Is it possible to view a WMTS layer in Google Earth

HI ​@sasha.nasonova 

This may be helpful for you and your field staff: How to visualize WMTS layers on Google Earth Web app?

Yeah, I saw that. I cobbled together a link that looks like this and it works somewhat: https://tiles.planet.com/basemaps/v1/planet-tiles/bc_2024_spot_rgb_mosaic/gmap/${x}/{y}/${z}.png?api_key={API_KEY} with Tile coverage of 48-60 degrees, -140--14 degrees.  But I am hoping for a better solution. 

​@sasha.nasonova  - That’s an XYZ url rather than WMTS.  The WMTS URL for that specific mosaic would be 
https://api.planet.com/basemaps/v1/mosaics/4dbf9648-951a-4fa2-8ec6-587f2987379a/wmts?api_key=API_KEY

See https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/tiles/wmts/ for more information.

Hi Joe,

Yep, I know what my WMTS link is. I am asking about visualizing WMTS in Google Earth. Any ideas?

Cheers,

Sasha

Let me back up a second.  Google Earth has limited WMTS support.  In some cases it can use it, but it’s effectively just using it as an XYZ url.

What functionality are you expecting to get out of using WMTS instead of XYZ?  

The displayed data will be identical.  The only possible differences will be in things WMTS supports (e.g. automatically setting extents or clicking to identify features), but so far as I know, Google Earth does not allow you to use.  So I’m not sure there are advantages to using WMTS specifically for this case.  The data served out is identical (WMTS just uses the XYZ url under the hood), it’s only the additional metadata that WMTS has that gives it an advantage overall.  Google Earth doesn’t work with that additional metadata at all, though.

The link I put together (https://tiles.planet.com/basemaps/v1/planet-tiles/bc_2024_spot_rgb_mosaic/gmap/${x}/{y}/${z}.png?api_key={API_KEY})  doesn’t really work in web version of Google Earth and doesn’t work at all in the Desktop version.  I am able to connect to it but I can’t really visualize it. Sometimes it will show up at a very coarse level. In Google Earth Pro it doesn’t show up at all.

I believe you’re setting the URL incorrectly. 

Planet XYZ tiles (and almost all other XYZ services) use the z/x/y ordering in the URL, not x/y/z.  See the docs on https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/tiles/xyz/  You’re instructing Google Earth to request very different tiles than what it should by changing the order.  Google’s docs are giving you its convention for how it will use template characters. The server dictates the ordering it’s expecting. Almost all XYZ tile services use a Z/X/Y convention in order (I realize it’s a touch confusing, but it actually is the standard for webtiles).

So the URL you want is:
https://tiles.planet.com/basemaps/v1/planet-tiles/MOSAIC_NAME/gmap/${z}/${x}/${y}.png?api_key=YOURKEY

The only difference from the XYZ tiles services docs at https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/tiles/xyz/ is that Google Earth expects “${}” instead of “{}”.  So “{z}/{x}/{y}” (templated used by most XYZ javascript libraries) becomes “${z}/${x}/${y}”.  The template is filled out by the client (Google Earth in this case) and every client has different conventions about what they expect.

You should also leave the extents to their default -180,-85,180,85 extent.  The extent is the extent of the tile system, not the extent of the data. XYZ  webtiles are always a global extent per standard protocol conventions.  The extent would only be used for non-standard XYZ services.

So in your specific case, if I go to “Add → Tile Overlay” and then copy-paste in:
https://tiles.planet.com/basemaps/v1/planet-tiles/bc_2024_spot_rgb_mosaic/gmap/${z}/${x}/${y}.png?api_key=YOURKEY
and leave the extents to their default, things work perfectly zooming in and zooming out as needed.

The desktop version doesn’t support XYZ tile overlays or WMTS, so far as I know.  It  might be possible via a custom-crafted KML file, but it also might not. I haven’t used Google Earth significantly since it was called “Keyhole”, unfortunately.
 

Hi @sasha.nasonova,

I posted a longer and more detailed response, but it seems it tripped a moderation flag somehow and was removed (likely due to the URL formatting details or special characters like dollar signs in the response).

In short, without copy-pasting specific URLs, you need to:

1. Change the order x/y/z in your url to “${z}/${x}/${y}”
2. Leave the extents to their default -180,-85,180,85

The desktop version doesn’t support XYZ tile overlays or WMTS, so far as I know.  For the web version, the standard tiles services docs at https://docs.planet.com/develop/apis/tiles/xyz/ work perfectly for me when adding a tile overlay layer. All that needs to be changed is that Google Earth uses $+brackets instead of only brackets for its template format.