Google Earth destination exploration

The active ORC navigation view uses MapLibre. Select a POI on the map or from a nearby search, then press the globe icon inside that place’s popup to explore its destination in Earth. The popup action row contains Navigate, Earth, and Close, each with an icon above its text label; the map has no floating Earth control. The colour PNG globe has transparent corners that blend into the popup; offline mode greys it out and disables launching.

Earth opens the selected destination in a separate maximized native Chromium window, with its normal browser and Earth controls. Internet access and native Chromium are required. Tap the window title bar’s X when finished to return to ORC, which continues using MapLibre. A successful launch closes the selected POI card. Maximizing fills the X11 desktop while keeping the title bar available for touch-based exit. If you use F11 for borderless fullscreen, press F11 again to restore the title bar, then X.

The handoff passes the selected place and a fixed initial viewing angle through a URL. It does not embed Earth, subscribe to GPS, inject location, expose DevTools, or automate the Earth camera. Earth controls the initial transition and subsequent exploration. This link-out design is an interpretation of ordinary viewing permitted by the Earth terms, not an explicit Google approval of ORC. Google’s permissions guidance separately prohibits embedding Earth in apps. Keep the normal Google/provider attribution visible.

Destination links now request a 45-degree tilted view, north facing, with a 1,000-metre viewing distance using Earth’s ordinary @...45t... camera URL. This is an experiment with Earth’s share-link format, not a guaranteed API. ORC has no elevation for the POI, so the URL starts with zero target altitude and relies on Earth’s terrain handling. Verify the destination remains visible when testing. Earth may adjust or ignore the initial view; 3D buildings depend on its settings and regional coverage.

Update the branch and restart ORC before trying it:

git switch navigation-google-earth
git pull --ff-only origin navigation-google-earth

The prior embedded/GPS experiment remains in the branch history and source for reference, but is no longer wired into the default ORC navigation screen. The following notes describe that historical experiment, not the active UI workflow.

The navigation-google-earth branch offers Google Earth Web as an alternative navigation map. It runs in native Chromium on Termux/X11 and uses WebGL. It does not use the Debian/proot VirGL bridge used by games. Successful page loading does not establish that Chromium uses hardware acceleration: verify on the device.

Updating and trying the branch

Close ORC and update the device checkout:

git fetch origin
git switch navigation-google-earth
git pull --ff-only origin navigation-google-earth

Start Termux/X11 and ORC using the usual launcher. No map-renderer rebuild or new Python dependency is required. Native Chromium and the existing X11 embedding tools must be installed. Keep [apps.google_earth] enabled = true in the selected applications configuration. Earth requires internet access; MapLibre remains the offline map.

In NAVIGATION, select Google Earth. Wait for the page to load and for ORC position telemetry to arrive. ORC injects its position into the browser rather than using Chromium’s independent location provider. Cached receiver fixes are accepted; missing coordinates stop position delivery.

The existing camera rail routes pan, zoom, tilt, north-up, follow, and recenter requests to the selected platform. Chase view selects the branch’s close oblique Earth follow perspective. Earth input controls are relative gestures; MapLibre zoom values are not exact Google Earth camera coordinates. Google can change its location-control UI, so tracking activation needs device verification.

Route geometry, radar, and ORC POI markers remain on MapLibre. Earth provides the alternate visual map and GPS/camera experiment. Navigation and routing services continue running when Earth is selected.

Device checks

Select Earth, verify tiles render, then try pan, zoom, tilt, north-up, and recenter. Test Chase view with a valid position.
Compare a stationary fix and changing ORC positions. Pan manually and verify following pauses; recenter should resume it.
Switch to MapLibre and back. Earth closes on switching away and opens a fresh embedded browser on return. Resize the ORC window and verify the embedded viewport fits.
Navigate Home, return to Navigation, change theme, and close ORC. Verify that Earth never remains attached to a destroyed map host or appears as an orphan window. The application runtime owns the browser; leaving Navigation closes it before the map host is destroyed.
Close the Earth browser externally and check that Navigation returns to MapLibre. With ORC offline, selecting Earth should leave MapLibre active.

