Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: Mapping and GIS Lessons for Poets, Historians, and Scientists: Google Earth Activity 1

Google Earth: Placemarks, Paths, Layers, and Legends

Learning Objectives and Outcomes
Two Placemarks and a Path

Prerequisite: Download and Install Google Earth Desktop Pro.

Instructions:

Think of a particular question you wish to answer or situation you want to illustrate using pins and paths.
Create at least two pins (hyperlinked, styled, illustrated).
Create a path between two pins (hyperlinked, styled, illustrated).
Save path and pins to My Places in Google Earth.

Learning Objectives

Become familiar with the tools and features of the Google Earth interface.
Consider what types of GE map tools can answer which sorts of questions.

Discussion Questions

What do you think of the usability of creating paths and pins in Google Earth ? How easy was it to do?
What do you think of the appearance of the paths and pins in Google Earth ?
What advantages and disadvantages are there to heavy hyperlinks and illustrations, and even multimedia in digital maps?

Learning Outcomes

Develop enough practice with GE be familiar with the interface.
Learn about the possibilities as well as limitations of GE.

GE: Create Placemarks
Follow these instructions to add a new placemark to any spot in the viewer.
more...less...
Position the viewer to contain the spot you want to placemark. Consider zooming into the best viewing level for the desired location.
❍ Select Placemark from the Add Menu.
❍ Click the Pushpin icon on the toolbar menu at the the top of the screen The New Placemark dialog box appears and a New Placemark icon is centered in the viewer inside a flashing yellow square. Position the placemark. To do this, position the cursor on the placemark until the cursor changes to a pointing finger and drag it to the desired location. The cursor changes to a finger pointing icon to indicate that you can move the placemark. You can also lock the placemark position or set advanced coordinates for its position. Set the following properties for the new placemark:
❍ Name for the placemark
❍ Description, including HTML text (see Writing Descriptions)
❍ Style, Color - Choose a color, scale (size) and opacity for the placemark icon
❍ View - Choose a position for the placemark. For explanation of terms in this tab, mouse over each field.
❍ Altitude - Choose the height of the placemark as it appears over terrain with a numeric value or the slider. Choose Extend to ground to show the placemark attached to a line anchored to the ground.
❍ (Icon) - Click the icon for the placemark (top right corner of the dialog box) to choose an alternate icon.
2. Click OK to apply the information you entered in the placemark dialog box. Your placemark appears in the 3D viewer and as an entry in the selected folder. Once you save this placemark, you can always change its position and properties.

Edit Placemark
If you need to modify the properties of the Placemark (including its location) after you’ve created it, there are several ways to open the Edit Placemark window: you can right-click on the pin in the map itself or in the sidebar and choose Properties. If you only need to change the name, you can right-click (again, in either location) and choose Rename. The location can only be modified when the Edit Placemark window is open.
You can also change the symbol for your Placemark (see Figure 6 by clicking on the icon to the right of the Name field.

Note: On a Mac, access the Edit Placemark window by control/secondary-clicking the pin, then choose Get Info.

Placemark Dialog Box
Type in a description for the placemark in the Description field, which will be displayed when a user clicks on the placemark. You can also add an image via a link or local image.

Placemark Style
Click on the Style, Color tab, and choose a color, scale (or size), and opacity for the placemark icon and label text. In this example, we choose to change our label color to red.

Completed Placemark with Popup image
Now, look at the finished Placemark.

Make a Second Placemark:

Choose a place within walking distance of the first placemark, so that you can create a path that would be walkable in the real world.

Here is the Maryland Monument of Lookout Hill, famous for George Washington's quote: "Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!"

Here is the same monument seen through the GE interface. To find this I "entered" Prospect Park (via GE) in the rough location of Lookout Hill, and searched for the monument. Then I dropped a placemark manually on the spot.

Maryland Monument, Google Earth

Create a Path
Click the Add Path button at the top left of your map. A New Path dialog box appears.

Click on a series of places on the map to form a path. Each time you click, a new node is added to your path. You can also click-and-drag to create frequent nodes, which makes a smoother path.

In the New Path dialog box, type in a name for the path in the Name field.

Click on the Style, Color tab, and choose a color, width, and opacity for the path.