Death Valley Driving Tour in Google Earth
With the release of Google Earth Beta 4 version 4.0.2091, Google has added support for animating events such as GPS tracks or other data. To put this new capability to the test, we built our
Death Valley Driving Tour KMZ(click to download)
This file shows the use of the new TimeSpan KML element to animate a recent drive through Death Valley National Park. This file shows the use of TimeSpan for both Placemark and ScreenOverlay data types by showing images taken for each location point. The images were generated from a camcorder used during the drive.
To use, you will need Beta version 4.0.2091 of Google Earth or higher. Please visit our Google Earth Marine Maps category for more Google Earth fun!
How we made this file
The Death Valley Driving Tour was built using a combination of open source software and custom code. We used a hard drive camcorder to capture video from a tripod in the passenger seat while recording the GPS track once per minute on a Garmin handheld. We set the camcorder clock to UTC time via the GPS prior to recording.
Following the drive, we downloaded the video and GPS data to a PC for processing. The GPS data was converted using Garmin Mapsource to GPX format. The file creation time for the video was used to estimate a video start time (based on a 30Hz frame rate and total recorded frames). Starting at the file creation time, we used custom code to estimate camera position every 2 minutes by interpolating into the GPS track file. At each 2 minute point, the estimated location, heading, and velocity were extracted along with a jpg frame shot. The extracted JPGs are “geotagged” using custom code to ensure they contain capture time and location data.
Once the video files were processed, we used additional code to create the governing KML file based on the EXIF data in each image. The KML file generates the placemarks, info windows with URL’s to the large images hosted in our DestinSharks.com image gallery, and the time coded screen overlays corresponding to each placemark. Based on experimentation, we decided to use the TimeSpan element rather than the TimeStamp to make the “virtual video” of the screen overlay run smoother.
November 8th, 2006 at 3:11 am
I downloaded and unzipped the Death Valley Driving Tour but Google complained that it could not find any placemarks. I then moved the kml file in with the jpgs and re-attempted without success. Without any instructions I am unsure on how to associate the placemarks. My only other experience has been to save my own tour files to a kmz file, which contains all the pictures when saved … but with kml I’m not sure how to proceed??
Sincerely
James Lindbloom
November 9th, 2006 at 3:45 am
When you download the driving tour, be sure your system saves it as a kmz file and then open it directly. Everything should work at that point.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
If you’re planning a trip to Death Valley National Park but don’t have your own GPS machine, get a GPS Ranger at the park Visitor Center. The GPS Ranger is a really cool way to learn about the history and people of the desert park. It’s like having a ranger in the palm of your hand! Here’s how it works. You travel to the spots in the park that you want to visit, when you want to visit them.
While driving around the dunes and the peaks you hear park rangers tell the stories that bring the park to life. And it all happens from the comfort of your own car or walking at your own pace on the trails. GPS automatically triggers the videos at locations all around the park. Play the Death Valley trivia game and make your tour even more fun and challenging. For more information go to http://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/gps-ranger.htm