Problem with big kml file

[kronos]

If I try to open a big kml file (250 megabytes) Google.Earth is freeze
and do not open this file. Is there are some limitations on kml file?
How i can validate this file, may be it is corrupted?
Samsonov Ivan.

[barryhunter]

I don't think Google Earth imposes a restriction as such.

However as GE has to open the file and probably store a majority of it
in memory for quick access, your computer memory will have an effect.
For example I find since upgrading I can open bigger files, much
quicker.

Also it might simply be that it is taking a long time to parse, so
appears frooze, but will actully come back later.

It's probably the number of objects in the file rather than the raw
file size that makes a diference, but not sure.

As for validating you could try downloading feedvalidator.org, you
wont be able to use th oneline one for such a file, but its open
source so could run it locally.

[Jonathan van Tuijl]

My guess is that it's just too large. On my machine Google Earth
(4.1.7076.4458 (beta) on Mac; last time I checked the newer version
only existed for other platforms) takes long enough to load/unload
10000 points, and can't render them at decent framerates. And that's
nothing like your 250 MB. Other types of geometry (or perhaps features
that can be turned on/off individually in the sidebar) may have a
better performance/size ratio, but I doubt they scale well enough. Did
you look at http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_21tutorial.html#workingregions
, or as the 3D warehouse does, picking only items in view from a
database with a script/program?

Jonathan

[Jason M]

A single KML on the order of 250 MB does has some real performance problems in Google Earth. To investigate the limits I've created a KML generator that generates 1000's of placemarks either globally distributed or clustered. Didn't really see major problems until it hit 100,000+ placemarks. 500K really makes things go badly.

However, this just shows that when a single KML is too large you should break it up in smaller KML files and use combination of NetworkLinks, radio buttons, and regions to limit what is loaded and displayed at any given time. Google Earth client can scale to many millions of placemarks but not loaded all at once. Large KML needs to be designed in such a way to scale efficiently.