MicroStation Google Earth Tools

Google Earth
Google Earth is an application that provides the user with a 3D interface to planet Earth that is complemented by a large range of geographical data and the ability to access this data through the Google search engine. The MicroStation tools provide a bidirectional interface to Google Earth. The MicroStation user can export geometric data to Google Earth so that it can be viewed in the context of satellite data, aerial photography, maps and other geographical data or capture images from Google Earth for use as raster references within MicroStation. Geographic location of design geometry is the key to interfacing to Google Earth. This information can either be specified automatically from projections defined in GeoGraphics or defined manually by specifying one or more monuments points that correspond to Google Earth placemarks. Google Earth is intended to provide a worlds-eye view of geometry and geography it is not intended to be a CAD viewer. Its greatest value is in providing a rich, accurate and intuitive backdrop for the AEC projects that users design, document and maintain with MicroStation. Google Earth is designed and optimized for spatially large designs, but it is not intended for visualizing geometric detail. Including excessive detail will quickly exceed the current capacity of the Google-Viewer. For this reason it is important to carefully select and export only the geometry that is both visible and valuable to the Google Earth viewer. The Google Earth Viewer is available as a free download from Google.

KML Overview
MicroStation provides data to Google Earth as KML documents. KML is a dialect of XML that is designed specifically as a conduit for providing information to Google Earth. It is a 3D file geometry format that is somewhat similar to Universal 3D (U3D) format used by to represent 3D geometry in PDF files. KML differs from U3D in that it primarily intended to represent geometry on a global scale, whereas U3D is focused on accurate visualization of 3D geometry. The current version of KML includes only relatively inefficient structures for representing CAD data and contains no provision for specifying data such as material properties or texture maps that can greatly increase the visual realism of design data. KML is, however, a relatively new format, and only in its second major revision. It is reasonable to expect that as Google Earth and KML mature that its capabilities will be expanded to more accurately and efficiently represent CAD geometry. MicroStation geometry exported to KML retains the Reference File and Level (layer) structure defined in the design file. This allows the Google Earth user to selectively control the display of individual levels or reference files. Saved views are also saved to KML so that they can be used to navigate to views of interest in Google Earth.

Google Earth Tools

The Google Earth tools are provided in the Google Earth tool palette available from the Tools menu.

Defining Geographic Location

In order to accurately specify the geographic location of geometry to Google-Earth it is necessary to provide both the design file location and the orientation. There are three ways to accomplish this. 1) Use the GeoGraphics applications and their associated projection capabilities to handle geographic projections 2) Use a single Placemark Monument to define the location of a known point in the geometry and the Define North tool to indicate the orientation. In order to use this method, the geometry must be drawn to scale accurately and the working units must be set correctly so that the geometry size is known. Note: The North direction can also be defined using an interactive method available from the Solar Lighting section of the Rendering->Global Lighting dialog 3) Place three or more Placemark Monuments to provide the complete projection transform (location, orientation and scale). This method is useful when accurate scale and orientation information is not known and an approximate projection is sufficient. When this method is used a best fit transformation is calculated to provide the best match to the monument points.

The Define Placemark Monument tool

Keyin: googleearth placemark define The Define Placemark Monument tool is used to associate a geographical location from a Google Earth Placemark file to a Monument point in a design file.

1) In order to create a Placemark file in Google Earth, first use the PlaceMark tool to add a placemark at a known location. Then select the placemark and choose Save As with KML as the file type. 2) After creating the placemark file, use the Define Placemark Tool in MicroStation to associate the Placemark to a known location in the design file. After selecting the tool, enter a datapoint to define the monument point and then select the placemark file created in step 1. Additional datapoints may be entered to define multiple placemarks. The Active Scale setting can be used to control the size of the placemark cell.

Placemark Cells Placemark monuments are simply cells named KmlPlacemark with text, enter-data fields representing the longitude, latitude and altitude of the placemark. The origin of the cell represents the location of the placemark in the design file. As they are standard cell elements, their design file location can be modified simply by moving the cells. The longitude, latitude and altitude values can also be modified directly by editing the appropriate text elements. Placemark cell geometry is placed as Construction class on the KML Placemark level which can be turned off to avoid displaying or exporting the monument geometry. The placemark cell is located in the KmlPlacemark.cel cell library in the system cell folder.

Removing Placemark Monuments A keyin: googleearth placemark delete is provided to remove all placemark monument cells from the current design file.

Google Earth Export Settings

Keyin: dialog googleearth The Google Earth Export Settings dialog box is used to control settings and operation of the Export Google Earth tool. Stroke Tolerance (Meters): This setting is used to control the accuracy of the mesh approximating curves or curved surfaces. A smaller value will produce a more accurate representation at the expense of increased file size and slower display speeds. As the KML format is relatively verbose and the current version of Google Earth does not handle models with a large number of polygons, it is important not to specify a smaller stroke tolerance than necessary. Transparency Override: This setting is used to control the level of transparency for the Google Earth geometry. In some cases including a level of transparency is desirable as it allows the design geometry to be displayed without obscuring the aerial photography below it. Convert Undisplayed Levels: If this item is not selected, then only geometry on visible levels is exported. It is very important to export only the minimum amount of data necessary for visualization in Google Earth so turning off levels for interior geometry on

buildings or other unseen geometry is recommended. If Convert Undisplayed Levels is selected then all levels are exported, but undisplayed levels will have their display turned off in Google Earth. The display of any level in can be accessed in Google Earth by opening the Levels folder.

