I'd like to draw filled circles in Google Earth which follow the curvature of the earth, i.e. for 1000ft altitude, not only the circle's edge but also the center is required to be 1000ft above reference. At the moment, the circle's edge is at the required altitude, but – not unexpectedly – the earth's surface "pokes out" in the center if the circle gets too wide.
I think I can approximate what I need by creating polygons which are made of concentric circles every so-many distance units, so that all in all, they create a shell-like or hat-like shape which fits above the local earth surface at the required altitude.
However, I can't seem to get the kml geometry for my polygon to work for this. I gather that I don't need an inner boundary, as there will be no holes. Creating outer boundaries with linear rings in various combinations only accepts the last entered linear ring, though, which is the outermost; the inner ones are ignored.
Can someone help? Is it clear what I am trying to achieve?
Best Answer
As you've noticed Google Earth doesn't tessellate polygons. This means that you will need to tessellate your polygon on your own.
You could use something like Triangle to do this: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake/triangle.html
Here is a list of libraries which will allow you to do this. Some of them might or might not have a program to do this: http://vterrain.org/Implementation/Libs/triangulate.html
Also this has been asked before, have a look at the old question: Google Earth Polygon surface area to follow the curvature of the earth model