getting custom icons to appear larger

[Will Olsen]

Hello,

I am new to kml files. I am trying to make my custom icons appear
larger, but it seems that the <scale> tag has no effect. I defined my
icons in the header like this:

<Style id="RCSP">
<IconStyle id="mystyle1">
<Icon>
<href>icons/rcsp.png</href>
<scale>1.0</scale>
</Icon>
</IconStyle>
</Style>

Then I used the following in my placemarks: <styleUrl>#RCSP</styleUrl>

All of my different icons work fine, but changing the scale value has
no effect. I tried resizing the icons themselves but they appear the
same in Google Earth. I also tried changing file type, directory, and
local vs internet hosting.

Does Google Earth block larger Icons? If so, what function does
<scale> serve, and is there any way around this?

Otherwise, any suggestions on how to get the icons larger?

Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Will

[Will Olsen]

Additionally, is there any way to get the icon to appear larger when
zoomed far out? Currently, when I zoom out the icons shrink to nearly
invisible sizes. Even if they were the small standard size, that would
be better than nothing.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Nymor]

Hi,

I can't see anything obvious that might be wrong there from what you
posted - seems fine to me and should work.

I've uploaded a file, style_scale.kml, to the Files section (in the
right hand panel --> ) that has 2 styles defined - one with scale=1
and the other with scale=2. There are then 2 placemarks each one using
one of those styles. The second placemark's icon is, as expected,
twice the size of the first one.

(The uploaded file is a cut-down version of another recent one,
airports_styleoverrides.kml, that uses StyleMaps and overrides within
the placemarks to have different icon scales and while a bit more
complicated maybe of use somewhere along the line. Just mentioning
that one really).

I'm also not sure how your icons shrink when zooming out? - they don't
in the above example so maybe it's another symptom of your problem?
strange.

Not sure if that helps at all - but maybe just replacing the href in
the example file and seeing what you get might give some clues?

Regards
Nymor

[Will Olsen]

After looking at your example I realized that I was putting the
<scale> tags inside <icon>. Once I moved them out it worked perfect.
Here's what it looks like now in case anyone else has the same
problem:

<Style id="RCSP">
<IconStyle>
<scale>3.0</scale>
<Icon>
<href>icons/rcsp.png</href>
</Icon>
</IconStyle>
</Style>

Thanks so much!

[Nymor]

No problem - should have noticed that myself.

Glad you got it going.

Nymor