Earth API to display KML on Maps.

[dhruv shukla]

Hello,

As of now my whole application is built using google maps API. And plan to keep that the same way. The new requirement is to parse and load KML files onto the google maps. But with map limitation to publicly expose the KML files, the only way I could do that is on client side using third party JS libraries, which is very very slow.

I have been looking into the possibility of doing client side KML parsing using Earth Plugin. Also saw some examples of earth integration into google maps API. But still not sure how that is possible. And finally with integration how to invoke the earth api to do an overlay on maps to display the KML using client side rendering.

Can someone help me or point me to the right document which does that. Or have any idea on how to accomplish my task?

-Drew.

[barryhunter (KML Guru)]

The only reason Googles KML rendering appears fast, is it can throw their server compute power at it. 

So really the only way would be to use your own server to do parsing and rendering (particully with caching), maybe turning the KML inot JSON. 

I really doubt that using the Earth API would help you - even if it was possible, which I dont think it is. Loading the plugin just to do parsing is probably more work than doing parsing in JS. 

Most of the 'slowness' is probably more from having to render lots of features in the API, rather than actual XML parsing. You miss out on the optimization that Google servers can do Particlly that they can render image tiles, rather than manipuatling lots of JS objects. 

The other minor porblem is your map needs to be public anyway, so not really sure how that works, without the KML feeds also being public. 

[dhruv shukla]

We do have map server installed, but its KML rendering isnt sufficient, it lacks what google offers. Is there any other server that I could use to generate tiles.

Could you recommend me some good libraries which could parse KML on the client?

.