My name is Will Pittenger. I have been making KMZ sets for Google Earth for a long time. After I starting making those, I wanted overlays for my sets. I was unsatisfied with the accuracy of the images available at Wikimedia Commons. So I started making my own with Inkscape and uploading them. Then I needed a place for anyone that liked my KMZ sets and/or maps to find others. For a while, a simple blog sufficed. But, once I started getting requests, I knew I needed something better. This site is the result. You are welcome to set up an account. Some activities are for registered users only. Take your time poking around and let me know what you think.
Google Earth doesn't have such a tool built in. But I found a website that can do it. Copy your KML to the clipboard. (That is what happens when you copy a path or any other object in Google Earth to the clipboard.) Paste it into this site: earthpoint.us/Shapes.aspx. Their support is a Google Group: Conversion of Geometries to Plots with Distance Measurement. They have other tools as well, including some that work with Excel files or are Excel files.
I thought the lengths of paths would be more precise.
Sorry. But lengths have to be rounded. First, the lengths I get are computed to 4 decimal places. So that is about as accurate as it gets. Before you complain more, for lengths in kilometers, that is to the nearest decimeter (1/10 of a meter). For lengths in miles, that is to roughly the nearest 6 5/16 inches. Considering the lengths of most of what I measure (or anything you measure in GE), is a tiny distance. Don't worry about it.
Now that tool returns english lengths less than 1 mile in yards and metric lengths less than 1 kilometer in meters. In both cases, it once again computes to 4 decimal places. However, that level of accuracy isn't valid. We are talking about to within .1 milimeters or less that 1/20 of a 1/16 of an inch. No matter how accurate the calculations are, the placement of the waypoints in the path isn't that accurate. In fact, I only attempt to put the path or polygon in the middle of the pavement. If we are talking about a runway being used as track (Edmonds or St. Pete come to mind), the width alone could add or subtract 10 meters to the length.
My name is Will Pittenger. I have been making KMZ sets for Google Earth for a long time. After I starting making those, I wanted overlays for my sets. I was unsatisfied with the accuracy of the images available at Wikimedia Commons. So I started making my own with Inkscape and uploading them. Then I needed a place for anyone that liked my KMZ sets and/or maps to find others. For a while, a simple blog sufficed. But, once I started getting requests, I knew I needed something better. This site is the result. You are welcome to set up an account. Some activities are for registered users only. Take your time poking around and let me know what you think.
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