Google maps KML parser

Last time I was out on an urban exploration trip with Michelle (and others). We agreed that I’d drive to various locations and she would bring notes on the actual locations to visit. But we ran into a small issue when we were ready to leave. She had written down coordinates for all locations but my car has a build-in satellite navigation system that doesn’t allow coordinates as an input.

So in order to start our urbex trip I had to first convert the latitude and longitude degrees to decimal format and then use Google Maps (on my phone) to figure out the street address for a given location.

As most people I know use Google Maps or Google Earth to store their locations I’d encounter the same issue whenever I wanted “quick” access to my locations.

To solve this issue I created a KML parser in PHP. The tool is available at http://www.tmclssns.net/kmlparser

To make it work you just have to export your Google Maps (Google Earth is currently not supported!) as KML and upload it on the KML parser web page.

Once uploaded the KML parser goes through all entries (locations) and based on the coordinates tries to find the street address. When it’s done crunching the numbers, you’ll be presented with a formatted table that now has your markers, descriptions, name, GPS coordinates and street address.

This page can be printed and you can take it with you. Searching and looking for street addresses is no longer an issue. All that’s needed is a single KML file created from locations you want to visit that day. The benefit as seen in the screenshot above is that if you use markers to designate visited / to visit locations, you can easily identify these locations on your printed version as well.

Legenda:

• Yellow: interesting location, visit;
• Green: already visited;
• Purple: a potential urbex location but not worth the drive. Do these when you’re in the neighborhood.

I know some of you will frown upon reading that you have to upload your KML file. That’s the downside of the “application”. I developed this for personal use only but figured some might benefit from it as well. So whether you trust it or not, know it’s there at your disposal. Just for the record, KML files are not permanently stored on the server.

Note: This parser was written with urban exploration in mind but can of course be used for any type of KML file generated from Google Maps.

Update
I’ve added support for Google Earth. Exports from Mac OS X and Windows seem to work. Linux exports generated some kind of binary formatted file which the parser is unable to read at the moment.