If you were wondering how I created the Google Earth rainfall plot in yesterday’s post on FAO climate data, I didn’t use one of the shapefile to KML converters I’ve posted about. Instead, I used a free program called GE-Graph that takes tabular data and lets you plot it in colors and polygons that depend on the value you’re plotting.

1. Ge Graphics Card
2. Ge Graphic Driver
3. Ge Graphite Stove
4. Ge Graphite Dishwasher

You can enter data directly in GE-Graph using its table editor, including pasting columns from a spreadsheet, but it will also accept CSV-format text data createable in a spreadsheet in the proper format:Name, latitude, longitude, value to be plotted (data only, no column headers).

There is a similar problem here, but I am looking to prove this statement by contradiction, and I am having difficulty understanding these solutions. Here is what I've got so far. GE-Graph is a small Windows application designed specifically for helping you generate graphs from KML files created via Google Earth. The GUI looks crowded so you may need extra.

Open the data in GE-Graph (click on image for larger view):

Here you can set:

Ge Graphics Card

Graph of Type: Flat (pinned to the ground, with colors describing the data value) or 3D (Polygons, with the number of sides set by the dropdown). You can also link data to a custom KML polygon file (e.g. state borders), and use those as the plotted shapes.

Height (3D only): Whether the height varies with the data value or not

Color: Whether the color of the polygon or flat area varies with the data value; colors set using the Color Scale section

Size: The size of the flat area or polygon as plotted in Google Earth

… and so on – you can set the specific scales for the data, or have GE-Graph do that automatically, enter labels, specify a grid, etc.. There’s a full help section included with the program.

Here’s the plot from yesterday’s post, created with the above settings and data, as displayed in Google Earth:

Ge Graphic Driver

More examples of the kinds of plots that GE-Graph can create, along with the download link, are available at the GE-Graph website.

Ge Graphite Stove

Ge Graphite Dishwasher