Kerbin in Google Earth anyone?

[cubinator]

 

So I've been considering an Elcano Challenge attempt, and to do that you need to know where you're going. I wanted to plan out a route beforehand to see what I would need, especially how far I would have to travel through water. I downloaded a map image and came up with this path in MS Paint:

Now that image isn't very high quality for the smaller details like certain islands I could potentially have missed that I can use to refuel my jets. Kerbal Maps has better resolution, but one thing is missing: the ability to plot a path and see how long it is, which is present in: Google Earth. 

I looked up "Kerbin" in Google Earth, and just got some place in Europe. There are no maps of the planet in Google Earth. I looked around in the settings and found an option to "overlay an image." I set it to wrap the image around the whole globe, and then chose my map from the file location. I got this:

Which is not bad for a first attempt. Now, this is still a pretty low-res map for fine navigation, so I was wondering if there was any better way I could do this? I want to use this for finding the exact length of my route. I'm going to try downloading the Kerbal Maps data now, and see what I can do with it. Feedback appreciated if you can help, or think this is cool, or just want to say hi!

[Dreadwave]

Woah, great job on that.

[pandaman]

Now; that is cool.

Sorry, I can't help with the Google Earth thing.

But...  Could you take multiple screenshots from as close to sea level as you like and use those in 'paint' to create multiple route maps?   If you have a survey plane that you land and have in each shot it will give you a constant by which you can scale your screenshots. 

[LordKael]

37 minutes ago, pandaman said:

But...  Could you take multiple screenshots from as close to sea level as you like and use those in 'paint' to create multiple route maps?   If you have a survey plane that you land and have in each shot it will give you a constant by which you can scale your screenshots. 

That is very close to how a real survey would be done. Usually, it is an altitude above sea level as the benchmark though.

[Shpaget]

Keep in mind that the distance measuring tool will give you the distance as calculated is Kerbin was Earth sized, since you are only overlying the image of Kerbin on the Earth size ball.

[JacobT11]

Google Earth is kind of my specialty, been working with it heavily since its launch. As Shpaget said, the big issue you'll run into will be scale. Kerbin is just so much smaller than Earth that you'll need to make your measurements then take the scaling down into account and adjust for that. Might even be able to script it if you're doing a lot of calculations.

Now as for the imagery, Kerbal Maps imagery mightn't be so easy to extract, as it uses a slippy map style way of displaying the imagery, where the overall map is cut into lots of little tiles for multiple zoom levels and then displayed when the user zooms in on them, so it doesn't have to display the entire map at once which would be resource intensive for both server and client. So you could in theory try and download them, but they'll just be many, many tiles that you'd have to stitch into a single large image and then overlay.

Next thought would be extracting the games map files and seeing if they're of a high enough resolution EDIT 2048x4096 is all you get out of the KerbinScaledSpace300.dds, so using the raw game files may not cut it. So perhaps contacting the creator of Kerbal Maps and asking politely if he might happen to have a full scale image of the highest zoom level available. I'll have a poke through the game files and see what I can figure.

Edited December 25, 2015 by JacobT11

[cubinator]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback!

On 12/25/2015 at 3:13 PM, pandaman said:

But...  Could you take multiple screenshots from as close to sea level as you like and use those in 'paint' to create multiple route maps?   If you have a survey plane that you land and have in each shot it will give you a constant by which you can scale your screenshots. 

I'm trying to use an existing map, Kerbal Maps is probably the best source. 

@JacobT11, I remembered that Kerbin is way smaller afterwards, so I'm wondering now if there's a way to add it as a new planet, like the Moon and Mars maps. That would be useful, but I can convert the distances if I have to.

The most important part would be finding a full high res map of Kerbin. If I have to stitch small parts together that would most likely be ok too. I'm downloading all the Kerbin data from Kerbal Maps, but I'm away from my house and computer right now so I'll see what I've got when I get home.

P.S. If I bribe you guys with a Kerbin add-on for Google Earth, will you help me? Disclaimer: I have no idea how to do it at the moment so all help appreciated! 

Edit: I might be able to do some of this with some "Maps Engine" sorcery that I'll have to check out when I get home. 

Edit 2: Apparently Maps Engine is not getting support anymore, so I'll try looking in the Google Earth file directory as a last resort, hoping it's got some .cfg's for the planets that I can copy and edit.

Edit 3: Hey, look! This is my 100th post! 

Edited December 28, 2015 by cubinator
Typo

[JacobT11]

Nope, no known way of creating additional planets or tweaking planet parameters with Google Earth, all that data is hardcoded or pulled from Googles servers. They've got it all locked down tight. Maps Engine may be dead but you could always use the same old software that Kerbal Maps is running, http://leafletjs.com/, clearly it can be used to make custom scale maps, as a lot of different projects use it, and there's plugins for adding measurement capabilities (http://leafletjs.com/plugins.html#measurement). Perhaps the best bet would be to contact the creator of Kerbal Maps and ask if it'd be feasible to implement measurements in his version.

