Question

Is there a KML tag sequence which will position Google Earth to the specified location?

If I start Google Earth, type “Houston” in the search text box and press [Search], the map is positioned to Houston, Texas.

Can you accomplish this via KML?

If not, how would you go about doing this? I’m attempting to do this from a C# application.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Most basic KML files look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2" xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<Document>
    <name>Name of KML</name>
    <StyleMap>
    .........
    </StyleMap>
    <Folder>
    ......
    </Folder>
</Document>

If you assign a <LookAt> or <Camera> to the <Document> node, whenever the KML is loaded it should load that view – unless told otherwise (eg via API/COM)

So your KML should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2" xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<Document>
    <name>Name of KML</name>
    <LookAt>
    ..........
    </LookAt>
    <StyleMap>
    .........
    </StyleMap>
    <Folder>
    ......
    </Folder>
</Document>