Visualizing Cross-sectional Data in Google Earth

If you could fly around your research results in three dimensions, wouldn’t you like to do it? Visualizing research results properly during scientific presentations already does half the job of informing the public on the geographic framework of your research.

Many scientists use Google Earth (e.g. De Paor & Whitmeyer 2011) because it’s a great interactive mapping tool for assigning geographic coordinates to individual data points, localising a research area, and draping maps of results over Earth’s surface for displaying the results in three dimensions. Visualisations of research results in vertical cross-sections through these maps are however often not shown at the same time as the maps. By importing cross-sectional data into in the open software SketchUp Make, any spatial model displaying research results can be exported to a vertical figure in Google Earth.

Here I explain an easy workflow and give some tips, and discuss some of the endless applications of the method. This workflow will give your research results better spatial visibility and allows more dynamic scientific presentations.

References:

Chen, A., Leptoukh, G., Kempler, S., Lynnes, C., Savtchenko, A., Nadeau, D., Farley, J., 2009. Visualization of A-Train vertical profiles using Google EarthTM. Computers & Geosciences 35, 419-427.

Google Inc. (2015). Google EarthTM. V7.1.2.2041 (July 2013).

SketchUp Make. Trimble Navigation Limited, Sunnyvale, CA, USA. http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-make

H. Yuan, B. Romanowicz, 2010. Lithosperic layering in the North American Craton. Nature 466, 1063-1068.

De Paor, D. G., and Whitmeyer, S. J.: Geological and geophysical modeling on virtual globes using KML, COLLADA, and Javascript, Computers & Geosciences, 37, 100-110, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2010.05.003, 2011.