Thursday, May 6, 2010

Use Network Links to Make Google Earth Load Faster

Google Earth is a superb GIS database resource. You can save all sorts of geographic information to GE, and it will all display every time you start the program. However, every time you save something to your My Places Folder (the method for storing database in GE), it is saved to a single My Places KMZ file that can become very large, cumbersome, and difficult for GE to process upon startup. There is a fairly simple workaround to the inefficiency of storing all your Google Earth Database on one KMZ file.

First you have to create a KMZ file seperate from your My Places KMZ file. When you GIS information is temporarily stored in GE, it is located in the Temporary Places Folder. From here, it can be saved to either you My Places Folder (which will make it large and unwieldy), or you can save it separately. A KMZ file can also be created from within the My Places folder.

Save the link to a separate location – this will be used for setting up the network link.

save kmz file

Add the Network Link

select network link

Select the KMZ file previously saved from the Temporary Places Folder

open saved kmz file

Name the KMZ File as it should appear in the My Places Folder

named network link

The Network Link is stored in the My Places folder. This significantly reduces the core database size being loaded at startup, and makes Google Earth much faster.

stored network link