For a synthetic route on an existing broker, stop live navigation position publishers first to avoid mixing simulated and real positions, then run:

python -m messaging.component_test.earth_route_simulator_cli --no-broker

Stop the simulator with Ctrl+C and restart normal navigation services afterward. The live browser diagnostic is available with:

python -m controllers.navigation.component_test.earth_cdp_probe_cli --trace-geolocation

Chromium’s local DevTools endpoint uses port 9223; do not run a second Earth experiment with that port simultaneously. Use the existing graphics helper’s OpenGL/Vulkan probes and Chromium’s chrome://gpu report to record the device renderer. The Earth launcher leaves Chromium’s GPU backend selection at its platform default and preserves explicit browser GPU arguments. The browser still receives the existing Mesa graphics environment. Forcing ANGLE desktop OpenGL (--use-gl=angle --use-angle=gl) caused a reported Termux Earth startup regression and is no longer selected automatically. Driver detection alone does not validate Chromium’s available ANGLE backends or establish hardware acceleration. Fully restart ORC and its Earth browser after updating; a warm browser retains its old launch settings.

If location fails, first check that MapLibre has the correct ORC position. Earth’s status distinguishes missing ORC coordinates, bridge startup, and delivery without an active Earth location subscription. The location tool retries every five seconds until Earth subscribes, rather than treating a dispatched click as success. Use recenter after manually panning. Enable ORC_EARTH_TRACE=1 before launching ORC to log delivered coordinates and active watchers.

Do not enable a vendor-specific driver on an unvalidated GPU.

Implementation and validation

MapPlatformControlIf exposes immutable selection state and semantic requests to the frontend. The composition root owns NavigationMapRuntime, which serializes browser launch, camera input, resizing, and shutdown on one worker. The controller consumes ORC position/motion messages in SI units and converts angles only at the browser boundary. Chromium DevTools transport lives under protocols/chromium.

Tests cover fresh browser startup, failure fallback, stale startup cancellation, hide/close behavior, camera request routing, and GPS conversion. A local headless Chromium fixture verifies real DevTools discovery, WebSocket commands, geolocation callback delivery, and keyboard/wheel input. These checks do not validate Google Earth’s current website, touch behavior, or Android GPU drivers.

Diagnosing a black Earth viewport on Termux

VK_ERROR_SURFACE_LOST_KHR, swapchain killed, and Chromium GPU-process exits indicate a failed rendering surface/GPU process. The accompanying missing X11 refresh-rate extensions alone do not establish the cause. ORC applies Earth window resizing only when dimensions change; GPS ticks no longer issue redundant X11 resize/move operations. This reduces surface reconfiguration but does not prove that Zink survives embedding or window hide/reopen on the device.

Close ORC and its Earth browser, then run a visible standalone window without ORC embedding:

python -m apps.launchers.component_test.google_earth_launcher_cli --display :1

Leave the terminal waiting while inspecting Earth; press Enter to stop the test. If standalone Earth also goes black, inspect the browser log for GPU failures. If standalone works but embedding fails, investigate X11 reparent/hide and surface lifecycle rather than changing the GPU backend blindly. The standalone test uses a temporary unique browser profile and process selector, with a default example location, not ORC GPS. It does not reuse or stop an existing ORC Earth instance. Its separate earth-standalone.log path is printed when the test starts.

Standalone Earth with live ORC GPS

Keep the ORC broker and navigation service running with a valid Android position (the same feed used by MapLibre). The ORC UI may remain on MapLibre; do not open its embedded Earth window during this test.

python -m apps.launchers.component_test.google_earth_launcher_cli --display :1 --orc-gps

This uses port 9224 (separate from embedded Earth’s 9223), grants only the Earth origin geolocation permission through Chromium DevTools, and feeds ORC GPS into the page bridge. It does not ask Chromium to obtain Android location itself. The terminal reports page/bridge readiness, missing ORC coordinates, and Earth location subscription state. Wait for Earth to finish loading; Ctrl+C closes only the test browser and its subscriber. Run only one GPS diagnostic on that port. A synthetic position in the initial URL is just the starting view; it does not represent a live receiver fix. Device tests must confirm actual coordinates and follow behavior, not just a successful bridge delivery.

Embedded surface startup

ORC prepares an about:blank Chromium shell, embeds and sizes it, and then navigates to Earth using DevTools. Earth creates its WebGL surface after X11 reparenting. Switching away or leaving Navigation closes the browser while its host still exists; it no longer reparents an active Earth surface for warm reuse. Returning reloads Earth. Preload prepares only the blank shell; nonembedded application launches still navigate to the configured Earth URL when shown. Permission grants are refreshed when Chromium’s browser session changes.