How to delete programatically KML nodes from Google Earth?

Question

I build a winforms app in C# which embeds Google Earth as a viewer. Like this. My app receives data regularly, transforms that to KML, and displays the result in Google Earth. Whenever I receive the new update, I want to delete the old KML, but I could not find how in GE API. All I found is making the old stuff invisible:

        this.ge = new ApplicationGEClass();
        // ....
        string newKml = this.ConvertNewInputToKML();
        this.ge.LoadKmlData(ref newKml);
        FeatureGE oldFeature = this.ge.GetFeatureByName("myOldKmlFeature");
        oldFeature.Visibility = 0;

I wonder if this will cause memory/performance issue on the long run. Or is there a way to delete from Google Earth KML nodes?

Answer 1

You can use a NetworkLink with a time based refresh to replace old data at a certain interval. http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kmlreference.html#networklink

There might be other ways of specifying it from within KML as well.

Answer 2

KML is nothing but XML. I would recommend that you delete the appropriate nodes from the XML tree and re-write to file every so often.

I don't know KML that well yet. Do you need to re-load the entire file every time you want to make changes to what has been rendered?