Is KML/KMZ right for what I want to do?

[Stephanie19]

Hi,

I'm a newbie to Google Earth and am trying to use the program as a
marketing tool for the company I work for. Can you advise if I am
going in the right direction with my thinking?

In a nutshell, what I want to do is create a KMZ to do virtual garden
tours of some of our projects (we are design/build landscape
architects). Ideally, the KMZ would be played as a tour with stops at
each address we want the client to see, and at each stop there would
be photos and possibly a jpg of a scanned design, as well as some text
about the particular project. I would also like each stop to be ony
100 meters above the ground, with custom set tilt, if possible.

Is KMZ the correct application for this? Should I instead create a
movie? Is there any reason I would need Pro for KMZ files?

As a second question (and this is probably not the proper forum for
this), I would like to upload photos of hardscapes/gardens to the
permanent Google Earth world, with our company name, but after
reviewing the rules after creating my Panaramio account, I think this
may be in violation. Before I waste all the time to upload the
photos, just to find out in April that they were not accepted, could
you verify that I can/cannot do that?

Thanks much for any advice.

[Jonathan van Tuijl]

Stephanie19 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm a newbie to Google Earth and am trying to use the program as a
> marketing tool for the company I work for.  Can you advise if I am
> going in the right direction with my thinking?
>
> In a nutshell, what I want to do is create a KMZ to do virtual garden
> tours of some of our projects (we are design/build landscape
> architects).  Ideally, the KMZ would be played as a tour with stops at
> each address we want the client to see, and at each stop there would
> be photos and possibly a jpg of a scanned design, as well as some text
> about the particular project.  I would also like each stop to be ony
> 100 meters above the ground, with custom set tilt, if possible.
>
> Is KMZ the correct application for this?  Should I instead create a
> movie?

KML/KMZ looks about right. You can use PhotoOverlays or images in
description balloons to show pictures. Each Feature (any object in the
sidebar) can have a custom view associated with it, including tilt and
distance, and that's where a tour should go. If you can live with the
file size you can distribute everything in a single KMZ file, but
there are numerous ways to load data dynamically from a web server if
needed.

> Is there any reason I would need Pro for KMZ files?

You don't need any GE to create the files, although it helps to use it
for visual placement and testing, for which the free version is
sufficient.

Jonathan

[Stephanie19]

Thanks for your help/advice, Jonathan.

As I work through this, I may have more questions!

> Jonathan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -