A short update to a previous post on the visualization of NCSS/USDA soil survey data in Google Earth. The use of the NetworkLink construct, combined with the spatial indexing present in PostGIS, allows for very rapid lookup and presentation of this massive database. Scale-dependant switching between the detailed (SSURGO) and generalized (STATSGO) databases is done through simple area calculation in PostGIS.
Here is the link to the KMZ file. Here is a link to our conventional viewer application, based on Ka-Map / Mapserver, using the same PostGIS back-end (previous post on this). This PLSS KML file is very useful along-side soil survey information.
Feedback is always welcome!
Updates:
- added link to download-able KMZ file, no longer need to manually create a network link
- KMZ (compressed KML) is now used to for streaming soil survey data (5x-10x smaller files)
- graphical component summaries are presented in the map unit info "bubble"
Soil-Web Graphical Component List
Links:
SoilWeb Usage Statistics
SoilWeb: An Online Soil Survey Browser
Three New Soils-Related KMZ Demos