Convert Custom Line Styles: Google Earth has no support for line styles. It displays only solid lines. If this setting is selected then Custom Line Styles will be converted to KML by dropping them to their individual components. Selecting this option will produce correct display of the linestyle but can substantially increase file size and degrade performance. Convert Raster References To Ground Overlays: Google Earth has the ability to display images as Ground Overlays rather than the usual aerial or satellite imagery. If this setting is selected then Raster References in the X-Y plane are automatically converted to Ground Overlays. The Raster Reference overlays are placed in a separate Raster References folder. Their display can be controlled as a group by selecting the folder or individually by selecting the individual references. Include Raster References in KMZ File: If this option is selected and a compressed (KMZ) file is being generated then the raster references files will be copied into the output file. This makes it possible to package the images and geometry within a single file. Open File After Export: If this option is selected Google Earth will be opened immediately after a file is export and will navigate automatically to the current MicroStation view of the exported geometry. If Google Earth is already open it will navigate to view the exported geometry. 3D Settings Render Mode: Controls the rendering model for Google Earth display. If From View is selected then the rendering mode from the current view is used. Altitude Mode: This setting controls the interpretation of altitude values in GoogleEarth. In order to understand the implications of this setting it is important to understand how Google Earth handles altitude. Google Earth has two ways of rendering the Earths surface. If the Google Earth Terrain setting is off then the variations in altitude (mountains, valleys etc.) are ignored and the Earth is depicted a perfect sphere (ellipsoid). If the Terrain setting is enabled then the variations in altitude in are depicted in the Google Earth display. This setting applies only to 3D design files for 2D design files, the Flatten To Ground option is always used. There are three options for altitude mode:

Relative to Ground: In this mode, the altitude value is interpreted as a distance from the ground plane. In this mode, geometry with a positive value is always displayed. As the altitude is interpreted as a distance from the ground, this can produce distortion in the display of geometry when the Terrain setting is enabled and there are significant changes in altitude. Absolute: In this mode all altitude values are interpreted relative to sea level. Flatten To Ground: In this mode all altitude values are interpreted as being at ground level. This setting is useful for any data that is truly 2D. For 3D geometry this has the effect of flattening the geometry and is usually not desirable. Altitude Bias (Meters): Google Earth is based on the physical representation of the Earth with coordinates specified by longitude, latitude and altitude. Geometry with negative altitude values are typically not displayed (obscured by the Earths surface). The Altitude Bias setting specifies a value that is added to each coordinate in a KML file. A positive value will move geometry up from ground level; a negative value will move geometry toward the ground. See the Altitude Mode setting for additional information on controlling the interpretation of altitude values. Convert Wireframe Geometry In Rendered Views: If this option is not selected then unshaded geometry (text, lines, curves, dimensions etc.) will not be exported to Google Earth if the render mode is not wireframe.

Export Google Earth (KML) File

Keyin: export googleearth <filename> Once the Geographic Location and Google Earth Export settings are selected, exporting to Google Earth is straightforward. After selecting the Export tool and choosing the name of the export file, the design geometry is exported to Google Earth. There are two file types available, Kmz and Kml. Kmz is a compressed version of Kml. As the compressed files are recognized and extracted automatically by Google Earth, and KML documents are typically fairly large, the compressed form is preferable. The default directory for exporting KML documents can be controlled by setting the configuration variable MS_KMLOUT. If this variable is not set, the output directory will default to the current design file location. The export process is WYSIWYG as what you see is what you get. The view attributes, display mode and level setting of the current view which is determined by the last view in which you enter a data point. Therefore it is important to set up the view as you would like it to display in Google Earth. Minimizing the output to include only necessary data is important so unnecessary levels should be turned off. If text and dimensions are to be excluded from the output file then their view attributes should be disabled. If the display for the current view is wireframe then only wireframe data is exported to Google Earth . While this is appropriate for 2D designs, for most 3D designs it will be desirable to set the view to one of the rendered modes (smooth, hidden line etc.). If a display set is active then only geometry in the display set is exported. Clip volumes and masks are not currently honored, but may be added in a future version. Automating Export to Google Earth: The keyin export googleearth can be used with the filename qualifier to automate the export process. If the filename is omitted then the design file name will be substituted. For example if the file projecta.dgn is open, keying in export googleearth c:\googleout\ will export the file projecta.kmz in the googleout directory. It is possible to use this keyin in conjunction with the batch processor utility to automate the export of a selected set of files. Convert Custom Line Styles: Google Earth has no support for line styles. It displays only solid lines. If this setting is selected then Custom Line Styles will be converted to KML by dropping them to their individual components. Selecting this option will produce correct display of the linestyle but can substantially increase file size and degrade performance.

Open File After Export: If this option is selected Google Earth will be opened immediately after a file is export and will navigate automatically to the current MicroStation view of the exported geometry. If Google Earth is already open it will navigate to view the exported geometry.

Synchronize Google Earth View

Keyin: googleearth synch

The Synchronize Google Earth View tool will cause Google Earth to navigate to the current MicroStation view. If Google Earth is not open when the tool is used, it will be opened automatically. As Google Earth supports only a limited camera model with a fixed lens length and restricts the camera to pointing only downward, the Google Earth views will not always match the MicroStation view exactly, but should provide a relatively good approximation for most views.

Follow Google Earth View

Keyin: googleearth follow The Follow Google Earth View tool will match the current MicroStation view to the current Google Earth view location. This tool will work only if the design file location is geographically close to the current Google Earth location.