Timeline support

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To include support to the timeline features.

Requested by: sylehc

Supported by: barryhunter, cjorba, jan.wischnat, jcothran, underbluewaters, 
ogomez2, ilikereverb, Tijs de Kler

Original issue reported on code.google.com by api.roman.public@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2008 at 8:44

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I work for the United State Geological Survey. We would also like to request 
timeline support so that we can use google earth to showcase our modeling data 
and 
in the future real-time modeling forecasts. I am sure many scientists would 
make use 
of the timeline feature in googel earth API.

Original comment by brandy.a...@gmail.com on 4 Sep 2008 at 5:27

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Add historians to the list of people that would REALLY like built-in timeline 
support.

Original comment by uglyM...@gmail.com on 8 Sep 2008 at 7:28

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This would also be a huge help for visualizing for biological data. I've been 
hoping to port an ecological 
monitoring app(http://www.piscoweb.org/subtidal_gmap) to the Earth API as soon 
as timeline support is 
enabled. 

It would be easy enough to implement my own widget, but it becomes harder to 
train users. Google Earth is 
one of the few 4d interfaces that users are already comfortable with, and it 
would be great to leverage that.

For it to be really useful, it would be great to have access to timeline events 
so I can sync up dynamic charts 
that display side-by-side with the Earth API.

Original comment by underbluewaters on 8 Sep 2008 at 7:38

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Archaeologists would find this very usefull as well.

Original comment by SavageSt...@gmail.com on 12 Sep 2008 at 5:13

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This has got to happen soon! I am with the US Army and we have an enterprise 
system (still waiting for 
enterprise support for plugin), but we are developing like crazy. We have many, 
many timeline animations that 
are part of our client that will need to be migrated into the browser. Please 
hurry.

Original comment by robertsw...@gmail.com on 16 Sep 2008 at 12:43

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add the german railway development industrie on your list... it´s would be 
great to 
have some timeline features. 

Original comment by norman-h...@gmx.de on 25 Sep 2008 at 8:06

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I'd like to be able to move this into a browser also:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/1242165/an/0/page/0#124
2165

Original comment by zetta...@gmail.com on 7 Oct 2008 at 5:05

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WildEarth.TV broadcasts LIVE from a moving safari vehicle in the African bush, 
and
our users would love to be able to see the historical track of our vehicle. So 
you
can add the LIVE wildlife broadcasting industry onto the list of folk that 
would like
the timeline features. 

Original comment by Graham.W...@gmail.com on 13 Oct 2008 at 12:23

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Adding the timeline capability to the plugin would be huge for us. We've found 
this
capability in the standalone version to be one of the most useful features when
fusing and visualizing multiple, time stamped sensor data 

Original comment by canal...@gmail.com on 28 Oct 2008 at 9:12

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If/when the timeline capability is added, would it be possible to have a user-
defined playback speed more fine-grained than 'slow' to 'fast'? We are 
currently 
using Google Earth for test flight data playback and being able to play back in 
real-
time in connection with our flight videos would be a great feature. Thanks so 
much 
for a great product.

Original comment by kej...@gmail.com on 25 Nov 2008 at 9:04

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We have found that simulating tracks requires more than just adding a timeline 
to GE,
as the speed and orientation of the segments have to be calculated before 
positioning
and moving the camera and target point appropriately. It's a fun mathematical
challenge that we have spent some time on with StarTraX, at
http://www.gpsanimator.com. The current release is based on the old COM API 
with GE,
but we're close to releasing a version using the GE api plugin. 

Original comment by gpsanima...@gmail.com on 28 Nov 2008 at 10:39

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I would also like to add my request for time sliders in the GE API. I'm working 
on a
historical project that would benefit hugely. Pretty please?

Original comment by surfing...@gmail.com on 5 Dec 2008 at 11:52

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One more vote for timespan, and I second it usefullness for
biological/ecology/conservation applications!

Original comment by chrism...@gmail.com on 9 Dec 2008 at 8:18

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Please add the timeline!, we are working on a spread simulation engine for 
avian and 
human influenza for UN, using Google Earth to display the results.
Using the GE API allow us to have better customised user interface, but we miss 
the 
time control, it's fundamental to display the spread
Many many thanks!

Original comment by ma.gio...@gmail.com on 3 Jan 2009 at 12:16

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another vote for the timeline! We really need it!

Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2009 at 4:18

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it would be great to have the timespan in google earth api!

Original comment by carlo.sa...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2009 at 4:22

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We'd also like to see this. We model the time evolution of various airborne
pollutants, and the timeline feature in the GE client has been extremely useful 
for
making mpeg animations. However, with this feature in the plugin we would be 
able to
bring far richer content to people's browsers.

Original comment by mark.cal...@gmail.com on 23 Jan 2009 at 2:42

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Still another vote to add timeline support.  I work for the U.S. National 
Weather
Service and it would be a great asset to loop radar and satellite data in the 
browser
api plugin like we do in the stand alone GE.

Original comment by timbr...@hotmail.com on 26 Jan 2009 at 9:28

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Issue 152 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by api.roman.public@gmail.com on 3 Feb 2009 at 7:43

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Original comment by api.roman.public@gmail.com on 5 Feb 2009 at 7:57

• Changed state: Accepted

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I'm also with the National Weather Service, and I'd like to throw my vote in as 
well.
As a Techniques Development Meteorologist - after some initial poking around 
with the
GE API - the lack of timeline support is the main issue that led me to stop
development with it for the time being.

Original comment by coreypie...@gmail.com on 6 Feb 2009 at 1:22

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Likewise, here at the National Ocean Service the lack of this feature is pretty 
much
a showstopper for developing applications to disseminate data.

