InterMapper 5.1 exports the following information so that Google Earth can place them in the proper location.

View a video: You can view a short tutorial video about Google Earth Integration from the Product Videos section of the Video tours page.

• Devices are represented by their status badges (green, yellow, orange, red circle icons)
• Networks ovals are shown as cloud icons.
• Links between devices are shown as lines.
• Status windows for each of these items are displayed when you click on them
• Each map is represented as one of the "Places" at the left side of Google Earth

To be displayed in Google Earth, a device must have geographic information; devices that do not have geographic information are not displayed at all. Geographic information may be set in two ways:

• Explicitly, through the use of the Set Info->Set Latitude and Longitude command in the InterMapper GUI, or
• Implicitly, by establishing benchmarks via Insert->Map Benchmark or similar.

In the latter case, the device's latitude and longitude are inferred from the x/y position on the map, relative to the established benchmarks; this process is inherently imprecise. In the case where both explicitly set coordinates and benchmarks are available, InterMapper uses the explicitly set coordinates and ignores the benchmarks.

How to Use It

Google Earth requests information from the InterMapper server using HTTP. Consequently, the InterMapper web server interface must be enabled in the Server Settings. The Google Earth connection uses the same authentication method as the web interface; you must have appropriate web access permissions for any map you wish to view in Google Earth. (Google Earth will prompt you for the username and password.) Google Earth does not need to be installed on the InterMapper server, though its machine must have appropriate access permissions established in the InterMapper web server firewall.

Google Earth uses a "Network Link" with a URL that Google Earth uses to request information from InterMapper.

The easiest way to get the URL is to use the InterMapper web interface. Go to a map's page, and click the "View this map in Google Earth" at the bottom of each page. That link returns a .kml file; assuming Google Earth has been properly installed, your browser should offer to open that link in Google Earth; if it does not, save the resulting file and open it manually in Google Earth. When everything is properly set up, you will see the status badges for your devices hovering over the surface of the Earth in appropriate locations. You may click on a device badge and see the corresponding Status Window. The map refreshes automatically every 5 minutes.