Looking to make that offshore cruise with EarthNC Plus?
If you don’t have dedicated internet access aboard, it is still possible to ‘cache’ Google’s imagery along your route.
Here are the basic steps to cache an area:
1. Set your Google Earth (GE) cache settings to the maximum possible (2000mb) in ‘Tools’ - ‘Options’ - ‘Cache’
2. To set up a ‘clean’ area, clear your memory and disk cache using the buttons in this same menu
3. Browse the area you’ll be cruising. Be sure to zoom in to load the best imagery. For a more methodical method, you can use Google Earth Voyager.
You can now disconnect from the internet and you will have good imagery in the area you’ve cached.
To save the cache for future use or to create multiple cached areas you’ll need to do a few more steps.
1. Log out of your Google Earth session by closing Google Earth or selecting ‘Files’-'Logout’ in the GE menu.
2. Locate your Google Earth cache files. These are normally stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Your Login Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth
The files you need are dbCache.dat and dbCache.dat.index.
3. Create a new folder for storage and copy these files into it. We suggest you name the folder for the area of the cache files (ie Tampa Bay)
4. You can now restart Google Earth (or Log In via ‘Files’-'Login’) and cache a new area.
To use a previously save cache:
1. Log out or close GE.
2. Copy your stored dbCache.dat and dbCache.dat.index files to the GE default location, replacing the current cache.
3. Restart or log back into GE
You may also use this technique to transfer cache files from one computer to another as long as both share the same version of Google Earth.