I'm looking to extract terrain information from Google (Maps or Earth). Currently I am using the Google Maps Elevation Service. I'm reading LineStrings from a KML document and making several calls to getElevationAlongPath. I then save the output elevations along with the input lat and long (converted to UTM) into a point cloud, mesh the point cloud and then can import into something like Rhino.
However I am concerned that I am going to very easily fall foul of the ElevationService usage limits even with a "Google Maps API for Work" license. If I look at other tools who have achieved this (Such as "Lands Design" for Rhino or "Terrain Plugin" for 3DS Max, they appear to be using Google Earth Plugin/API rather than Google Maps.
Can anyone please help and point me in the direction of the right calls to the Google Earth API - to extract terrain data.
For anyone else looking at this - Google Earth GEGlobe.getGroundAltitude(double lat, double lon) looks like it's the answer - though the general advice looks like it is "stick to the Maps Elevation Service"