Original comment by raspin...@gmail.com on 19 Feb 2009 at 4:51

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We at the Icleandic Meteorological Office, would also
greatly apreciate that the <TimeSpan> kml tag be implemented
in the google earth API.  That would be fantastic!, as
the API allows for such easy implementation of the 3D GE,
and great for simplifying the viewing pleasure of 
weather information for the public. 
I am certain that most Met. Offices in the world would
quickly adopt the GE API plugin after that.

Original comment by h.thorst...@hotmail.com on 20 Feb 2009 at 4:37

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It would be very useful for the presentation of archaeological data

Original comment by scampol...@gmail.com on 1 Apr 2009 at 8:57

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The World Resources Institute would also love this feature for displaying our 
data
sets at EarthTrends (earthtrends.wri.org) in the Google Earth Plugin.

Original comment by warner.j...@gmail.com on 1 Apr 2009 at 3:16

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Basic timeline support is available as of 5.0.11655.6079. In order to show the
timeline, simply parseKml or fetchKml some KML that has features with time 
primitives
such as TimeSpan or TimeStamp.

See the release notes, new Google Earth Plugin 5.0 samples, and updated v1.002 
API
reference for more details.

http://code.google.com/apis/earth/documentation/releasenotes.html#2009-03-31
http://code.google.com/apis/earth/documentation/demogallery.html?topic=fiveoh
http://code.google.com/apis/earth/documentation/reference/index.html

Original comment by api.roman.public@gmail.com on 1 Apr 2009 at 11:58

• Changed state: Fixed

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It's nice but can i also turn the Visibility off like statusbar of navigation 
???

setStatusBarVisibility()
ge.getNavigationControl().setVisibility(ge.VISIBILITY_SHOW);

Original comment by dgiessen...@gmail.com on 2 Apr 2009 at 1:41

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Tried to do it without success.

Moreover if you switch from Earth to Sky mode the time slider is still 
displayed and
you can't turn it off!

Original comment by xjubier@gmail.com on 2 Apr 2009 at 4:04

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Nice, but it seems like we can not control the timeslider from within the GE 
Earth API.

Original comment by steffen....@gmail.com on 13 Jul 2010 at 9:38

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As of the 5.2.1.1329 version of the plugin there is robust control for the time 
slider available.  See the current documentation for examples at 
http://code.google.com/apis/earth/documentation/time.html.

Original comment by jli...@google.com on 13 Jul 2010 at 1:52

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Many thanks, but.. all you can do with the GE-API is this: grab the time 
begin/end and change the playbackspeed programmatically. Compared to the 
TourControl it is really limited... I can not do something like control.play() 
control.pause() etc... Due to this really limited functionality, it is not 
really useful in practice if you are going to build your own controls outside 
of the GE windows.

In my case, I wanted to build my own controls outside of the GE and provide 
additional functionality to give the user a better way of playbackspeed. There 
are some nice 3D-boats visible and we would love to see the timeslider 
functionality within the GE API:

- ability to set both sliders to change the visible path lengths of a track
- ability to play, pause, jumpforward, jumpbackward
- ...

Original comment by steffen....@gmail.com on 13 Jul 2010 at 2:55

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Steffen,

The Time controls are quite a bit more robust than the Tour controls.  It's 
best not to think of the virtual clock in your earth instance as in 'play' or 
'pause', but rather just at the rate of the clock.  In this way, if you set the 
rate to zero, no time will pass (in a way you can think of this as 'pause' but 
these terms will eventually lead to more confusion so we try to avoid them).  

You can also set the TimeSpan (eg set both sliders) and the TimeStamp (eg jump 
to a particular point in time).   

Therefore you can definitely build your own controls (unlike the Tour control 
you can also programmatically hide the Time control and choose to display your 
own instead)  and as noted, set whatever clock rate you see fit.  

Everything you mention is possible with the current Time access.  See the 
documentation for more details, and also the code playground for some examples. 
 You can also watch a video at 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FrDf3RAv_k#t=5m30s

If you still have questions about how to use the new time slider, let's bring 
this conversation to the forum so everyone can pitch in (very few people are 
still following this long-closed ticket)

Original comment by jli...@google.com on 13 Jul 2010 at 3:59

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Thanks for the fast reply. I think I read and watched most of the resources... 
including all geo webcasts of Google io 2010... but none of the examples shows 
how to start/play the timeslider using the API.

I tried the approach you described:
1) load a kml containing a track with time information (=> the timeslider is 
visible)
2) set the clock rate to something I like like ge.getTime().setRate(60); As far 
as I understand, this should have forced the timeslider to start "playing" the 
track. Actually, I still have to press the play button on my own.

I'am really not sure, how you can use a button outside the GE-Plugin to force a 
timeslider to start "playing" (Even if playing is not the right term in 
thisscenario, there is this playbutton within the timeslider : )

Besides, I was able to use the tourcontrol to playback the tracks, but I need 
the timeslider behavior (control of the visibility of the tracks length and the 
interaction, that is only possible with the timeslider and not with the 
tourcontrol)

I'am going to post this at the forum like suggested.

Original comment by steffen....@gmail.com on 13 Jul 2010 at 8:36

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To set the time slider to the full range of the data use:

    ge.getTime().setTimePrimitive(ge.getTime().getControl().getExtents());

Only problem I had was when I tried to call this snippet immediately after 
loading a KML file using fetchKML it didn't seem to do anything. If put into a 
button click callback it worked fine. So, I wrapped it in a setTimeout call and 
all is good.

setTimeout(function() {
    ge.getTime().setTimePrimitive(ge.getTime().getControl().getExtents());
}, 0);

Original comment by ja...@newmoyergeospatial.com on 25 Jul 2014 at 6:54