Import & change map data

If you would like to practice importing data, you can download a sample CSV file to use with the steps. Or follow these steps with your own CSV file.

1. On your computer, open Google Earth Pro.
2. Click File  Import.
3. Browse to the location of the CSV file and open it. 
4. In the message that appears, next to Field Type, choose Delimited.
5. Next to Delimited, choose Comma.
6. Use the preview pane to ensure your data has imported correctly.
7. Click Next.
8. Next to "This dataset does not contain latitude/longitude information," check the box and click Next.
9. Choose "Addresses are broken into multiple fields."
10. Under "Select Address Field(s)," look over the names to make sure they're correct and click Next.
11. Confirm the list of fields and the type of data selected for each and click Back.
12. Click Finish. Google Earth begins geocoding your data.
13. To use a style template, click Yes.
14. Click OK.

If you like, save the template as a file (.kst) that you can use in the future.

You can define your own point data and import it using generic text files.

You can apply color to selected fields in your imported data. In this case, color is applied to the feature depending upon the type of data imported:

• Icons are colored with point data
• Lines are colored when applying to lines or paths
• Solid polygons are colored with shape data

Use the color style to color these elements in a meaningful way depending upon both the data type and the field data within the entire set.

If you want to use one color for all the points or lines from your imported data, select the 'Use single color' option. Then, click the colored square next to the option. From the color selector, choose a color or define your own color to apply to the data.

Follow steps 1-6 under Apply a style template.

1. Select the Set color from field option in the "Color" tab. Then, choose a color from the Set color dropdown. Here, you can choose either numeric fields or text fields from your data. 
2. To change the color range, click each color block and set the starting and ending color. Google Earth Pro calculates the range between the two color values.
3. To group a range of numeric fields, choose a number of buckets.
4. To display data elements for places based on color bucket, create subfolders.To show or hide the display of color groups, use the check box next to the folder. Note: Only one sub-folder can be assigned for either color or icon display.
5. To reverse the order of the color range and their element assignments, click Reverse order.
6. Click OK to save your style template.

You can apply icons to fields in your data. Icons cannot be mapped to line or shape data.

There are two ways to map icons to points:

• Use same icon for all features
• Set an icon from a field

Follow steps 1-6 under Apply a style template.

1. Select Set icon from field. Choose the field that you want to apply icon labels to.
2. To group a range of numeric fields, choose a number of buckets. For each bucket defined, select an icon from the list.
3. Create subfolders to display data elements for places based on color bucket.To show or hide the display of color groups, use the check box next to the folder. Note: Only one sub-folder can be assigned for either color or icon display.
4. To modify an individual bucket icon element, click the bucket to adjust the value or value range. Note: To adjust the spread of the data to your preference, modify the settings for numeric buckets.
5. Click OK to save the style template.

After height values are set, points, lines, or shapes are moved from ground level to the height defined for each data element.

• If you map height to lines or shapes, the values you define work in combination with the colors defined.
• If you map height to point data, those points are moved using a single pixel colored line to connect the icon from its elevated position to the ground. You can use style settings to modify the width and color of lines.

When you map height values to a numeric data field, you can choose from two mapping methods:

• Continuous: Uses the minimum and maximum values of a field to determine a minimum and maximum height display for the entire set. Use this method for smaller data sets where individual distinctions between points or shapes are easily visualized.
• Split into buckets: Creates up to 8 height groupings for your data. Use this method for large data sets where continuously mapped heights are not easily visualized in the 3D viewer.

To make data points and lines easier to see in the 3D viewer, you can edit the style settings for each point to modify the line thickness.

1. Mouse over the point you want to modify. Then, select Properties (Windows, Linux) or Get Info (Mac).
2. In the 'Style, Color' section, modify the point's appearance as needed.
3. Click OK.

If you are using a spreadsheet application to create your data, choose a numeric cell format. If you have numeric fields in your CSV saved from a spreadsheet, but the 'Style Template' wizard is not recognizing it as numeric, it might be due to incorrect formatting.