Newbie needs some guidance.

Hello,

I've been a causal Google Earth user, but now I'm attempting something new and I haven't discovered yet how to accomplish my goal. I don't know if it is possible. I'd appreciate any guidance possible. 

I have learned how to create a working overlay today on my desktop version of GE. What I have completed thus far is an overlay portion of hunting districts at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. It looks almost perfect on the desktop GE.

Now, what I want to do is...

1. View the overlay on my smartphone GE app. I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

and...

2. Be able to share or make available the overlay to other base hunters so they can view it as well on their smartphones.

If there are any detailed instructions on how to accomplish this, please provide any links that may help me.

Thank you,

Dave

Howdy Dave, welcome to the GEC.

Sharing on Google Earth has become difficult since the retirement of the Old GEC and the srapes of user contributions to the Community layers.

You can still create files and share them with others in places like this, but you're limited to those that browse this forum.

Seeing as you're interested in sharing with folk via mobile apps, I reckon it would be worth your while to check out My Maps .

There are plenty of ways to customize a My Maps map as well as also importing a .KMZ file that you've created in GE to it.

That way your map is available to the public as well as anyone else you choose to send the My Maps link to.

Hope that helps Dave.

Cheers.

Thanks for the response. I tried My Maps, but unfortunately, the KMZ file size is limited to 5 MB. Currently, my two files sizes are 20 MB and 28 MB. If I have to crop the maps down to smaller sizes, boy is that going to be lot of extra work.



I tried the KML files too, that didn't work.



Got any other ideas? VAFB is 27 miles long and up to 12 miles wide.

Hi There

Using Maps would be the Best Option..  Bit of extra work but better for the End Result.

Split your KMZ file into Areas or smaller Sections and Use the Layer option in My Maps

Each Section can be Imported to its own Layer..

Or separate Maps for different Areas..

IE.. If you were only going to be in 1 area you don't want ALL the Layers loaded into the Device...  Just Load the Area that is required.

I created a smaller KMZ with just one hunting district that's less than 5 MB. Yet it still doesn't work. I get the following message in the layer box: 1 row couldn't be shown on the map. The map layer is listed but not showing up. 

Hi Dave,

Overlays do not work in My Maps. [I've tried! ]Unless the district perimeters are really complicated or convoluted, you could use the Polygon tool to trace the outline of the districts on your overlay as separate polygons in Google Earth. Export that/Them to a KML file and import the KML into a layer in My Maps. You may have to gather the polygons into a folder.  You can assign line & fill color and transparency in My Maps. You will have a lot more freedom to edit and move polygons in MY MAps than you do in GE.

B66

If my suggestion does not pan out, the official Google Maps/Earth Help Forum may provide you with more assistance than you can find here.

Just wanted to drop in and offer my thanks for helping me. I got it all figured out and I'm creating boundary maps with overlays. The unexpected hitch I ran into today was the layer limit is 10. Oh, well, I'll just have to work around that by creating individual maps for each district anyway. That may be better in the long run as suggested by nostranger. I did get some feedback from some hunters and it was good.

Hi Dave...yes, your best bet in organizing is to have multiple My Map maps with 10 individual maps per file .  You can add up to 2000 items to each Layer but I would think having multiple maps on each layer would get confusing.  We all hope Google will relent and increase the number of available layers substantially. I do not recall the number but the number of layers in the old My Maps was in the hundreds.

Glad to hear you got it working!

B66

PS.- DO NOT FORGET TO BACKUP...BACKUP...BACKUP your maps! People have inadvertently deleted their maps when cleaning up their files on Google Drive, which is where the My Maps maps are now held.