Google recently updated the GE browser plugin to support version 5 touring features. As mentioned yesterday, some people have already started using the tour function on web pages. Like Keir Clarke, I wanted to do a Mars tour, but I wanted to get the excellent “Introduction to Mars” tour narrated by NPR’s Ira Flatow into the browser plugin.
First, I asked Google’s permission to use the KML file. Then, it turned out the sample code for the Earth API to load a tour was based on a simpler KML file (with only a Tour in the KML file). The Mars tour requires a “Tour resources” sub-directory that includes placemarks and overlays used by the tour. One of the Googlers responsible for the API sample code sent me an E-mail with a little javascript function (called ‘walkKmlDom()’) that “finds” the tour in a KML file. Once I modified the sample code, I was able to successfully load the Mars tour onto a web page. Google says they’ve now updated the sample code to include the function because so many people have asked for it. NOTE: Make sure you have the new GE 5 plugin – if you do NOT see Mars when you load the page below, then you don’t have it.
You can see Introduction to Mars Tour in a web page
.View the page source to see how I modified the sample code to load the KML. Not bad for a rusty old Fortran programmer!
