Images not saved with KMZ files?

[GeoGuy]

If you load a KMZ file with embedded images in GE and then save it, the structure of the KMZ file isn't preserved. All that's saved is the KML file in the archive's root. The archive's "Images" folder is lost. This results in the images not appearing in the GE fly-out windows after it's saved.

Can someone please explain why this happens? Is it a bug or is the method of embedding images inside a KMZ file via an Images folder an unsupported feature that's not fully implemented?

Here's an example KMZ file:

http://www.robogeo.com/home/robogeo.kmz

To reproduce the issue:

1. Load the KMZ file in GE.
2. Note how the photos appear in the flyout windows.
3. Save it in GE.
4. Close GE.
5. Start GE.
6. Note how the photos do not appear in the flyout windows and how the embedded Images folder was lost during the save.

Any help will be appreciated...

[IntrepidAntipodean]

Did you ever find a solution to this, I am facing the same problem.

[GeoGuy]

Nope.

[tekgergedan]

Lets have a look.

1. I clicked your link above
2. I saw your 6 placemarks (BTW it is not "custom image title"; we call it "placemark name")
But no "images" folder is downloaded
3. I saved your top folder
4. I quit and reopen the GE
5. I reload your kmz from my harddisk
6. I still see the photos in your placemarks.
No problem...

PS: I hope you save the folder as kmz and not kml.

[macnetz]

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:p No problem...

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Hi,

you and the OP missed the point
- Save the KMZ file and Replace the original KMZ file

Regards - Anton

[GeoGuy]

You're right, the 'Save As' menu option preserves the KMZ's structure.

I wasn't originally clear in the steps to reproduce the problem... Don't use the pull-down menus. After loading the KMZ file, try to close GE. You'll get the "You have unsaved items in your Temporary Places folder. Do you want to save them in your My Places folder?" prompt. Select YES.

Then reopen GE and note how the KMZ's structure has been lost, including the internal \Images folder.

BTW, I said "custom image title" instead of "placemark name" in the KMZ because I was typing in the context of my product which uses "image titles".

Tim Helton

[tekgergedan]

I am not sure... Whatever I tried out, the images are there.
And I dont understand what the "images" folder is. Maybe something I dont know. As much as I know about what a folder is, there is already no images folder. Or is it somewhere else/hidden?

[tekgergedan]

Now, got it. But what is "Images" folder?

[IntrepidAntipodean]

The images folder is within the kmz file scructure. If you opened the kmz with something that opens zip files you'd see that there is a kml inside and a folder called images with graphics inside. This folder won't show up in GE, but it referenced in the placemark description. Look at the links to the graphics, they are something like src=image/ImageName.jpg

[GeoGuy]

The \Images folder I refer to is in the KMZ file, not a GE "folder".

Download http://www.robogeo.com/home/robogeo.kmz, rename it with a ZIP file extension, then look at it with your ZIP viewer. You'll see an \Images folder and in it all of the images. In the KML file, you'll see how you can reference the images in the \Images "folder" using relative paths.

Tim Helton

[IntrepidAntipodean]

This doesn't solve the original problem though. Saving it out to disk doesn't help because I already have it as a loose file on my computer, I could just duplicate that file. I want to save it into MyPlaces in GE, file it into one of the subfolders there, but everytime it gets moved/saved into MyPlaces the images get lost. In image overlays the paths to the images within the kmz are changed, it seems logical to me that the same should happen for those that are in placemark descriptions (if they are referencing images within the kmz, not stored else where locally or remotely). I've sent it in as a bug to Google.


Ideas anyone?

[tekgergedan]

This is the first time I hear about embedded images.

When you "Save as" (and I understood that in your first post), there is no problem. Ie if you make it a file, it is OK. Otherwise, it fools.

It is clearly a bug.

Good observation macnetz, thank you... We could go on debating if you did not realize our 'miss'.

[oneword]

Hi

As I see it, the MyPlaces folder is loaded from a KML file, so, if you have a kmz and want to save its contents in MyPlaces, you will loose the images, because the KML cannot contain them. Am I right??
The only way to preserve the kmz structure (with images) is to load it from the File/Open menu, correct?

[IntrepidAntipodean]

Image overlays that are embedded in KMZ work fine after being transferred to MyPlaces. It does something special to their path and moves the images to a scret location. It's a lot easier because they know which tag to look for, in the Placemark Descriptions it's all HTML so there is more complicated parsing to do. But I still think it should be done.

[kens]

Let me make sure I understand.

-- You created a KMZ file that includes images.
-- a user loads this KMZ file into Google Earth and everything displays fine.
-- A user exits Google Earth. When prompted, the user says save the information from the temporary load area to the My_places folder. (the goal is to "keep" the layer for future use.)

-- Now, if Google earth is started, the data in my places is properly displayed (just like the load of the initial KMZ file).

--> NOW, if a user saves (as KMZ) the subforder that contains the KMZ data and images from above, the resulting KMZ file on disk has a re-written format. The new KMZ file does not include a /images subdirectory with images in it.

IS THIS WHAT YOU MEAN?

If so, I agree the rewritten KMZ is not valid and google earth has a BUG. I would say that the new KMZ file SHOULD contain the images. After all, if you mailed this KMZ file to a user, it would not work because the images were not send as part of the KMZ file.

CAN ANYBODY ELSE REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM?

[IntrepidAntipodean]

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Let me make sure I understand.

