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Introducing pyKML - a Python library for manipulating KML
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
pyKML
is an open source Python library for generating, parsing, and modifying
KML
, the geo-spatial data language used by Google Earth, Google Maps and a number of other GIS platforms.
I was motivated to create pyKML because I frequently need to visualize large, and often complex, environmental datasets. While the KML language has a wide range of options for styling, annotating and interacting with geo-spatial and temporal data, most programs that generate KML don’t take full advantage of these rich features. I created the pyKML library to address this problem by providing easy, programmatic access to all KML elements.
pyKML facilitates working with large and complex KML documents by leveraging the use of basic programming constructs (looping, branching, etc.). In this regard pyKML is similar to
libkml
, Google’s open source C++ library, but takes advantage of the highly readable syntax of the
Python
programming language and the processing capabilities of the popular
lxml
Python library.
As a simple example, check out
this Python script
that loops through a text string (“Hello World!”) and uses pyKML to create a series of KML Placemarks. You can download the resulting
KML document
, and below is a screenshot of how it looks in Google Earth.
This is just a teaser of what pyKML can do. For more complex examples, check out the
pyKML documentation
and the project’s
Google Code site
that includes sample code for: generating
KML from CSV data
, creating
KML Tours
, and visualizing
ephermeris data
for Stonehenge
(e.g., orientation of the sun on different dates)
. pyKML can even be used to
create “slides" for presentations
!
To get started, browse the
project’s documentation
,
install the library
,
try it out
, and
let us know what you think
!
Posted by
Tyler Erickson
, Senior Research Scientist / Engineer,
MTRI
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