How do I create an animation in google earth using png overlays with kml timestamps?

Question

I have the following kml files, each with a different timestamp and png:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"
 xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2">
 <GroundOverlay>
 <name>gx:LatLonQuad Example</name>
 <Icon>
<href>
/Users/asd/Dropbox/0mylayerExport.png
</href>
 </Icon>
<gx:LatLonQuad>
<coordinates>
-71.007186998722,42.2869344810739 -70.9807964189347,42.360133347777 -71.1410513483055,42.3916360561188 -71.1680083772048,42.3178859041619
</coordinates>
<TimeStamp>
<when>1944-06-06T06:2010-10-26T06:30:08
></when></TimeStamp><rotation>100</rotation>
</gx:LatLonQuad>
</GroundOverlay>
</kml>

What I'm trying to do is to animate the sequence of png overlays, but I can't figure out how. I can view all of the kml files in google earth, and click through them manually, but I was wondering if there was a neater way of animating this, instead of ticking them on and off.

---

I have tried manually adding timestamps, and time intervals in google-earth, and am still failing to automatically animate overlays, so I would appreciate any advice on how to do this too.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think the problem is your time span. Its supposed to be in the format YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:sszzzzzz (see KML Ref)

"1944-06-06T06:2010-10-26T06:30:08 "

is wrong in the "mm" part. Also, if you're trying to animate a set of time periods rather than points, you need timestamp rather than span.

Time should be before and after according to the documentation although I'm not sure if that actually matters in KML?

Final point: png makes the output KMZ large (or takes longer to download if you leave them out there on the web), best to convert to jpg if an image or gif if a simple cartoon/icon.