With the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) planning adoption of KML as a standard, we’ve focused our efforts in its support on varied platforms. KML’s previous proprietary nature was a cause for concern as Raj Singh aptly describes:

And one crucial point that I think a lot of people miss is the legal intellectual property aspect. Bringing KML into OGC isn’t just about what features end up in that XML format. It’s just as much about making sure the format is royalty-free to use forever.

We use KML as an additional means to help our Users (map consumers) and Providers (map sellers) use the Market. A reduced resolution KML is created for free whenever a dataset is listed by the Provider.

For Providers, a reduced resolution KML button on Panel 4 offers a link to their listing’s KML file. An example of this feature for FERI’s hyperspectral map listing can been seen in the red circle on Figure 1. The link in the red circle provides access to a KML file, which can be used by the Provider as another method to market their map listing through other mapping programs. These links (the one to the listing or the one to the listing’s KML) or the reduced KML itself can be used in any of the provider’s marketing material or blog posts.


Figure 1. WeoGeo Market listing for FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product (click on the image to go the Market listing). The red circle in the bottom left hand corner links to this data product’s reduced resolution KML. The blue circle on the bottom right of Panel 5 is for high resolutions KML products, which are fully tiled and regionized products that the Provider may offer for sale (to be covered in a future post).

For the User, this feature helps them decide whether this map is appropriate for their needs. By viewing the KML in their favorite map viewer, the User can quickly see if this listing intersects with their area of interest or other mapping products. As an example of this feature, here is the KML from the listing in Figure 1 seen in ArcGIS Explorer, World Wind, Google Maps, and Google Earth.

Figure 2. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in ArcGIS Explore v 9.2, build 410. Currently, the KML needs to be saved as a file to your local machine from the link and imported into Explorer. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.

Figure 3. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in Google Maps. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.


Figure 4. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in Google Earth. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.

Figure 5. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in NASA World Wind v 1.4. The KML needs to be saved as a file to your local machine from the link and imported into World Wind.