Making & Alligning Overlays

[araT]

Firstly, Go to the "Add" menu in GE, and select "Image Overlay", put your image URL in the "Image Locaion" line, and give it a name -- now to allign the overlay.



Images 1 & 3:
The poles, when you zoom in really close you can pull the image right down so theres almost nothing uncovered, its like tightening the drawstring on a bag - this will make the image sit better vertically, unless the image is unproportional (which in this case - it isnt)

Image 2:
this is the point that lets you spin the image around ontop of the globe freely without adgusting the edges, it is in the "middle" of the image. use this for the fine tuning i was talking about

Image 4:
the "+" where the two "outer" edges of the image meet [or dont meet, depending on if you are doing a whole globe overlay, or just a city]the markers look like -| |- when seperated.
I cant seem to get these together seemlessly, but its only a slight gap.. this is where you decide how "wide" the image is (how much of the globe gets covered)
Fine tune this part, becareful because once they start overlapping it pushes the other edge out of the way and ends up misaligning you
the <> thing to the right of the image is where you can rotate the image, you usually wont need to do this in the case of whole globe overlays though.

Other: If you are doing just a small overlay over a certain city, you can use all the edges to drag an image into shape - often the photo is out of proportion to begin with so it will take some streching, maybe even some rotating before it looks right!

Phew, thats that.. any questions?

------------------------

PETJE: And by zooming in I can see if the overlay is correct at detailed points, but i have to zoom out again to adjust when necessary, is this true?

yes that right; zoom out to fine-tune, zoom in to check it, use about 80% opacity. -- the image wont move at all from where you placed it while you are zooming.

I hope this helps you all, if you have any further tips or if I've forgotten something, feel free to add on, or ask me any questions - I'll try answer them as best as I can

T.

(I originally posted this here)

[eolson2]

Hello,

I'm trying to put some hi resolution map overlays into Google Earth Software.

I'm trying to push this thing to the limit, using a very large file size. For some reason, the larger file size I use for my image overlays, the more distorted the quality becomes.

It seems that the software will take a large high quality image, and then reduce the quality until it fits a predetermined size, and then displays it on the map.

If I break up a large image into 2 smaller images, the quality is noticeably better. If I break a large image into 4 or 8 smaller images, the quality is better yet, starting to approach the original file. The problem is that I have to align all of these pieces on the map, and it's extremely time consuming.

The overlay size is covering about 50 miles × 50 miles, and I'd like to get bigger eventually. Can anyone tell me if there is a file size limit, or a better way to keep my quality high when I import hi res overlays?

Feel free to talk technical, I have a pretty good grasp on digital imagery. I also have a very great machine with 4 GB ram. I'm really hoping I can get this to work, it would be soooo sweet. Does the subscription package have better overlay support?

earl

[Flying High]

Hi.
I made an overlay that looked fine on my pc... then I uploaded the kmz. to this site... and when i tried the link from here... The overlay wasn't there... but it went to the correct location..

Was the file size to big... or do you have to upload the kmz and the image seperatley ?

Thanks.

[Sal_Candu]

Hi,

My first time on here. I was wondering if anyone could help me by explaining how I can put a building on an exact location. I managed to get it in the right hemisphere however, it is in the water about 200 miles from land and I don't actually know the depth. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated - oh by the way I am using a Mac and I created the file in Sketchup.

Many thansk in advance.

Sal

[Appletom]

I don't know the answer Sal, but I did get a great chuckle over your post - congratulations on your correct hemisphere placement.

And I think you should get some kind of reward for largest humor factor in a first post - welcome to GEH.

[shrinkingman]

I don't know the answer Sal, but I did get a great chuckle over your post - congratulations on your correct hemisphere placement.

And I think you should get some kind of reward for largest humor factor in a first post - welcome to GEH.

Top reply, still chuckling to myself.

Seriously though, does it matter? If you're putting a building in the middle of the ocean, 200 miles from land, does it really matter where it goes? Who would know if it was in the wrong place?

[Anuthurnut]

Hello,

I'm trying to put some hi resolution map overlays into Google Earth Software.