[322997am]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

 

So I've been considering an Elcano Challenge attempt, and to do that you need to know where you're going. I wanted to plan out a route beforehand to see what I would need, especially how far I would have to travel through water. I downloaded a map image and came up with this path in MS Paint:

Now that image isn't very high quality for the smaller details like certain islands I could potentially have missed that I can use to refuel my jets. Kerbal Maps has better resolution, but one thing is missing: the ability to plot a path and see how long it is, which is present in: Google Earth. 

I looked up "Kerbin" in Google Earth, and just got some place in Europe. There are no maps of the planet in Google Earth. I looked around in the settings and found an option to "overlay an image." I set it to wrap the image around the whole globe, and then chose my map from the file location. I got this:

Which is not bad for a first attempt. Now, this is still a pretty low-res map for fine navigation, so I was wondering if there was any better way I could do this? I want to use this for finding the exact length of my route. I'm going to try downloading the Kerbal Maps data now, and see what I can do with it. Feedback appreciated if you can help, or think this is cool, or just want to say hi!

Maybe you could make a better kerbal maps that is like google earth. Amazing what this inventive community thinks up.

[cubinator]

3 minutes ago, JacobT11 said:

Nope, no known way of creating additional planets or tweaking planet parameters with Google Earth, all that data is hardcoded or pulled from Googles servers. They've got it all locked down tight. Maps Engine may be dead but you could always use the same old software that Kerbal Maps is running, http://leafletjs.com/, clearly it can be used to make custom scale maps, as a lot of different projects use it, and there's plugins for adding measurement capabilities (http://leafletjs.com/plugins.html#measurement). Perhaps the best bet would be to contact the creator of Kerbal Maps and ask if it'd be feasible to implement measurements in his version.

Yeah, I figured Google products wouldn't be very moddable... I would contact @saik0, but he seems to have faded away from the forums, at least from looking at his profile page.

[cubinator]

4 hours ago, JacobT11 said:

Now as for the imagery, Kerbal Maps imagery mightn't be so easy to extract, as it uses a slippy map style way of displaying the imagery, where the overall map is cut into lots of little tiles for multiple zoom levels and then displayed when the user zooms in on them, so it doesn't have to display the entire map at once which would be resource intensive for both server and client. So you could in theory try and download them, but they'll just be many, many tiles that you'd have to stitch into a single large image and then overlay.

I just downloaded the Kerbal Maps data provided on MEGA, and it does give the full global map in the highest resolution available on the website. I will paste the color map into Google Earth, and then figure out how to convert the distances properly (in case it's not just d/10).

Edit: Nevmind it is just d/10*. That's not too hard, I can live with it. 

Edit 2: Here's the hi-res map, with my potential circumnavigation path (5071 km on Kerbin):

Much better, isn't it? 

*It's actually d x 0.942 because Kerbin isn't exactly 10x smaller than Earth.

Edited December 26, 2015 by cubinator

[billy bob]

can you give me a download link for that?

[cubinator]

11 hours ago, billy bob said:

can you give me a download link for that?

Here are instructions to what I did:

1. Go to the Kerbal Maps dowload page.

2. Scroll down to the "kerbin_[numbers, etc.]" files. The first one is a color relief map, the second one is an elevation map, the third and fourth are duplicates of a slope map (shows how steep hills are), and the last one is the true color map shown in my pictures. Download all of them if you'd like, but I would just use the last one for starters. I downloaded mine as a .zip, but you can do whatever you want as long as it gets onto your computer.

3. Once the map(s) is done downloading, find it in your file directory and make sure everything's fine with it by opening it in an image browser. Then remember where it is in the directory, because that'll be important later.

4. Open up Google Earth (I'm assuming you have it already since you're on this thread). On the top left of the screen, go to "Add > Image Overlay." It should open up a window. Go to "Location" in the window, and put in the following values: North: 90, South: -90, East: 180, West: -180. This should wrap the green box around the whole globe. Now go to the text box labeled "Link:" and click on "Browse..." Now go to your map in the file directory and select "Open." The app may get stuck for a few moments, this is normal as it's a very big image. When it's done, the globe will look like Kerbin. Name it if you want, and click "OK." 

5. Enjoy!

6. You can repeat this process with the other maps too, if you'd like.

7. Ask me if you have any problems doing any of the above steps, except for #5. I can't help you with that. 

 

All credit for the maps goes to @saik0. I had no part in the creation of them, all I did was paste them into a different app.

