Organizing placemarks in Google Earth Plugin/KML

Question

I am looking for some insight on if / how I can better approach creating my KML in order to make my data more readable when loaded by via a custom app developed around the Google Earth Plugin.

My constraints are:

1. I have no ability to do anything with the custom app or the plugin, I can only provide KML files and take advantage of any features built into the Google Earth Plugin.
2. The side bar where you select data to display does not list the folders of the selected KML as a sub menu like I have seen in Google Earth.

My data looks like:

1. Hundreds of Data points sometimes quite close together, which I am currently displaying as placemarks, with no names set (was too noisy on the map). I supply additional details on the placemark in the description bubble / balloon.
2. Placemarks are frequently related to one another (i.e. there may be 4 placemarks representing a distinct group (e.g. coffee shops)).

What I have found so far:

1. There is no way for me to group pins as I zoom in and out without access to the JavaScript API / ability to do some amount of front end programming (i.e. there is no way to specify in the KML that pins should be grouped based on zoom level. I have noted the zoom level visibility settings which I do not believe accomplish what I am looking to do).
2. When clicking on a placemark there is no way to identify the other placemarks which are in the same group (i.e. all coffee shops) such as by changing their style (again note that to work for me this would have to be native functionality whose behaviour can be pre-specified in the KML). I hoped the plugin might provide some default functionality around this with folders, but I haven't been able to find anything.

My questions:

1. Are my above assumptions correct?
2. Are there some aspects of the KML spec and how it is displayed by google-earth which might be a good place for me to spend additional time understanding given the nature of my data?

Any suggestions or insight would be very welcome.

Edit: Also considered creating KML Tours to adjust visibility / identify related Placemarks, but could not see how I might start / stop the tour from a given Placemark (e.g. by clicking a link in the description balloon?).

Answer 1

Firstly, a question for you.

Are you wishing to load your 'app' on a mobile device? or are you just trying to do something on a normal computer?

I ask because you mention 'app' - yet in this line

I have no ability to do anything with the custom app or the plugin, I can only provide KML files and take advantage of any features built into the Google Earth Plugin.

The Google Earth PLUGIN is not support by mobile devices (yet) so if you can take advantage of it you must be talking about a normal computer scenario. So either a webpage, or a webpage embedded inside another program.

As for

There is no way for me to group pins as I zoom in and out without access to the JavaScript API / ability to do some amount of front end programming (i.e. there is no way to specify in the KML that pins should be grouped based on zoom level. I have noted the zoom level visibility settings which I do not believe accomplish what I am looking to do).

Have you looked into using Regions ? With them you can control at what 'zoom' (ie what POV) a placemark becomes visible.

As for

When clicking on a placemark there is no way to identify the other placemarks which are in the same group (i.e. all coffee shops) such as by changing their style (again note that to work for me this would have to be native functionality whose behaviour can be pre-specified in the KML). I hoped the plugin might provide some default functionality around this with folders, but I haven't been able to find anything.

This depends of if you are really using the plug-in (and thus JS) or not. With straight KML I don't think anything is possible. However if you are using the plugin (and some JS) you have number of options depending on how you set up your .kml.

1. You can 'walk' through your kml file and find all placemarks with the same <style>
2. You can assign all your placemark id's by - and then using Accessors like this var placemark = ge.getElementById('unique_id');

However it sounds like you are not using JS so I am probably wasting time with this.

Same goes for using tours, IF you are using the plugin and IF you are willing to do some JS coding then YES you can use tours to all kinds of things.

However, if you are talking about a mobile device app, then nothing is possible (except the Regions) and I suggest you edit your question to remove the 'google-earth-plugin' tag.