[Taxacom] Yet another use for Google Maps

[Bob Mesibov]

Google Maps is a great online tool for planning and reviewing fieldwork. It offers zoomable road maps, the Google Earth satellite image layer and a hill-shaded terrain map with rough-enough contour lines. Like Google Earth, it also has Street View (where available on the ground), which gives ground-level views of sampling areas and their access.

I've now started using Google Maps to plot specimen locality data as they accumulate. These data are entirely private - they haven't been uploaded to Google.

The trick is very simple: build a KML file for the locality data and put it on a Web server to which you have access. Open Google Maps in a browser and put the URL for the KML file into the search bar, then click 'Search Maps'.

If you've never had experience with KML: a KML file is just a text file with the suffix '.kml'. You can build one in any text editor. Below is the full text of a KML file which will plot 3 localities for species X - just the localities in this case, not any metadata. Latitude and longitude must be in decimal degree format, with the usual conventions that lats S of the Equator are negative and longs W of Greenwich are negative. The '0' after the long, lat is elevation, here set at ground level.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
<Folder>
<Name>SpeciesX</Name>
<Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long1,Lat1,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
<Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long2,Lat2,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
<Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long3,Lat3,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
</Folder>
</kml>

You can also open a .kml file on your own computer in the Google Earth application on your own computer (Windows users: right-click the file name in Explorer, 'Open with...' Google Earth). However, I'm finding Google Maps faster and more useful because of the road and terrain mapping.

For a full treatment of KML, see http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kmlreference.html, but note that not all these features are supported in Google Maps.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html