This is the text of an email from John Wilson describing the kml plugin. This will be refined and annotated as this plugin is experimented with.
 
TrackDataPlugIn
===============
This fetches the low-level data channels (corresponding to altitude, longitude, latitude, etc) and returns the data to TrackKMLPlugIn.  Your track data source needs to have at least an alt, lat, and lon channel. The default channel names are "Alt", "Lat", and "Lon".  If your RBNB Source doesn't use these channel names, you will need to specify your channel names in a TrackDataPlugIn config file, using the "-f" command line flag.  As an example of this file, you can consult the default config file, located in your RBNB installation at the following (very long!) path:

    apache-tomcat-5.5.12\webapps\webTurbine\
        WEB-INF\classes\TrackResources\TrackConfig.txt

An example of how to launch this PlugIn:

    java -cp <RBNBPI>;<RBNBBIN>\rbnb.jar
        TrackDataPlugIn -f .\TrackDataConfig.txt

where <RBNBPI> is the path to where TrackDataPlugIn is found, and
<RBNBBIN> is the path to where rbnb.jar is found.

If you run TrackDataPlugIn with a "-h" flag you can check out the other command line options available.  Several of these have to do with the type of data compression being used - we use either a Douglas-Peuker algorithm (the default) or a simple decimation algorithm.

TrackKMLPlugIn
==============
Creates a KML-formatted version of the alt/lat/lon data returned from TrackDataPlugIn.  This PlugIn also has an input config file (which can be specified using the "-f" command line flag).  The default config file is available at:

    apache-tomcat-5.5.12\webapps\webTurbine\
        WEB-INF\classes\TrackResources\KMLConfig.txt

The top entries in this file (labelBy, sortBy, iconBy, iconScale, and colorBy) are used to initialize the PlugIn GUI options.  The options further on in the config file will be used less commonly.

An example of how to launch this PlugIn:

    java -cp <RBNBPI>;<RBNBBIN>\rbnb.jar
        TrackKMLPlugIn -C -f .\TrackKMLConfig.txt

where <RBNBPI> is the path to where TrackKMLPlugIn is found, and <RBNBBIN> is the path to where rbnb.jar is found.  You probably want to use the "-C" option as I have shown above.

If you run TrackKMLPlugIn with a "-h" flag you can check out the other command line options available.

Fetching data
=============
1. Start Tomcat, RBNB Server, and your PlugIns

2. Start Google Earth and include the following type of URL in a NetworkLink:

http://localhost/RBNB/TrackKML/TrackData/<RBNB_Source_Name>?d=500

This URL assumes that Tomcat is running on port 80.  This URL will fetch a track of the most recent 500 seconds worth of data.

3. Is you want to create an even slicker system, instead of just using a static URL such as the one above, start an instance of TimeDrive and allow the user to play/step through their data.  An instance of the TimeDrive server needs to be started (timedrive.jar is in the same directory as rbnb.jar); if you have port 4000 available on the local machine, you can start TimeDrive by simply executing:

    java -jar timedrive.jar

The TimeDrive GUI would be available at:

    http://localhost/TimeDrive

Set the desired time and data duration (called "Interval" in TimeDrive) and then in your Google Earth NetworkLink you can use a URL such as:

http://localhost/TimeDrive/RBNB/TrackKML/TrackData/<RBNB_Source_Name>

Notice that I have taken off the duration munge ("?d=500") from this URL because TimeDrive will now specify the time and duration to use.

When you bring up the TimeDrive interface in a web browser, or when you first request for data through TimeDrive in Google Earth, you will be prompted for a unique username/pw; this isn't an account - it is simply to uniquely identify yourself (so that multiple users can go through one instance of TimeDrive and yet each specify different times in TimeDrive).  To get rid of this username/pw prompting, run TimeDrive using either the "-m 1" or "-m 2" command line flags.