Tutorial: Create a Forward Flyover in Google Earth

Estimated time: 3 minutes.

In this lesson, you will load a dataset that has a listing of X and Y location coordinates, and you will create a flyover along that route, with the viewpoint facing forward along the flight.

! These lessons require that you have Google Earth installed on your computer. Google Earth is not installed along with RockWorks. Please visit www.earth.google.com for download and licensing information.

1. Return to the RockWorks Utilities program window (you can leave Google Earth open if you just completed a different lesson).
   
   
2. Return to the Project Manager pane along the left side of the program window, and, under the Datasheet Files heading, look for the "Flyover_Simple_Forward_01.RwDat" sample file. Double-click on this file name to open it into the datasheet.
   
   This file contains a simple listing of map coordinates in longitude and latitude coordinates.
   
   
3. Click on the EarthApps menu (on the right side of the Utilities menu ribbon), click on the Flyover menu item, and choose the Simple: Camera Looking Forward option.
    
4. Input Columns: In the prompts along the left side of the window, be sure the following columns are selected.
   • X (Easting): X (Easting)
   • Y (Northing): Y (Northing)
   
   In the settings pane to the right, establish these options.
   
   
5. In the settings pane to the right, establish these options.
   • Tour Title: Click to the right and type in: Colorado River.
     
   • Time (Seconds) Between Points: This establishes the pace of the flyover. Click to the right and type in: 1.0
     
   • Altitude (Meters - Relative to Ground): This defines how high above the ground surface, in meters, that you want to "fly". Click to the right and enter: 100.0
     
   • Tilt: This defines the "camera" angle. Enter: -15   for 15 degrees below horizontal (looking downward).
   • Pan Smoothing Factor: Click to the right and enter: 1
     Note that a flyover with smoothing of "2" will create much less camera-bounce around sharp corners than a flyover with smoothing of "0". Beware that high smoothing can cut tight corners.
      
6. Click the Process button at the bottom of the flyover window.
   
   The program will create a KML file listing the flyover path along the datasheet route. It will create a KMZ (zip) file containing the KML file. The Google Earth KML and KMZ file names will be assigned automatically.
   
   
7. If RockWorks displays the KMZ name in a popup window for your reference, you can confirm:
   • Automatically load file into Google Earth: Be sure this is checked if you want to display the output at this time.
   • Show this message every time a KMZ File is Created: If checked, this window will be displayed each time a Google Earth output is created. Uncheck this if you prefer not to see this window in the future.
     (Both of these settings are also available via the Preferences menu.)
     
   • Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel the operation.
   
   The resulting flyover will be displayed in Google Earth, if requested. The "Flyover" group will be listed under Temporary Places on the left side of the Google Earth display. You'll see the flyover controls in the lower-left corner of the screen.
   
   
8. Click the Play button to start the flyover sequence. Click the Pause button to pause the flight.
   
   
9. If you would like to save this flyover, right-click on it and choose Save to My Places.
   
   
10. Leave the Google Earth window open for the next lesson.
     

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