Groundspeak Portal

We're really excited about the latest feature for Premium Members: Google Earth Network KML!

Those of you who have already had the chance to check out Google's free application know what a powerful tool it can be. It offers a wealth of geographic information and satellite imagery at your fingertips, and makes for some seriously cool entertainment. Adding waymarks to the mix makes it that much more fun and useful.

To begin, download and install the latest version of Google Earth and sign in to your Premium Member account at Waymarking.com. Keep an eye out for the Google Earth icon in the right sidebar of various search pages on the website, and click it to open the Waymarking Network KML in your Google Earth application.

You can also check the box next to each waymark in your search results to download a static KML of specific waymarks to save on your local machine. In addition, each waymark page has its very own KML file available for download.

That's it! We hope you have as much fun zooming around the globe searching for waymarks as we have!

Note: Be sure your computer meets the recommended configuration specs or you may experience sluggish performance. This information can be found on the download page linked above.

I just checked it out, it's cool.

That is AWESOME!!

I knew that was coming in the back of my mind.

Thank you for the great addition to Waymarking.

Very cool.
I dreamed about it...   

saopaulo1:

I just checked it out, it's cool.

Have you noticed the huge starburst that occurs when you click on Sao Paulo? You have been busy!

opinionate:

saopaulo1:

I just checked it out, it's cool.

Have you noticed the huge starburst that occurs when you click on Sao Paulo? You have been busy!

This works great.  I also like the new icons on the maps showing the category icons.    Was wondering why on the newest waymarks page the google earth button is not available. 

I guess I better start working on my home starburst.

Nice addition. Thanks. I too like the icons on the maps.

BruceS:

opinionate:

saopaulo1:

I just checked it out, it's cool.

Have you noticed the huge starburst that occurs when you click on Sao Paulo? You have been busy!

This works great.  I also like the new icons on the maps showing the category icons.    Was wondering why on the newest waymarks page the google earth button is not available. 

Glad you like it. In the future we'll have a KML for each of the lists - newest, featured, etc. For now you have all waymarks, or all waymarks in a particular category.

WOW!  Awesome addition to the waymarking experience!

Do you know what this means?

I no longer have to enter all the route 66 waymarks by hand.

Dibs on having Opinionates baby.

CRAP! I've crossed the line. AGAIN.

opinionate:

.......For now you have all waymarks, or all waymarks in a particular category.

Do you mean you can download all of the waymarks in a particular category at one time or is it page by page? If you can do all waymarks in a particular category I am missing how to do that.

Love the feature....now I have to figure out how to tranfer them to my GPSr after I have them tranfered to GE.

I can tell this will be fun, but right now I'm a little overwhelmed as I haven't used Google Earth much.  I tried to download my waymarks but had to do it page by page, which put twenty some folders of 25 waymarks each in my "My Saved Places" folder.  I'm sure there are easier ways to do this.  Isn't there a way to put all of the waymarks in one folder?  Would love some tutoring from those familiar with google earth on how to make best use of this.

Let me see if I can explain the different KML files you'll be downloading. There are Network KML files and there are static KML files.

The network KML doesn't download waymark information, rather it interfaces directly with the website to deliver the specific waymarks in whichever area of the globe you happen to focus on. It streams the data (you can see the % meter at the bottom of you Google Earth window) through an open channel of sorts. Make sure you zoom in a little bit and wait a few seconds for the waymarks to pop up. Depending on the speed of you connection it may take a while.

The static KML does download the waymark data which you can then save to your local machine. This is what happens when you check all the boxes in your search results and download a page at a time (or one at a time on the waymark details page). If you want to save waymarks for future reference this is the best option.

Whenever you see the icon it means you will download the network KML when you click it. You can find this icon on the home page and each category page (even top level departments). If you are just browsing around this is the best option.

Which waymarks can you can see from space? So far I've enjoyed the Ginormous Everyday Objects category and Lighthouses.

opinionate:

Whenever you see the icon it means you will download the network KML when you click it. You can find this icon on the home page and each category page (even top level departments). If you are just browsing around this is the best option.

Thanks, I haven't seen this portion of the feature yet. I guess I will need to do some exploring.


