Google Earth API vs Google Earth COM API

Question

Hello,

I want to use Google Earth in a desktop application. My question is which one of these two APIs provided by google do you think has more functionality and/or best support?

Thank you very much

Answer 1

Google Earth API is a Javascript API for use with the Google Earth browser plug-in.

This API is currently much more developed and offers features not currently found in the Google Earth COM API, but it is limited to the Google Earth browser plug-in.

There are some neat examples here.

If you are building a web application, this is your choice.

Google Earth COM API can be used to get information from and send commands to Google Earth (the standalone application).

This API appears to be younger or at least there are very few examples available.

If you are building a desktop application, this is probably the natural choice. (I say probably because it is possible to embed a browser object of some variety in a desktop application and then implement the Google Earth browser plug-in.)

So it's more a matter of Web Application vs Not, rather than functionality.

Answer 2

I won't reiterate the good information ak1123578 gave. However the COM API is actually older than the JS API, and is on its way out. See here for some history and announcement: Sunset for the Google Earth COM API

Today we’re announcing that the Google Earth 5.2 client will be the last version that supports the COM API. Earth 5.2 and older clients will continue to support the COM API while these versions are supported. Future releases will no longer have COM API bindings. We believe that the JavaScript API provides the best mechanism for reaching the most developers.

Note that you may be able to use the JS API for a desktop app by embedding a web browser component in your app. See these two threads for some hints about that.