Slashgeo

Our last poll about the potential standardization of Google's KML by the OGC provided interesting results: out of about 120 votes, 54% of users believe the OGC should in fact hold the standard for Google's KML. 6% believe it should be standardized but not by the OGC, while 26% believe Google should keep control over KML. 11% answered maybe or that it does not matter. The new poll is about your excitement provided by your geospatial projects, which is somehow related to this previous one.

Green Palolo writes "http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/44454-1.html The Open Geospatial Consortium has dubbed Google’s Keyhole Markup Language – the language used for developing Google Earth – a best practice and is working with Google and other OGC members including ESRI and Autodesk to make sure KML integrates well with such other standards as the Geographic Markup Language. Microsoft — which is continuing development of its Web-based mapping product, Microsoft Virtual Earth — is not currently an OGC member, though it is expected to join soon. Google offered KML 2.1 to the consortium last April and is working closely with OGC in further development of the language. An OGC official said the main advantages of making KML a standard are that it speeds development of Web-based mapping applications, encourages greater interoperability of products and ensures easier movement of data between applications. OGC expects KML 3.0 to be released as a standard early next year." See the several related stories below, this has been covered previously.

Numerous geoblogs discussed KML lately, here's some of them. The High Earth Orbit provides four informative entries on the "KML 3" format: a discussion on the next version of KML, the Core module, the styling module and the metadata module. Ogle Earth also provides some more links on KML 3 and a Firefox extension to show KML data directly in the browser. Finally, Spatially Adjusted display the KML Home Companion 3.0.2 just released and discuss the demo of Arc2Earth V2, the tool to publish ArcGIS data to Google Earth. Make sure you're aware of previous stories below about the standardization of Google's KML by the Open Geospatial Consortium.

Correction : The Google Earth Blog actually reported this story yesterday. My apologies to the blog's author.

Ogle Earth reports first about this major VE update. Head on over there for more details, but the new features are :

• Importing of GeoRSS and GPX and.... KML!
• Bird's eye view in 3D
• 3D modelling
• Better search

A longer more detailed list can be found here in the Virtual Earth Developer Forum. Be sure to check out the Sketchup Killer app they bundled with the update. Right click on the 3D globe, and select "Add 3D model". It will install the modelling app at this point. Update: 10/17 13:39 GMT by S : I added a few related stories below. This is really a major improvement of Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Here's another GEB entry on the new KML support in VE. SharpGIS offers a few interesting screenshots. And be sure to read the official Virtual Earth blog entry. Oh, and Microsoft have rejoined the Open Geospatial Consortium, this is great news!

The Google Earth Blog informs us Google has published a few articles about using KML with their Maps API: "The first article talks about the features which enable time animations in Google Earth. [...] The second article is by Valery Hronusov from Perm Russia on the subject of "Using KML in the Google Mashup Editor"." Related to Google, APB discuss a new Google patent on ranking/clustering geospatial information and Paul Ramsey reacts to it. From the ZDNet entry: "A new Google Patent application entitled Ranking and Clustering of Geo-Located Objects appears to describe a method in which geographical location objects of the type seen in Google Earth and Google Maps would be more efficiently classified in a database."

Microsoft announced a massive November worldwide imagery update, 33.7TB in so many different places you'll have to follow the link to learn more. As much as important, last month's update brought many new features. This week, new features were also added to the VE API: "It is now possible to import 3D collections into VEDataType.VECollection. It is now possible to import KML and GPX data into VEDataType.ImportXML. [...] Localized driving directions can now be accessed through the API. [...] SSL support has been added for the Virtual Earth map control [...]"

The Digital Earth Weblog discuss the new OGC membership availability for individuals: "* Non-voting participation in the Technical Committee (TC) * Non-voting participation in working groups of the TC. * Can be a Participant in OGC Interoperability Initiatives on an in-kind resource basis, without monetary compensation. If I’m reading that correctly it means you can offer your time and expertise for free, but you cannot influence the outcome when it comes to a vote." And not unimportant, the OGC is requesting comments over its version of KML, you have until January 4th. Related, the Free Geography Tools details a free KML to GPX converter and the S-M-GIS blog shortly discuss the integration of KML in Virtual Earth. A few previous related stories copied below.