Loop Links in Google Earth

Screen shot from 'Map the Fallen' Project

Sometimes in GEarth we want to visualize a connection between one place and another, a line looping between the two places is a good way of doing this as used by the 'Map the Fallen' project shown in the screen shot above.

To produce a loop:

1. Download this Excel spreadsheet file
2. Produce 2 placemarks where you want the ends of the loop to be.
3. Right click the first and select properties. Copy the Latitude and Longitude of the placemark into the yellow boxes of the 'Start' row of the spreadsheet.
   
4. Reapeat 3 but for the second placemark and put in the 'End' row
   
5. Select the 'Out' tab at the bottom of the sheet and copy the text in the cell with the text in.
6. Select the temporary places folder in GEarth by clicking it > right click > paste
7. Your loop should appear
8. Right click it > Properties > Style Color tab to change its look.

Design Points:

• Details on how to color and choose the right thickness for lines in this lines Video I did a while back.
• I think you have to be very careful not to use too many lines at one time so as not to overwhelm the user.
• Loops would be a great way of showing a one to many relationship, i.e. the place of manufacture of the parts that go to make up a laptop connected to the factory where they all assembled.