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Multiple KML files Build

F

FrankK

Messages
26
Country
australia
Been out of action and having a mental block!:confused:
My problem is related to FSX KML only building one of a list of KML files.
I have three files listed immediately below the program icons.

However, I can only get one of these to show up beneath the “Name” and “Description” headings depending on which file I click. All have been tagged. Depending on which one of the file listed I click onto this will be the only one that is built. Each separately displays OK in FSX.

How do I get them all to be built to create separate BGL files. It’s not obvious to me at present?

Re F
 
Personally, I would not try to do what you are doing because it is so complicated.

Instead, I would combine all of the kml files into one file. Saves a lot of heartache and makes it simple in FSX_KML.

How do you do this? I will take an example from something I'm working on in Honduras.

Let's say that you have two roads that you have drawn in GoogleEarth. One is called Avenida La Paz, and the other is called Boulevard Suyapa. When you save these as kml, you get two files:
Avenida La Paz.kml
Boulevard Suyapa.kml

You don't want two files, you want one. How do you combine?

Take the first file, Avenida La Paz.kml. Rename it to Whatever.kml. This will be your master kml file. You will be copying and pasting into this file as you add to it.

Now, open Boulevard Suyapa.kml with your favorite text editor.

Using the mouse, highlight/select everything in the file FROM the first <Placemark> entry to the </Placemark> entry.

Now open Whatever.kml in your text editor. Find the last </Placemark> entry in the file. Insert the text you copied from the Boulevard Suyapa.kml file INTO this Whatever.kml file.

Now, when you run FSX_KML, you'll see entries for both roads. And you will have to tag them at this point. As you add objects, you simply cut and paste their <Placemark> sections into your master file as you go.

Whatever.kml is essentially your master kml file. You can keep the individual kml's for each poly, exclude, flatten, road, etc. that you make as backups, but I always surgically remove the <Placemark> to </Placemark> data and insert it into my master file.

In so doing, I end up with ONE SINGLE BGL file, and one single kml file to work with.

Hope that helps. Clear as mud right? It's the technique I use, and it's the only way I can keep everything straight. Not to mention, it can't be good for performance making FSX read dozens more .bgl files than it needs to read. Combine and save time, sanity, and performance.
 
Mace,

No sounds OK to me.:) It's just that in the instructions Matthew says "You may add multiple KML files. A FSX BGL file will be generated for each KML input file". I guess he can comment on that.

But your method sounds pretty neat to me. More ways than just one to skin the cat.;)

Thanks F
 
I do it like this:-

1) In GE create a virtual "folder" within GE itself. Lets say you named it "MyProject"
2) Then create your poly lines and polygons in that GE "MyProject" folder.
3) Save the GE "MyProject" folder as a KML file.

The end results is you have a single KML file with all your poly lines and polygons in it.

You can also create "sub folders" within you GE "MyFolder" folder. And so you can easily break you work up into logical sections. Again, just save your "MyFolder" folder as a KML file and you will get all your sub folders saved in the one KML file.

When you load your KML file inside FSX KML you will see the same folder structure represented.

Also the advantage of using "folders" is that you can tag a folder and all the child poly lines and polygons will inherit the same tag. So say you want to add a bunch of lakes, you could create a "lake" folder and tag it will the appropriate lake tag, and in that folder you might have 100 polygons representing lakes, you wouldn't need to tag those lakes since they would inherit the lake tag of their parent folder.
 
Whoa! This is amazing. I always did create folders and subfolders in GoogleEarth. But what I *didn't* know was that you could save the entire FOLDER as a kml, and it would automatically combine them.

This is great news! It means I don't have to do any manual combining anymore. Thanks Frank for bringing up the thread, and thanks Matthew for mentioning it. That is really going to save a lot of time. <Placemark> to </Placemark> manual copying was kind of a drag.
 
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