Edited December 26, 2015 by cubinator

[JacobT11]

Or, if you don't want to go to the hassle, here's the Kerbin one already processed. It may take a while for the overlay to load when opened in Google Earth as it's fetching a 91mb file from the server. 

http://meteori.tk/ksp/Kerbin.kmz

[cubinator]

BTW I've expanded my use of the map (or "Koogle Kerbin" as I like to call it) and have been using it extensively in my Elcano attempt (see sig). It's been working pretty well, I highly recommend it for long distance ground based projects.

[AlextheBodacious]

This is a Kerbal's best friend for non-space adventures: Kerbal Maps

[Matuchkin]

On 25/12/2015 at 4:52 PM, Shpaget said:

Keep in mind that the distance measuring tool will give you the distance as calculated is Kerbin was Earth sized, since you are only overlying the image of Kerbin on the Earth size ball.

Take the distance, divide it by ten. What, you can't move a decimal point back one space?

[tomf]

Google Earth does have Mars and Moon modes so it must be possible to make it work with different sized bodies.

[SchweinAero]

Maybe this is an irrelevant detail, but what about height? If you're planning a land circumnavigation, some hills can add quite a bit of distance.

[Fearless Son]

8 hours ago, SchweinAero said:

Maybe this is an irrelevant detail, but what about height? If you're planning a land circumnavigation, some hills can add quite a bit of distance.

For that matter, some vehicle designs would be better off going around steep hills than over them.  

[322997am]

On December 25, 2015 at 3:43 PM, cubinator said:

 

So I've been considering an Elcano Challenge attempt, and to do that you need to know where you're going. I wanted to plan out a route beforehand to see what I would need, especially how far I would have to travel through water. I downloaded a map image and came up with this path in MS Paint:

Now that image isn't very high quality for the smaller details like certain islands I could potentially have missed that I can use to refuel my jets. Kerbal Maps has better resolution, but one thing is missing: the ability to plot a path and see how long it is, which is present in: Google Earth. 

I looked up "Kerbin" in Google Earth, and just got some place in Europe. There are no maps of the planet in Google Earth. I looked around in the settings and found an option to "overlay an image." I set it to wrap the image around the whole globe, and then chose my map from the file location. I got this:

Which is not bad for a first attempt. Now, this is still a pretty low-res map for fine navigation, so I was wondering if there was any better way I could do this? I want to use this for finding the exact length of my route. I'm going to try downloading the Kerbal Maps data now, and see what I can do with it. Feedback appreciated if you can help, or think this is cool, or just want to say hi!

Looking on how much Ksp related stuff @SQUAD probably has on their hddves or ssds I would bet they have a 3D spherical interface for all the bodies. So we can bribe them to make a better kebalmaps. Or we could just take the tracking station files and javascriptize them.

[Slam_Jones]

Heyy, kinda off-topic, but I can't help but notice that your projected path is very similar (except for one stretch) to the path I took! 

My actual route differs by two more different routes (crossing water instead of going around on land at two areas, and going north of a mountain range instead of south), but still very similar.  If you haven't done a full circumnav yet, I suggest skimming thru mine to see what kind of issues I came upon.  Knowing is half the battle!

 

Good luck on your circumnavigation!

Edited January 7, 2016 by Slam_Jones

[SpaceJuice]

Wow @cubinator, you realy out done yourself! This is amazing! 

[cubinator]

4 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

Heyy, kinda off-topic, but I can't help but notice that your projected path is very similar (except for one stretch) to the path I took! 

My actual route differs by two more different routes (crossing water instead of going around on land at two areas, and going north of a mountain range instead of south), but still very similar.  If you haven't done a full circumnav yet, I suggest skimming thru mine to see what kind of issues I came upon.  Knowing is half the battle!

 

Good luck on your circumnavigation!

Thanks, your journey did indeed have some helpful hints, such as what parts of the journey are most difficult, such as the first bit and the part on the central continent. I noticed your rover travels over land at up to ~50 m/s?? Mine only goes 20, maybe 25 if I'm feeling adventurous and I never set the timewarp to more than 2x. Mine also should go about 8 m/s in water, so overall my trip is going to take quite a bit longer than yours did, and I have to quickload often because of crashes (both kinds ). I might do some more circumnavigating this weekend, but currently I'm only about halfway through day 2 because of slacking/IRL stuff.

[Slam_Jones]

Well this was back in 0.90, I believe, or whenever we still had souposhere.  Currently, it's a lot harder to make a rover achieve those speeds, or at least was last time I tried.  I kept it warp 1x the entire time, so as to reduce accidents (still broke a lot of stuff...).  To keep it safe(ish) at that speed, I had the over-powered reaction wheels to help keep it glued to the ground when need be, and being able to orient properly in the air for smooth(ish) landings.  Also a more precise method of input than keyboard helps tremendously, if you have something available.

As for getting the speeds I got, I'm not sure it's possible with the current aero stuff.  The basic jet engines seem to be a lot weaker now than back then, and in some cases, even thirstier.  But hey, this is Kerbal: modifying your vessel a billion times is half the fun