Internet mapping tools make scientific applications easy

Abstract

Organizing complex information in the form of a map is a powerful and effective way of communication.This is especially true when linking spatially distributed scientific information to [real‐world] applications. However, creating an intuitive and easy‐touse interface between the user and the data requires a large amount of development time for user feedback and programming.To reduce this development time, it is now possible to couple spatial data with the increasingly popular Google Earth software (http://earth.google.com) package (Figure 1). (The products mentioned in this work do not indicate an endorsement by the authors. Additionally, the authors have no affiliation with the GoogleTM company) This free‐to‐use package allows users to avoid the costs associated with other high‐end geographical information systems (GIS). While other free Internet GIS packages exist, including NASA's World Wind (http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov) and Microsoft's Virtual Earth (http://local.live.com), one significant advantage of Google Earth is the use of Keyhole Markup Language (KML) for managing three‐dimensional geospatial data. KML is an XML‐based markup language that can be used to import and overlay user‐defined data (vector or image form) and control views and zooming.