Cesium Bing - WTF? Whoever has heard of that?!

Got the same message when I tried to view my tracks. Bit unfortunate.

Hello all.

Google announced the deprecation of the Google Earth API back in December 2014 (mapsplatform.googleblog.com/2014/12/announcing-deprecation-of-google-earth.html) and the plugin will stop working for most new browsers soon, and for all existing browsers by the end of this year, so I had no choice but to find a replacement.

Any recent browser that supports HTML5 (which is IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera) will work with Cesium. If you can't see the overlay, then you can still download the kml file and run it through Google Earth like before. But you should try upgrading your web browser first if possible.

If you don't like the Bing maps layer, you can switch between that and one of the many others provided (ArcGIS etc.) Use the layers widget at top right corner of the screen.

Google has copped a lot of flack from the developer community for (once again) pulling the rug from under people that built on top of their platform. I'm in no rush to jump back into that.

Cesium has a lot of traction as a credible alternative for the Google Earth plugin. Lots of former users of Google Earth plugin are switching to it for a whole host of nerdy reasons.

eg:
nationalmap.nicta.com.au/
www.cyclingthealps.com/
www.geoportail.gouv.fr/accueil

And NORAD even tracks Santa using Cesium:
cesiumjs.org/demos/noradtrackssanta.html

See cesiumjs.org/demos.html for more examples.

Going forward, Cesium supports replaying tracks and layering different tracks to replay sessions. I hope to take advantage of that, but the existing library of 100,000+ track KML files needs to be updated, which is going to take a short while. I also need to update the WindWanderers website to use this viewer, and add it to the beta KA72 site (shh!)

Oh, and Bing has nothing to do with it except being the default map overlay being used at present. I'm not particularly happy with it. Just check out any tracks from Green Island and you'll see what I mean.

The ESRI World Imagery one is much better in most locations. (Circled in red in the image below.)

Google Chrome browser solved the problems. And tracks are much better defined than before. Took a little while to learn to navigate with gestures on my MacBook Air, as it only shows operation by mouse or touchscreen. MacBook is neither of those, its a touch pad. But its intuitive enough, and overall it's a step forward forward, rather than a step back. So far any way.

Replaying is not available with the current KML files, because there is no time/date info in them for the individual points. This was a decision I made to keep the file size down. All the files will have to be recreated. Once that is done I'll start tinkering with the replays.

I agree that the ESRI imagery is better, but I haven't worked out how to make it come up by default yet. That is, I can make it come up by default, but only if it's the ONLY option, and I quite like some of the other layers too. Work in progress...

Dylan.

No, that's completely different.

There is the original GPS file (.SBN usually.) Then ka72 generated a KML file from that for using in overlays, but it has a lot less info in it. Freerace uses the original GPS file for everything.

Cheers,

Dylan.

I don't have a touch screen Dylan and thanks for the info hoping it all works out some of the talk went straight over my head Doh!