How to use the Google Earth® based data

This release incorporates data that can be seen as a Google Earth® interactive image overlay

Background

The Google Earth® covers the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) region and contains 3,005 Statistical Area 1 (SA1) areas with information for each of these areas categorised into 4 themes:

• Boundary information, population and business
• Rateable land value and land use
• Dynamic land cover
• Fire, temperature and rainfall

Getting the Google Earth® data onto your computer

First download and install the free Google Earth® software.

Second, download the KMZ file


Open the KMZ file with Google Earth® and you should see the following



Viewing GBR data

Using your mouse scroll or the navigation zoom controls within Google Earth®, by zooming in or out, you will be able to navigate around the GBR region. When you have identified an SA1 of interest to you, click on the region and an information window containing data for that region will pop up.



This window presents data for 74 attributes in the selected SA1. Features of the information window:

• The scroll bar on the right hand side will allow you to navigate up and down through the data for the particular window.
• Hovering over this symbol will provide more information about the data item.
• Clicking on will link you to the Explanatory Notes.

Searching for a region

Each SA1 has a unique 7 digit hierarchical code that identifies each individual SA1 and therefore the SA1 areas are not identified by "name".

You can, however, search for a town or city that you are interested in by entering the name in the "Fly to " box.



Customise the boundaries

You can change the colour and width of the SA1 boundaries by clicking on edit/properties on the Menu bar. This will bring up the following pop up. Change the colour and or the width and then "OK".



There are some SA1 areas within larger SA1 areas. Changing the colour of a SA1 border will help you identify the SA1 areas of interest.



Additional information

Within the information windows, you will also find links that will direct you to other related ABS products.

• The ESRI® Geodatabase file and Mapinfo version can be downloaded from the ABS website; this can be used as a socio-economic spatial layer in a GIS system.
• A tab delimited text file showing data at the SA1 level is provided. This can be used in spreadsheet applications.

Minimum System Requirements for Google Earth®

PC System:

Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 CPU: Pentium 3, 500Mhz System Memory (RAM): 256MB Hard Disk: 400MB free space Network Speed: 128 Kbits/sec Graphics Card: DirectX9 and 3D capable with 64MB of VRAM Screen: 1024x768, "16-bit High Color" - DirectX 9 (to run in Direct X mode)

Mac System:

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5.0 or later CPU: Any Intel Mac System Memory (RAM): 256MB Hard Disk: 400MB free space Network Speed: 128 Kbits/sec Graphics Card: DirectX9 and 3D capable with 64MB of VRAM Screen: 1024x768, "Thousands of Colors"

Linux System:

Kernel: 2.4 or later glibc: 2.3.2 w/ NPTL or later XFree86-4.0 or x.org R6.7 or later CPU: Pentium 3, 500Mhz System Memory (RAM): 256MB Hard Disk: 400MB free space Network Speed: 128 Kbits/sec Graphics Card: DirectX9 and 3D capable with 64MB of VRAM Screen: 1024x768, "16-bit High Color" screen