Google Earth as Imagery provider?

CesiumJS
1

Is it possible to use Google Earth's public server (or GoogleEarth enterprise server) as an imagery provider for cesium?

GEE will not work as a WMS server. Has anybody tried to hook up the layers?

I have a GoogleEarth Enterprise server and would like to run it with Cesium for linux on a standalone network.

Thanks,
-Dave

2

Hi Dave,

I think this should be pretty easy to do, but I don’t have access to a Google Earth Enterprise server. I’d be happy to help you along the way if you decide to tackle it, though. I honestly think it can be done in less than 100 lines of code, and maybe less than a dozen if you don’t count some boilerplate copied from another imagery provider.

Do you know offhand if the enterprise server license agreement allows third party apps to access the imagery? I suspect the challenges in this are legal, not technical.

Kevin

3

I should have mentioned, I know the public server’s terms of use forbid access by third party apps. That’s why I’m hesitant to develop an imagery provider against that.

4

Thanks Kevin!

As far as I can tell there isn’t any “legal” prohibition for me. http://www.google.com/enterprise/earth/terms_v4.html

Please point me to the imagery provider code/examples! Thanks again,

-Dave

5

Great! Implementing an imagery provider is a relatively simple matter of implementing the ImageryProvider interface:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/blob/master/Source/Scene/ImageryProvider.js

A good example to start with is the TileMapServiceImageryProvider:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/blob/master/Source/Scene/TileMapServiceImageryProvider.js

I think Google Earth may use a similar tile layout to this one, in which case it will be very easy. If not, we can talk about the next steps.

By the way, you should check out the Contributor’s Guide if you haven’t already:

https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/wiki/Contributor's-Guide

If you get this working, we’d love to incorporate it into Cesium, but we’ll need you to sign the Contributor’s License Agreement. There’s one for individuals and one for corporations:
http://www.agi.com/licenses/individual-cla-agi-v1.0.txt

http://www.agi.com/products/licensing-and-evaluation-options/corporate-cla-agi-v1.0.txt

It essentially just says that you own your contributions and that we’re allowed to use them. If you’re doing this on company time, it may be worth getting started on the process now because it may take a little while for your legal folks to sign off on it.

Thanks!

Kevin

6

Did you have any luck getting this to work? I'd like to connect to a Google Earth Enterprise server and I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

Thanks,
  Carl

7

Hi Carl, I did manage to get it working. I want to contribute the code back, but right now I am waiting for my employer to approve it. I’m hoping to get the approval soon.

8

Carl, it looks like we’re very close to getting approval. Sorry for how long it’s taking!