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The Google Earth Visualizer is also known as The Quartz Visualization Tool, and Google Earth Tools. Given exposure or other risk data stored in an Excel spreadsheet, it can be used for exposure management, data quality improvement, Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding, grid-based aggregation, thematic mapping, column graphing, and similar visualizations.
This handy workbook lets one paste in any sort of data in absolutely any format - Data which might have a lat/long associated with it, and can geocode, aggregate, and visualize this location-based data in http://www.google.com/earth/index.html Google Earth. You can geocode addresses using Google Earth to get their latitude and longitude from their address or high level location descriptions. You can plot point data individually, or in bulk, on Google's 3D interactive map to view your locations directly. You can also take data associated with these locations and plot aggregated thematic maps that overlay the globe. A built in help tab describes all the features available on the main sheet.
This tool was developed in Excel with interactive features implemented in VBA and using the Google Earth API.
The sections below describe the simple procedure of introducing data into the workbook, and using a variety of the tool's features to produce some desired results.
1 - Paste exposure information into the tool in any format
2 - Configure the tool to identify key columns from the exposures sheet
3 - Tools allow you to geocode, locate, and visualize multiple exposures using Google Earth
4 - Visualizations in Google Earth can show concentrations in exposures and detailed information about area contents
5 - Different visualizations can be overlayed, detailed information can be displayed for individual locations or aggregated regions
6 - Take advantage of the refined quality and power of Google Earth to create aesthetic visualizations of data of any size
7 - Familiarize yourself with property locations using areal photography of your location regions
Swiss 3D Map of Ground Motion Susceptibility
Soil mobility in Japan
Historical Japan Subduction Earthquake
Historical Japan Crustal Earthquake
Japan Earthquake Land Damage from Epicenter
The potential uses for this tool are vast. I expect it will be used mostly exposure related things, but it is useful for any data imaginable that is associated with a location.
When it comes to searching for exposure locations in Google Earth, it’s a little trial and error really. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is start with a broad definition of the region you’re looking for, such as country and county, and then add more detail to the search. Google uses a localized search algorithm, so if you search a little known street address, without any context, Google doesn’t stand a chance of knowing what you mean. For instance: Searching 45 huaxiang when hovering over the US will return garbage results. Searching for it over Zambia actually generates an error dialogue. But searching over China finds the street you’re looking for.
Since many exposures passed on to you might lack context, it might take some background knowledge to get good results out of the geocoding portion of the tool. If I were given this street address, and I just searched for it, I would probably end up with Garbage results like in the first picture, but if someone who knew that the exposure set was for china and could provide that context in the search string, such as “45 huaxiang, fujan, china” Google will be able to locate it from anywhere without any trouble.
Note that when typing an address or business into our tool to look up, and clicking ‘Look Up Address’, we are just plugging directly into the Google Earth search feature, so it’s just as effective to search in one as the other. In this example with business data, I started with the full Address string shown in the ‘Description’ field: BASF Construction chemicals, BASF Planta Santiago, Pudahuel, Rio Palena, Chile. That failed, so I edited it to say just Pudahuel, Rio Palena, Chile. This took me to Rio Palena, Pudahuel, Santiago, Chile on the map. I then changed the search to BASF Construction, Rio Palena, Chile, and as shown below, this successfully returned the address of the exposure we were looking for. After that, all that’s needed is to click ‘Record New Lat/Long’ so that it’s stored in the sheet and we can find it more quickly later.
It takes a little practice, but in the end I think it’s the most effective way of identifying exposure locations while keeping a human being in the loop.