2008-10-23: Google Earth and Science Applications, Ann Arbor

The purpose of this meeting is to explore scientific investigations that are enabled by global-scale reach and interactivity provided by Google Earth. The meeting was the first of it's kind and depending on the connections and collaborations that come from this meeting, as well as resulting KMLs there may be more.

Oct. 22

The first two talks gave an overview on the state of geoscience and technology.

• Tim Killeen, from NSF, gave the geoscience perspective. He explained that less than 10% of all data they had was ever viewed and a system is needed for people to view this data in a simple environment. The two highlights to take away is that "data to knowledge" is key and "big uncertainties remain" wrt climate and understanding. He did however touch on new projects such as the NSF Ocean Observatories Inititiave , the final design of which is due in December
  • One commenter noted that GEOSS was notably missing. Killeen's response was that any of the NSF work could be considered part of GEOSS.

• Dan Atkins, former VP of Cyberinfrastructure and now at U. Mich. gave the second talk on the "Role of Data in the National Science Foundation Cyberinfrastructure for 21st Century Discovery". He pressed the need for data stewardship, curation, federation and openness. He also described the push/pull nature between technology and complex environmental problems. He stated that providing information a geographical-based entry to data is natural and compelling as we all have an inherent geographical frame of reference.
  • Three project he reviewed were interesting: TeraGrid: an integrating infrastructure, Blue Waters: Super computer, nanoHUB: Nanotech collaboration
  • PPT | Similar slides presented

The second half of the morning was focused on using google earth

• Michael Weiss-Malik,KML Product Manager, Why is KML important?
  • He explained the design of Google Earth and the need for it. To use the analogy "to most users, the interface is the computer" he pointed out that with any paper we read the figure is the thing one remembers most and so the philosophy "to most viewers the presentation is the data". Something definitely worth remembering. KML is a standardised format derived from XML that encodes the Google Earth files.
• Sean Askay, Google Earth Applications
  • Darfur Example
  • WV, Mountaintop removal.
• Trey Smith, NASA AMES disaster response application
  • Introduced GigaPan - panoramic images around the world that are sometimes linked to GE

The afternoon session in the pollution and weather group resulted in a collection of KML layers and sites from people in the group. Pete, a googler in our session, works on Google Earth Weather and listened/tried to solve some of the issues people have with GE as is. Common Issues were:

• Needing underground/underwater layers
• Animation/time line issues
• Layer ordering for transparency
• Ideas about using Sketchup with GE

We went to a beginner KML tutorial.

Oct. 23

We started in our pollution/weather wg with three questions:

Q1. What are good examples of visualizations in your topical area that are currently available and what makes them good?

See spreadsheet

Q2. What are the challenges that are being identified in your discussion that are making it more difficult to generate more GE/KML content?

• Creation of polygon(?) surfaces
• Links on left panel
• Interface
  • User's can't reorder layers
• Timeline
  • Author cannot control speed of timeline
  • User limited on speed controls
• New Features
  • Surfaces above surface

Q3. What are some of the best ideas for future work or collaborations that came out of the group discussions?

• Weather Display in Google Earth
  • Representation of pressure surfaces
  • Representation of radar/precip (perhaps include volume composite from radar)
• Below surface representations
  • Water characteristics
  • Well measurements
• Space/Time navigation
  • Move with pollution plumes

We also went to an advanced tutorial. [More notes coming]

The afternoon of the last session was a report back from all of the groups on the set of questions above.

The conference ended with a panel of googlers:

• Blurry earth images come from provider - Google doesn't touch/censor on pixel by pixel basis. Google does choose to not update imagery in areas of conflict. Can view Digital Globe layers under "more layers" in GE to see available globe imagery.
• WMS to KML not as prominent because WMS is hard on the server and they had several servers crash when WMS feature was added.
• Google Gears can create GeoRSS reader and convert to KML for GE API plugin
• Introduced Google Application Engine
• Google Research Datasets is coming

KML in Research Competition - Submit your KML and winners will be featured in the GE Gallery as well as at the Google Earth display at AGU. Prizes include GPS unit and Apple Ipod Touch

One action item that came out of this meeting is to prepare a KML with NASA/NOAA/EPA AQ layers for a potential permanent layer in GE app.

KML Resources

• Google Earth API - Much discussion surrounded the API, ability to use GE in Windows browser, Javascript on top of GE.
• KML Documenation
• Submit KML to Google, i.e. appear in Gallery
• Regionator | examples - Use hierarchical network links to go from coarse images to fine resolution as you zoom in
• Google Code KML Projects
• My Maps One easy way to find and create KML, could think of using similar interface.
• Google Gears