I'm trying to push this thing to the limit, using a very large file size. For some reason, the larger file size I use for my image overlays, the more distorted the quality becomes.

It seems that the software will take a large high quality image, and then reduce the quality until it fits a predetermined size, and then displays it on the map.

If I break up a large image into 2 smaller images, the quality is noticeably better. If I break a large image into 4 or 8 smaller images, the quality is better yet, starting to approach the original file. The problem is that I have to align all of these pieces on the map, and it's extremely time consuming.

The overlay size is covering about 50 miles × 50 miles, and I'd like to get bigger eventually. Can anyone tell me if there is a file size limit, or a better way to keep my quality high when I import hi res overlays?

Feel free to talk technical, I have a pretty good grasp on digital imagery. I also have a very great machine with 4 GB ram. I'm really hoping I can get this to work, it would be soooo sweet. Does the subscription package have better overlay support?

earl

Sorry Earl - I do not want to appear as though I am picking on you (I do realise that this thread IS quite old) - BUT I do start to wonder about the education system that is being used today - I am probably old enough to be a grandfather or even great grandfather to at least some of you and actually left school early to earn a living

It amazes me - try this little test - draw a map on a piece of paper - A4 (or photocopy it - whatever) - then try and put it on a basketball so that it actually lays in relationship to the curve - D**med hard to get it right aint it? - dont even think about a tennis ball

Now - resize your photocopy to the size of a postage stamp and see if you can get THAT to "sit right" on the basketball" - NO? - not yet? - try resising yet again to the size of 1/16th postage stamp and see how it looks

Gee Whizz - it still looks Cr@p

Get the idea? - BIG is NOT always best

I personally would consider 5km x 5km as being fairly high res - therefore (IF I knew how) that is what I would try and add

Btw - I tend to use 35Km to locate my target and then zoom to 35,000ft to isolate it and IF I think it is high res then I go to 3,000ft to check it out - Am I being stupid or something? - I am only a newbie to this stuff and find it fascinating

[Forkboy2]

Hello,

I'm trying to put some hi resolution map overlays into Google Earth Software.

I'm trying to push this thing to the limit, using a very large file size. For some reason, the larger file size I use for my image overlays, the more distorted the quality becomes.

It seems that the software will take a large high quality image, and then reduce the quality until it fits a predetermined size, and then displays it on the map.

If I break up a large image into 2 smaller images, the quality is noticeably better. If I break a large image into 4 or 8 smaller images, the quality is better yet, starting to approach the original file. The problem is that I have to align all of these pieces on the map, and it's extremely time consuming.

The overlay size is covering about 50 miles × 50 miles, and I'd like to get bigger eventually. Can anyone tell me if there is a file size limit, or a better way to keep my quality high when I import hi res overlays?

Feel free to talk technical, I have a pretty good grasp on digital imagery. I also have a very great machine with 4 GB ram. I'm really hoping I can get this to work, it would be soooo sweet. Does the subscription package have better overlay support?

earl

I know this is an old topic, but it's sticky and I see someone seems to have unfairly insulted you a couple weeks ago regarding this question. This is a very common issue that people come across when doing overlays. So here's the answer.

The reason large image files don't look good when overlayed in GE is that there is a limit to the resolution of an image which can be used in GE. That limit is set by the size of your video card RAM and has nothing to do with the size of a postage stame in relation to a basketball. Generally speaking, any overlay over about 2,048 x 2,048 pixels will start to get downsampled for anyone with lestt than 128 megs of video card RAM. If you want to find out your limit, click on Help Menu in GE and select About. It will tell you the max texture size right there for your machine. The larger your overlay is compared to that limit, the more it will get downsampled, and the worse it will look.

So what's the answer? Nested Regions and SuperOverlays, which break a large image up into many smaller ones and only display a small # of them at once. The KML docs have all the info on these so I won't go into detail.

By the way, GE coverts everything to 32-bit textures, so using 8-bit textures won't help with this issue.

Matt

[annarose27]

Well the post was very informative...since I have never used Google Earth..
But now I can actually store my images without any problem...thanks

[JulietteKlonk]

i always use Google earth,is so helpful.