Creating bar charts using GE Graph
1. Create and name a folder in the places menu. Right click in the desired location and choose ‘Add/Folder’
2. With this folder highlighted create a series of pins located at your data collection sites (think carefully about the order of your pins – create them in the sequence in which you wish to input your data)
3. To save the folder right click on the folder and choose ‘save place as’, select a suitable save location and choose .kml as the file type
4. To open the .kml file in GEGraph firstly open GEGraph, on the top menu bar select ‘File / Open file’, select the .kml file saved in step 3 and click ‘Open’
5. In the bottom right of the GEGraph window you should now see a table with the longitude, latitude and name of your pins. Enter your data into the ‘value’ column.
6. There is now a range of formatting options to choose for your graph output.
a. Graph type – for bar charts select ‘3D’, Polygon Sides (4 = square bars, 20+ = circular bars), size ‘constant’, height ‘according to value’, colour ‘constant’
b. Size – select a suitable size (diameter of bars relative to ground) for the scale of your project
c. Height – select ‘Automatic scale’. This can be altered later if not suitable (see step 8)
d. Colour – select fill and line colours according to preference
e. Labels – select as required
f. Title – enter title, select colour scheme and select ‘Show title in GE’
g. Grid and Value Transform – these can remain as default (unselected) in most cases
7. Once all formatting options are completed select ‘Open in GE’ (red text in middle of window) then ‘Run’ from the top menu bar, choose a suitable file name and location, select .kmz as file type and click ‘Save’. The graph should now automatically load into Google Earth.
8. If you wish to change any of the formatting return to GEGraph window, change settings, ‘Run’, and follow command window prompts