bill

Off topic, Zane.  But do you guys know why Google Earth is so terrible at loading large geotifs, or many other files (.shp, etc.) while on the same machine, QGIS (for example) loads them almost instantly without a hiccup in most cases?

My opinion is that Google Earth is already displaying all sorts of stuff and keeping track of it in a 3D model. QGIS shows everything top down and is just adding layers which is a far more simple activity. Google Earth is not designed to take large raster files whereas QGIS is. 

Hmm.  The performance adding vector data, like shp files, also is very slow for even relatively small file sets.  It's like the software is made to run the same on a chromebook as it does on a packed workstation. Watching a resource monitor while you're waiting for something to load you notice that the hardware is idling.  You would think Google could do a little better with their resources.

Oh well, you get what you pay for, as the saying goes.