Quickstart
Open it in about two minutes.
The same instructions ship as QUICKSTART.md inside the download. This page exists
so you can read it before buying, or find it again without digging out the zip.
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Import it correctly. Each layer is a separate
.kmzin thelayers/folder. In Google Earth, add one as map features, not as a data layer. Importing as a data layer strips the colours and flattens the folders, and the whole thing stops working. This is the one mistake that makes people think the file is broken. - Import only what you're about to read. Google Earth holds about 10,000 features and 250,000 vertices per project — a few of these layers at a time, not all 35. The README lists what each one costs, so you can see in advance what will sit together. Read a combination, then clear the project and load the next.
- Start with what worries you. Import the one or two layers that answer it — wildfire, water rights, distance from a city, state law — and read the gaps. Most layers draw only the problems, so unshaded ground is passing ground.
- Then sanity-check a county. Turn on Wildfire Hazard, Water Rights, Radon Zone 1 and Well Depth, and zoom to it. Any shading that lands on your county is a warning the county-level average smoothed over.
- Want a ranking underneath? Your free State Screen ranks every county in your state and is small enough to load beside any of these.
Two layers need a manual step
Both draw everything by default. Under Radon Zones, untick Zone 3 and usually Zone 2. Under Growing Season, leave ticked only the bands you'd accept — it's a diverging scale that goes red at both ends, because too long is as wrong as too short.
Read the spreads, not just the medians
Well Depth carries within-county ranges in its balloons. Where that range is wide, the county figure is describing nowhere in particular — a valley bottom and a ridge three thousand feet up are different places that happen to share a courthouse.
The full guide is README.md inside the download. Anything else:
support@preparedground.com.