Public Land Google Earth Overlay?

[durangobrad]

I cant seam to find am up to date, good ownership overlay. It does need to be fancy and have land owners names or anything. Really just want to have forest service, BLM and any other public lands for Colorado. Every thing I have searched has a dead link or has been moved/removed from the interwebs.

Thanks for your help.

 

[wapitibob]

Geocommunicator dot gov, you want the new "surface management agency" server if memory is correct. Click the arcgis link and it should let you download a kml file that you open in ge.

 

[COlineman78]

Geocommunicator dot gov, you want the new "surface management agency" server if memory is correct. Click the arcgis link and it should let you download a kml file that you open in ge.

Works great! Only downside is that you can't set the transparency very well. I will try to convert this data into something more useful as this seems to be the most complete and accurate source I've seen. I also have been collecting some useful KML files for Google Earth in Colorado: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByxffTSPCmfSZnFnMGJDOVUwMVE&usp=sharing

 

[COlineman78]

I figured out how to use the API wapitibob posted and I'm gonna quick throw together a Java tool tonight for creating bundles for use offline and modifying opacity. I will make it so that you can specify a lat/lon range and it will export into a fully contained kmz after which I'll play around with getting it to work on a phone as well.

 

[Matt Cashell]

Another great GE tip, wapitibob! Thanks.

 

[COlineman78]

Okay guys, I have created a tool that will make this overlay available offline. I have added some of the more common states, but at the higher quality these files become quite large and slow, so I would highly recommend using smaller areas.

The North, South, East, West fields expect boundaries in decimal form lat/lon. In order to see what area you would like you have to put Google Earth in decimal form (instead of the default degree, minute, second). To do this got to Tools > Options and in the "Show Lat/Lon" box set it to "Decimal Degrees". Now the lat/lon of the cursor will be displayed in the bottom right.

Here is the tool: (Java 1.6 or higher is required, which you should already have)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByxffTSPCmfSZ3BqSU1QMzBPdjg

The tool can take quite a while to run. Run time depends on area size and quality.

Thanks to wapitibob for the data source.

Edit: Tool was updated on 4-4-16 at 2am

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

How do these overlays look versus the CO hunt atlas?

 

[COlineman78]

How do these overlays look versus the CO hunt atlas?

Well, it's google earth so the interface is much better and you get a better feel for terrain. It takes a little work to collect all the overlays you need to get all the same information but it can be done. Most of which are either in the first link I provided or using the layer wapitibob referenced.

 

[Backpacker]

You can also check out a website called SaRtopo. Its my favorite resource for making my own maps. Hope this helps!

 

[claybreaker]

Works great! Only downside is that you can't set the transparency very well. I will try to convert this data into something more useful as this seems to be the most complete and accurate source I've seen. I also have been collecting some useful KML files for Google Earth in Colorado: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByxffTSPCmfSZnFnMGJDOVUwMVE&usp=sharing

Thanks for sharing these !! NICE.

 

[slick trick]

are any of yall using CalTopo http://caltopo.com/ I tink it is much better than having to mess with downloading files and importing to ge as a kml. In Caltopo you can actually see the degrees of the slopes print out all kinds of topos ,layers and so much more than ge.

 

[Tberg]

Check out www.gameplannermaps.com. They have free interactive maps with all the surface ownership, roads, trails, GMUs, etc; for about a dozen western states. And a downloads section where you can get overlays for Google earth, also free.

 

[ARCHER11]

I have found this overlay very useful!

Roadless - Colorado Roadless Rule

 

[yak]

Google Earth Scouting Tips - Part 2: Importing Overlays

A few on here including CO GMU's and topo layer.

 

[toprut]

We've put together a pretty comprehensive Google Earth unit map library as well.

Unit Maps - Toprut

 

[nickamuch]

Here are KMLs showing all public lands for the western states: https://www.outdoorearthmaps.com/shop