Addendum after exploration: Very Cool! Thanks for the tutorial. I completly missed the network KML.

I missed the network portion too, BeanTeam.  Thanks for the explanation, Nate. 

I just zoomed in on the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle and saw Nate coming out of a store with a Signal the frog backpack on!  Oh- whoops, that was someone at the "Hello Kitty" store.  No, seriously - I was looking at the University of Washington and could actually see the shadow cast by the "Broken Obelisk" sculpture.  If I would have gone closer I might have even seen the pigeons pooping on the head of the nearby George Washington statue.  Hmm... this could get addictive.  Seeing the sculptures and other waymarks that is --- not the pigeon poop part.

I just saw this on the site.  Looking forward to checking it out!

Nice stuff there.  I  just got around to checking it out this evening, and I found it also to be very useful in doublechecking my own Waymarks.  I found a few that popped up on the map in funny places, so I checked and saw where I had made typos in entering the coords.

O.K. got around to checking this out.  It's brilliant!  BUT ... I noticed that on the map which displayed in the upper right hand corner, only a page of waymarks is displayed in the map.  This means that waymarks which fall on the next pages don't show on the map, even if they are right next to a waymark that does show.

This was probably done in order to enhance performance, however, if a limit is needed, I would prefer that you choose a number X, such that X number of waymarks closest to the center of the map are displayed.  This way, all of the waymarks in the vicinity are displayed.

But the KML download feature is just perfect.

I can't wrap my head around this.  Some things work but from reading this thread, I'm missing something

Success: Seeing an individual Waymark in Google Earth by clicking the .KML link in the WM
Success: Seeing all of an entire Category in Google Earth by clicking the Google Earth link in the Cat

Failure: Seeing my Waymarks in Google Earth... can't find the link to do this
Failure: Seeing the Nearby Waymarks that I haven't Visited.... can't find the link to do this.


Also, are there other things that I'm not aware of?  Above is all I do know about.

BQ

the blue quasar:

I can't wrap my head around this.  Some things work but from reading this thread, I'm missing something

Success: Seeing an individual Waymark in Google Earth by clicking the .KML link in the WM
Success: Seeing all of an entire Category in Google Earth by clicking the Google Earth link in the Cat

Failure: Seeing my Waymarks in Google Earth... can't find the link to do this
Failure: Seeing the Nearby Waymarks that I haven't Visited.... can't find the link to do this.


Also, are there other things that I'm not aware of?  Above is all I do know about.

BQ

From Nate's answer to me about the newest waymark list not having the button--- "In the future we'll have a KML for each of the lists - newest, featured, etc. For now you have all waymarks, or all waymarks in a particular category."

I saved all my waymarks in Google Earth by doing a "My waymarks" search and then clicking the checkbox (check all waymarks) and downloading the kml's for the page - then repeated 25+ times.  Of course it wasn't until after I finished that I thought "now, why do I need to see all of my own waymarks in google earth?"  

Oh okay... when I saw the Almighty OpinioNate's comment about Star Burst's, especially for our Brazillian friend, I thought it was available.

Patience, I need to have patience.  I get it.

BQ

hikenutty:

I saved all my waymarks in Google Earth by doing a "My waymarks" search and then clicking the checkbox (check all waymarks) and downloading the kml's for the page - then repeated 25+ times.  Of course it wasn't until after I finished that I thought "now, why do I need to see all of my own waymarks in google earth?"  

Because You Can

Back from our vacation. Still catching up on things.

 

Harvey

Starting using this feature to help plan our road trip!

It's VERY cool!   (At first I thought I probably wouldn't use it...)

Thanks!

Finally returned to this... on a whim.

 

That is so wickedly cool.  I see the "bursts" and another great thing is being able to click on a Way-Ball and see the default image and short description... then links to more!  LOVE IT!!!

 

Can I use this to view OTHER people's Waymarks?  Or do we have to share files?  I would really like to check out the imagery of some of my Way-Pals.

 

BQ

Sure can! You can see all the waymarks around the globe, just download the KML file from the home page. Go here, once you have. I call it the peacock.

N 42° 59.420 W 083° 39.310