KML Export to Google Earth Pro Issue

[Skia_D]

A little help, please....

 

I've been trying to export a house model to KML. Model is on 4 layers (B, 1, 2, 3). I'm not using Stories. It seems to export OK (exporting All Visible Layers), and it's located correctly with Lat/Lon coordinates to a benchmark. I can open it in Google Earth Pro (GEP) and it looks correctly inserted in plan view, but tilt and spin and each floor is separated from the one below by a gap. Priority Tech hadn't seen this issue but suggested I use a very simple model, so I did. 3 floors of 4 walls and a roof. It still does the same thing, per attached image. You can see also that each floor is skewed somewhat relative to the GEP topography.

 

Has anyone experienced this and if so, can you tell me what do I need to adjust to correct this?

[Jeff Prince]

I have not experienced that.  I just dropped a house model I had worked on into GEP which is composed of 6 design layers (3 floors with 3 roofs), all at different layer heights.  Some of the objects are even placed above their defined layer heights in my model and everything shows up in GEP correctly. I even adjusted the z height during the export process so the basement would sit above grade in GEP to see if anything exploded like your example.

It almost looks like a projection error the way your building is distorted.  I geolocated using WGS 84, perhaps that's where your error came from?  I notice that having 3D terrain active in GEP when situated at high elevation seems to distort things a bit too.

 

I'm on VWX 2021 and GEP 7.3.3.7721 (64-bit) Mac OS Catalina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by jeff prince

[Skia_D]

Thanks, Jeff. I hadn't georeferenced either the layers or document before when things exploded. I did and that seemed to work, but you will see from attached image the home obviously gets distorted as it follows GEP terrain (it's hilly here with a +2200' Elev.) So, 3 more questions:

 

1) Does the distortion also have to do with the GEP setting for altitude, per second attached image? Or why does the model have to be pinned to the terrain rather than just existing within it, if you get what I mean?

 

3) Can you point me to something which explains those altitude settings and whether you can globally modify them? GEP "Help" doesn't seem to be very helpful, at least not that I could find. See third image which shows what I'm seeing as far as breakdown of layers. Is this like yours?

 

3) Is that the best one can expect graphically for the kml models in GEP, i.e., greyed out and heavily "polygonized"? (Yours seems similar with respect to the greying out, but not the polygons).

 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Skia_D

[Jeff Prince]

@Skia_D no problem, happy to help.  Just keep in mind my assistance is observational, based on my experience.

 

1)  I believe the distortion may be caused by the underlying terrain data within GEP, not your model itself.  Or, it may have something to do with how Vectorworks authors .kml (more on that later).

Rationale:  I took the same house I posted earlier and moved it to the hillside a few hundred feet away.  Notice the distortion of the building geometry?  It's the same model with the same settings, the only difference is I moved it over a bit and had to tell vectorworks to move it up 80' so it would sit in the rocks.  I then created an export of the same building, moving it to 160' high during export, but in the same position.  The same distortion appears, so it seems to be caused by the specific location within the GEP environment since the same model placed in a flatter area in the neighborhood exhibits different geometric distortion.  I wonder what would happen to your model if you moved it to a known flat area in the vicinity like a roadway or parking lot.  Perhaps there is an elevation model error in GEP for your particular site that is creating this problem.

 

2) Sorry, I have no idea.  My use has been trial and error, not following instructions.  My model breakdown looks similar to yours and you can change the colors of the various features to suit your purpose.  Also, you can use Fill (my preference) or Fill+Outline to depict the geometry.

 

3) The quality of the model depiction depends on how your model was developed.  If there are overlapping features in your vectorworks model or complex wall assemblies, you will get the visual artifacts.  This is standard fare in 3D modeling though.  GEP is just more sensitive to things very close together, probably due to the geographic nature of the accuracy I suppose.  In Vectorworks and other modeling software you can get away with 5/8" gyp board and such not showing as overlapping, but in GEP you will get the flicker usually.

 

I've used GEP to place proposed and context buildings for preplanning drone flights in order accurately frame my videography and photography, but most of that was in flat, sea level Kuwait, so no distortion 🙂  In the video below, the white models were placed by me via Sketchup, the textured context models are actually in GEP from the community (typically sketchup models).  This has been amazingly accurate in my use (because I change GEP's FOV to match my camera).  Towards the end of the video you will see that I flew a drone around a proposed marina development site to capture context and then we added the proposed model to the video.  The proposed facility was huge and without GEP simulation and simulated preflight, I doubt I would have been able to capture the footage.  Side note, that flight path went from 0m to 500m above sea level that I programmed in advance.  The model resulting drone footage and 3D model plopped right into the correct location without adjustment during post processing 🙂

 

This makes me wonder if Vectorworks handles the authoring of the kml differently than Sketchup or my drone software.  Perhaps try exporting from Sketchup and see if there is a difference.  Just for the record, the house examples I did earlier were developed in Vectorworks and exported to klm from Vectorworks.  I have no idea of how authoring .kml actually works and this is speculative based on observation.

 

Hope it helps,

Jeff

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ramon PG]

On 7/16/2021 at 6:06 PM, jeff prince said:

I have not experienced that.  I just dropped a house model I had worked on into GEP which is composed of 6 design layers (3 floors with 3 roofs), all at different layer heights.  Some of the objects are even placed above their defined layer heights in my model and everything shows up in GEP correctly. I even adjusted the z height during the export process so the basement would sit above grade in GEP to see if anything exploded like your example.

It almost looks like a projection error the way your building is distorted.  I geolocated using WGS 84, perhaps that's where your error came from?  I notice that having 3D terrain active in GEP when situated at high elevation seems to distort things a bit too.

 

I'm on VWX 2021 and GEP 7.3.3.7721 (64-bit) Mac OS Catalina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello,

 

I was wondering how did you get the original topo info. From Google? If so, how did you import it to your VWs model? Thanks.