I am a professor of geography and am looking for ways to integrate Google Earth with other spatial analysis applications. The "copy view" option allows us to save an image, but in order to use that image as data withing a GIS (geographic information system) it must be georeferenced to actual ground position (by, for example, identifying the coordinates of the image corners). Since GE shows the coordinates of the mouse pointer, it seems like it wouldn't be too large a step for the program to be able to extract the coordinates of the captured image. Ideally, a "World File" could be written which allows automatic georeferencing. A World File is a simple 6-line text file that relates image pixel size to ground distance and position. Microsofts's Terraserver (http://terraserver.microsoft.com/), for example, creates these upon demand when you download one of their images. They are usually referenced to UTM coordinates, but if GE would simply identify the lat-long coordinates of the corners of the captured image, the rest could be taken care of by the user running a simple coordinate conversion program. Are there any plans for adding this or similar sorts of capabilities?
Thanks

I completely agree. My research group would definitely purchase Keyhole if we could export these great aerial/satellite photos to our own ArcGIS maps. Anyone have tips or tricks to make this happen?

Glad to see that at least one other person sees the potential for significant application in spatial analysis. The question now is whether any of the decision makers are listening.

Capturing the GE image and generating a world file could be somewhat useful. Even more interesting would be the ability to add the GE database stream into the client GIS user application. If the GE development team would create a secondary WMS stream for such users, they could charge a subscription fee for access to it. The current model appears to be set up to fund the GE capability development and integration with other Google services via annual client application subscription fees.

-elminski (workhat: GIS Data Manager)

Keyhole decision makers are Keyhole Community Members who read and post often and hear what is said in the forums. One of life's more important abilities is being able to listen as well as you hear, and our score is good on that point as well.

The Keyhole client software is not a data source for external GIS software.

The Keyhole server infrastructure provides valuable data solely to support the Keyhole client software as defined by the Terms of Service in the software license. Various versions of Keyhole client software have the abilities to save images, produce movies, and print images in various formats and resolutions. Use of these client-generated image products is also limited by the Terms of Service in the software license. Please read the license agreement again; it explains the permitted and proscribed uses thoroughly.

Without offering legal interpretation of the license agreement, please understand that Keyhole Pro is a tool you use to see and interact with the earth, it is not a pipe through which many millions of dollars of valuable data are leaked to professional users for subsequent use in GIS applications. This is also true of the personal-use-only Keyhole LT/NV products but there could be no confusion in that case as the license agreement prohibits LT/NV use in business settings, and few would license and use typical GIS packages for fun or at home.

The Keyhole enterprise-level products offer valuable data and services.

Keyhole works with GIS professionals around the globe to empower some of the most innovative and demanding applications in the geospatial industry, supporting very large imagery databases, very high-resolution data sources, and very special data formats often used in sophisticated applications. (Notice anything familiar about the program shown on the large central display screen below? )


President Bush speaks at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on 6/10/2005, saying "This is a magnificent blend of technology and human talent all working together to break down walls and barriers that had existed prior to September the 11th to better protect the people."

If it is industrial-strength GIS that you are after, then you will be pleased to know that Keyhole's data license arrangements allow for resale of some data to our enterprise-class customers. Contact the Keyhole enterprise sales staff to explore the many ways that Keyhole is able to assist in advanced GIS requirements.

P.S. To my understanding the Terraserver system has delivered only public domain imagery. If that service upgrades to contemporary, high-quality commercial data such as is used in Keyhole it will be interesting to see if "ease of external re-use" tools will be provided for that data, such as geo-tagged image export, side-car "world" files, or OGC WMS/WFS interfaces.

Thanks for your comments (seer). They are well taken. I completely understand the need for Google to protect its investment in the vast amount of collected data that is being made available via GE. My original post suggested simply facilitating the identification of the corners of a captured image either as Lat/Long or in UTM coordinates. This information can already be obtained by moving the mouse pointer to the image edge. It would not involve the full data stream, only a single image at the size and resolution of a screen. As an instructor I am anxious to help students use their imagination to explore the many possibilities and applications in the use of spatial data. In my experience, Google has always been at the cutting edge when it comes to offering new and interesting computer applications (some of them for free - Picasa, for example). As far as commercial application, I believe that your service agreement offers good protection. And many of the features currently provided in GE could presently be used commercially, if there is a desire to do so. For example: realtors using images of neighborhoods, wilderness guides making use of GPS functionality, etc. Anyway, I have appreciated the discussion and look forward to further evolution of the GE product and database.

It's great to hear that Keyhole is in the market of possibly selling high quality image data. It would be better if that information were advertised on Keyhole's site. I thought Keyhole 2 Pro was the ultimate product and it just didn't work very well with outside GIS applications. I'll contact the sales team now, but if I hadn't been told, a potential customer would have been lost.

Thanks for the info, seer. I'm probably one of the few people who actually reads the user agreements provided with software and data services. I'm well within the confines of the agreement in my usage of the tool and the data it accesses.

My comments above are in the context of Google's mission, which "...is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

I would like to reiterate that Google could make the earth viewing data provided through Google Earth universally accessible and useful by providing it via OGC WMS/WFS data streams. I'll be watching the transition of the client software and databases from Keyhole to Google Earth for such changes. There is a strong possibility that the organization with which I work could make use of Google Earth.

As an aside, I'm also very interested in Google Earth's integration with other Google functionality. Since we humans are spatial creatures, nearly all of our world's information has strong spatial components. Google Earth has the potential to seriously change the way people who use the Internet think about our planet.

-elminski

Currently i am using georeferenced maps of 1,10000 and imposing them on images of keyhole and trying to find out the corrections i need to carry out.
One thing which strikes me is that 2 imageries of high resoltion(1m) and low resolution (15m) where they are merged i found a lateral shift in Russia. So i am now confused about what level of accuracy keyhole is providing?
Would like to hear if you could add something to this

Horizontal accuracy varies from data product to data product. Meaning the data delivered to GE has various accuracies. Shifts between 15m and 1m data aren't all that unusual. The 15 m Landsat data can be off by a large amount (several dozen meters), depending on location.

As far as exporting data out of GE and using it is GIS, please remember that not only has the original data been compressed, but it has also been reprojected and is then projected onto an uneven 3D surface from which you obtain the sceenshot. Depending on your positional accuracy requirement the error introduced by these factors may be unacceptable.

As far as buying imagery goes; why buy from GE if you can just buy from the data provider directly?