recent vintage so I figured it would be easier to modernize all the way. Boy was I wrong.?ÿ

Easiest way to import a Google Earth file I've found so far is from Ladd. You draw a polygon around your area of interest save that as a .kmz file, import that file into your Carlson drawing. Then execute "place Google Earth" command and a georeferenced image will appear of your area of interest in the Carlson drawing. The image is not perfectly sited since it is of course a GIS product. During the field surveying activities you can GPS photo visible objects, road intersections, fence corners, etc. To tweak the image so it matches the surveyed positions more closely.. I just use the resulting product for corner search, and visual aids in dealing with clients. Before I even get to the field I'm pretty familiar with the survey job layout and access opportunities. It's a pretty handy tool. I'm curious as to what you are using them for.

Thanks Skeeter,

I'm using them for same thing as you. Maybe locating a feature for ballpark location on a site survey or something.

@ladd-nelson

That worked fine.  Carlson Survey 2016 OEM.