-- You created a KMZ file that includes images.
-- a user loads this KMZ file into Google Earth and everything displays fine.
-- A user exits Google Earth. When prompted, the user says save the information from the temporary load area to the My_places folder. (the goal is to "keep" the layer for future use.)

-- Now, if Google earth is started, the data in my places is properly displayed (just like the load of the initial KMZ file).

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This is where the bug appears. Once GE is restarted the images are lost (and subsequent exports of the placemarks will not have the images). If the info had been saved to disk *before* restarting GE then all would be fine, since it caches the images until restart.

The problem is that it *doesn't* rewrite links to embedded images in placemark descriptions like it does for image overlays.

[tekgergedan]

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The problem is that it *doesn't* rewrite links to embedded images in placemark descriptions like it does for image overlays.

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My opinion is that, it rewrite links but does not save the images. If it did not rewrites links, there would be no gray boxes. It has that info but cannot fill up since the images are not there.
Anyway, it is better to leave the job to the programmers of the app...

[IntrepidAntipodean]

I'm sure the links are not rewritten. If you Edit a saved placemark you can read the HTML in the description and the links are still pointing to "images/MyPhoto.jpg" but since the placemark is now within MyPlaces it is being read from a different folder on your disk and the 'images' folder is not there, it is back inside the original kmz file.

[tekgergedan]

Yes, that was the first thing that I tried but could not find the file (my OS (or browser) was saving them in "My Documents" but now it does not, strangely) and, therefore, could not try out creating an images folder by my own.

[IntrepidAntipodean]

I'm guessing you're not on a Mac but if you were the MyPlaces file is here

~/Library/Application Support/Google Earth/MyPlaces.kml

I've been testing this on both Mac and PC, but haven't located the PC MyPlaces file yet

[tekgergedan]

It is here:

C:\Documents and Settings\"USER"\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth

[asxless]

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...CAN ANYBODY ELSE REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM?

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Absolutely! But there are actually two bugs being discussed and possibly confused.

The first bug causes the images to be 'ignored' after a kmz in moved from Temporary Places to My Places...

Just download the The Six Wives of King Henry VIII of England Placemark in this thread

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/365164/an/0/page/4#365164

This 3+MB .kmz has a large number of embedded images which display correctly as long as it remains in Temporary Places. BUT...

if you move it to My Places, then quit & reopen GE, the images no longer display:(

FWIW this image bust occurs regardless of how you move it to My Places (e.g drag it to My Places, let GE move it when you quit, etc.)

BTW the whole honkin' 3 MB file is moved to ~/Library/Application Support/Google Earth/, so the images are not lost during the move from Temporary Places to My Places. You can prove this by unzipping the .kmz. GE just seems to lose track of their whereabouts when the kmz is no longer in Temporary Places.

OBTW the images in the kmz will still display correctly after being moved to My Places as long as you do not quit GE --- maybe that is because the kmz does not actually appear in ~/Library/Application Support/Google Earth/ until you quit GE.

The second bug causes the images to actually be 'lost' when one tries to save the kmz after it has been moved to My Places (and after GE has been quit & reopened).

-- asxless in iLand

[mcshea98]

asxless,

Have you tried saving it as a KMZ when it is in temporary places (to your desktop)? Then open it from your desktop.

Also, what version of Google Earth are you running? I am using 3.0.0762, and this works for me. (DTD 2 April 2006)

If you are not using the same version that I am, you need to upgrade your version.

Hope this helps.

[asxless]

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...Have you tried saving it as a KMZ when it is in temporary places (to your desktop)? Then open it from your desktop.

Also, what version of Google Earth are you running? I am using 3.0.0762, and this works for me. (DTD 2 April 2006)....

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1st...
Please note that I have edited my previous post to point out that there are two (probably related) bugs being discussed/confused.

2nd...
What you describe works fine for me too. BUT... what both bugs have in common is moving a kmz containing images from Temporary Places to My Places, followed by quitting and reopening GE. Everything works fine as long as you don't move the kmz to My Places or you don't quit GE:)

3rd...
I'm running the latest GE beta for Mac OS X (3.1.0617.0) which for some reason is BEHIND GE running any version M$ OS:(

-- asxless in iLand

[tekgergedan]

mc, it is tested and verified. It is a bug.

[tripleddd]

Hello,

there is a third bug:

In my case, When loading a kmz file with about 30 placemarks and 100 images into the folder "temporary places", all images are there, but many of them are assigned to the wrong placemarks, i.e. many images are mixed up.

New assignment of images doesn't help because after saving and reloading the kmz file again, the assignments are wrong again

Did anyone else make this expereince

Regards, Dirk

[HookEmHorns]

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There is a still a bug though, as asxless demonstrated in his/her first post in this thread. It doesn't matter if there are workaround (which there are) or not. If you open up a valid KMZ file in your Temporary Places, move it to My Places, then exit GE, when you come back to GE, the KMZ you had moved to My Places should behave exactly as it did when it was in your Temporary Places.

[HookEmHorns]

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I'm using GE Pro 3.0.0762 and I get the same "buggy" results as asxless with that example, and the embedded images are lost (they're still there in the KMZ under /images, but they don't appear in the GE Client anymore after moving it to My Places and following asxless' instructions).

[PenguinOpus]

All 3 cases have been repro-ed internally and a P1 bug has been filed... should be be fixed in the next release and included in future regression testing.