getting started with Goggle earth

[jrlin]

How would one get started communicating with Goggle earth. I have downloaded a Google Earth-KH 80.llb which someone named JamesC wrote. Which is GREAT.  But there are more functions that are acseable throw earth.idl . How would I get started on writing them or using them in labView?

http://earth.google.com/comapi/index.html

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=217121&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

[RJay]

Does an API exist for Google Earth?

[jrlin]

Hi,
       I'm sorry to say that I don't even know what API Is. What dose API stand for? I have worked with .dll before but never  with .idl

[smercurio_fc]

API = Application Programming Interface.

Google Earth has an ActiveX interface. The library you got from that thread uses that, and it has just some of the functions. If you need to access additional functions you need to create additional VIs to access the other functions. You can use the VIs that already exist in the library as a template.

I would also suggest reading this: ActiveX and LabVIEW.

[jose.r.linares@aero.org]

Thanks for taking the time in explaining that. I have been trying to use the library as a template with sum success. I've notice that when I select Active x class there are allot of chose’s in the TYPE Library (Google Earth 1.0 Type Library Version  1.0 ) about 30. Do all of theses come standard with Google earth when I installed it. For example is the EARTHLib.IKHInterface? or did someone else other then Google write them. Which should I use? 

Also is there a way of opening Google earth within LabVIEW?

Like in the ActiveX Event Callback for IE.vi in the labview help>>find active x exmaples

Thanks again for all your help

[smercurio_fc]

I can't tell you what Google Earth installs or what it doesn't install, as I don't have it. It's not unusual to have lots of ActiveX classes available, and this is not surprising given the complexity of Google Earth. You can see what classes are actually used by the existing code you have by right-clicking on the ActiveX controls (the "refnum in " controls that seem to be used in many of the subVIs) and selecting "Select ActiveX Class..." from the popup menu. That will tell you what class is used.

As for which class you're supposed to use, that's what the API documentation is for. It tells you what to use depending on what you want to do.

I do not know if there's a way to open Google Earth from LabVIEW. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. I assume you're referring to actually launching the application. Again, if there's a command to do that in the API, it will be in the documentation.

As for callbacks, I hate to sound like a broken record, but if the API exposes callbacks, then they can be used by LabVIEW, just like the examples.

[jose.r.linares@aero.org]

Thanks for helping me. I'm going to send some time reading  API documentation.