Otakar ČERBA

Google Earth a tematické mapy

Čerba, O.: Google Earth and Thematic Maps. Kartografické listy, 2009, 17, 3 figs., 18 refs.

Abstract: The software application Google Earth is the one of the phenomenon of the current cartography. On the present this program offers not only the very attractive view of our planet, but it contains the map of ancient Rome or a possibility to look under sea too. But a common user applies thematic maps more often than these undoubtedly very interesting cartographic rarities. Thematic maps represent the very simple, but very sophisticated tool making possible a transformation of complicated language of numbers (e.g. statistical indexes or spatial coordi-nates) to graphical language, which is intelligible to everybody upon proper usage)./br This paper is focused on the possibilities of design of thematic maps in the environment of Google Earth. In the first chapter there are shortly described the program Google Earth, its interface and rival applications (e.g. Microsoft Virtual Earth). The following part is focused on the format KML (former Keyhole Markup Language), which codes graphical primitives of generated maps. The final chapter (except conclusion) attends to the method of generating of thematic maps for Google Earth based on XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) templates. There is emphasized so-called control file – the XML file describing all components of formed maps.

Keywords: Google Earth, thematic map, XSLT templates, KML