OpenTopography Blog

Information and discussion related to high-resolution LiDAR topography for the Earth sciences

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Category: Google Earth

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Taking a look at the new Intermountain Seismic Belt GeoEarthScope LiDAR

Posted on Thu, May 07, 2009 by ccrosby in Data • Google Earth

Officially released earlier today, the Intermountain Seismic Belt (ISB) GeoEarthScope LiDAR dataset, covering parts of the Wasatch fault in Utah, and Yellowstone and Tetons National Parks in Wyoming, is quite spectacular.  I’ve been browsing the data via the Google Earth KMZ hillshade file that I produced and thought I’d post some screen captures to encourage you to download the file and explore the data too.  The DEM data that was used to generate these hillshades can be downloaded from the OpenTopography Standard DEM page.  The full ISB point cloud will be available via OpenTopography soon.

Fault scarp cutting glacial moraines at the base of Tetons (south of Jenny Lake):

Scarp on the southern part of the Nephi strand of the Wasatch fault:

Unfiltered surface for the Old Faithful area - shows buildings (Historic Old Fatihful Inn at left), vegetation, and cars in the parking lot:

Spectacular faults at the east end of the Elephant Plateau dataset - with vegetation:

Filtered to remove vegetation:

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Global Shaded Relief for Google Earth

Posted on Mon, April 06, 2009 by ccrosby in Data • Google Earth • Resources

The SRTM KML Project has released a very nice network-linked KML which displays shaded relief images derived from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation models in Google Earth.  Their website reports:

This version covers the entire SRTM dataset (80% of the land on the Earth).  It is based on the SRTM V2 product.  A new “fill” algorithm was developed at CCIC, which significantly improved the cartographic quality of the layer without compromising the accuracy.

The global SRTM shaded relief KML file can be downloaded from: http://srtmkml.googlepages.com/

Via Google Earth blog

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USGS Topo Maps for Google Earth

Posted on Mon, March 23, 2009 by ccrosby in Data • Google Earth • Resources

The Google Earth Library has announced that they are in the process of importing all 50,000+ USGS topographic maps into KML format for use in Google Earth.  From the website:

A couple months ago I began a project to import all 50,000+ USGS Topographic Maps into Google Earth. This is a huge undertaking that will likely take me several more months to finish all 50 US States. These maps are intended to provide a free alternative to expensive commercial products that often cost $80 or more per state or charge monthly access fees.  Plus you get the benefit of using the topo maps with Google Earth.

The Topo maps are saved as individual KMZ files which must be downloaded in their entirety before they will be visible in Google Earth.  Most of the maps are less than 5 megabytes, but some are as large as 20 megabytes so the speed at which the maps load will depend greatly on the speed of your Internet connection.

Currently, topo quads are available for Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Learn more and download the KML file at: http://www.gelib.com/usgs-topographic-maps.htm

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