AIS Greece - Google Earth with Shipplotter

_AIS Greece

	Using Google Earth to see the ships from Shipplotter

	Shipplotter is not very good for watching the ships, especially if you have sharing enabled it will freeze shipplotter every time the sharing connection is made. One nice way to see the ships is to use google earth, then you do not have to worry about loading charts as it is all ready for you.

	Enabling the Google Earth Server



	First we will have to enable the google earth server. So if you are processing data then you will have to click the Stop button in order to access I/O Settings.



	Then we can select I/O Settings.



	All we need to do is to check the box "enable Google Earth server"
	make sure the local HTTP port is 4185
	then click ok.



	Then you can go back to processing data.

	Setting up Google Earth for Local Connection (On the same computer)

	Then we need to setup Google Earth. If you do not have google earth then you will need to download it here. So lets do that and then open google earth.



	In google earth you will need to FILE / OPEN



	Then browse to your shipplotter folder which will in the default setup be :
	C:\Program Files\COAA\ShipPlotter

	Then select the file google_ships.kml and click Open
	Shipplotter will need to be open and processing data before you do that.



	Now we can see the ships in google earth.



	Then if we zoom in we can see the ships have outlines at the size their ais data specified and also the heading.



	If we click on a ship we can get some AIS information.

	Saving the Connection

	When you exit google earth for the first time the below box will appear.



	Just click Yes and then the google_ships.kml connection will be saved in your "My Places" and will start automatically next time you start google earth.



	Here it is shown in your "My Places"

	Problems

	If shipplotter is not running and processing data when you open the google_ships.kml file then the below error will appear.



	You will need to make shipplotter run and process data then you can click ignore.

	If the data is still not updating then look in the google earth sidebar on the left.



	In your temporary places you will see google_ships.kml.



	Otherwise you may have saved it in your "My Places" and you can access it there instead.

	Wherever it is you can uncheck and recheck the tick box next to google_ships.kml and this will make the data start updating again.

	Setting up Google Earth for Network Connection (On another computer)

	You could also use the google earth to shipplotter connection across your local network and therefore use google earth on a remote computer which is not running shipplotter.

	So you will want to copy the file google_ships.kml to a directory on the other computer you will be running google earth on.



	Then we will want to open it with notepad to edit it.

	The file is like this :

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"> <Document> <visibility>1</visibility> <NetworkLink> <name>PP1</name> <flyToView>0</flyToView> <Url><href>http://127.0.0.1:4185/pp_google.kml</href> <refreshMode>onInterval</refreshMode> <refreshInterval>10</refreshInterval> <viewRefreshMode>never</viewRefreshMode> </Url> <refreshVisibility>1</refreshVisibility> </NetworkLink> </Document> </kml>

	The bold is the IP address of the google earth server. With default settings it is a local address 127.0.0.1 which is no good to access over the network because it will just try to connect to port 4185 on the remote computer you are running google earth and there will be no google earth server available on that port.

	You will need to know the IP address of the computer running shipplotter. You can find that if you open a command prompt window and type ipconfig /all

	Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\cosmica>ipconfig /all Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : home-01 Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 CT Network Connect ion Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-F1-93-32-C4 Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.49 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220

	Your IP address will be indicated in the output of that command. But it will need to be a static address not a dynamic one assigned by your router or another DHCP server. Otherwise every time you restart the shipplotter computer it may have a different IP.



	You can check that in START / Settings / Network connections.
	Then right click on your Lan or wireless connection, select properties
	Select TCP/IP and then properties
	And then you will see the above window.

	If you have "obtain an IP address automatically" enabled then you do not have a static IP address specified and you will have to set one like i have set above. Its really beyond the scope of this article to talk about all that though.

	So lets go back to editing the google_ships.kml
	Now we know the shipplotter computer is 192.168.0.1

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"> <Document> <visibility>1</visibility> <NetworkLink> <name>PP1</name> <flyToView>0</flyToView> <Url><href>http://192.168.0.1:4185/pp_google.kml</href> <refreshMode>onInterval</refreshMode> <refreshInterval>10</refreshInterval> <viewRefreshMode>never</viewRefreshMode> </Url> <refreshVisibility>1</refreshVisibility> </NetworkLink> </Document> </kml>

	So we can put that in the google_ships.kml on the remote computer and save the file.
	Then when we open this file in google earth on the remote computer then it will access the google earth server on the shipplotter computer.

	If you have problems connecting and you are sure your settings are correct then check to see if you have any firewall on the shipplotter computer which is blocking the connection.