I am working on a quote calculator that will generate a quote based on mileage between various locations (amongst other conditionals). Up until two days ago, I had planned to use Google's Distance Matrix service until I discovered:
Display of a Google Map
Use of the Distance Matrix service must relate to the display of information on a Google Map; for example, to determine origin-destination pairs that fall within a specific driving time from one another, before requesting and displaying those destinations on a map. Use of the service in an application that doesn't display a Google map is prohibited.
I had hoped to use only the services that I require:
- Distance by Road Measurement between up to three different locations
- Address Autocomplete Service usable on an input box
- Accurate, reliable service that can provide multiple different routes to create an average distance
I know there are other methods available for this, but I doubt many can be as accurate and reliable as Google, I've found it challenging to find anything comparable to Google Maps for the purposes I require.
So, unless you guys can point me to something that I can use, my only option is to use a Google Map where I don't need it, adding additional loading time and altering the UX design I had planned.
Are there any free services available for what I require (preferably with a JS API)?
On a slightly different note
If I do use a Google map, would it have to be displayed immediately, or could I hide it and add an option to 'Show On Map', and have it .slideToggle revealed?
Unfortunately for the Distance Matrix API, Google strictly says you NEED to display the map in your application:
Use of the Distance Matrix API must relate to the display of information on a Google Map; for example, to determine origin-destination pairs that fall within a specific driving time from one another, before requesting and displaying those destinations on a map. Use of the service in an application that doesn't display a Google map is prohibited.
http://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distancematrix/#Limits
However, what I think is more useful for your need is Google Directions API. The directions API allows you to cover your requirements.
The total distance is returned in the JSON object from the request.
You can select upto as many different locations to find distances between using the Waypoints in your search request. The distances between these locations are then returned in each "leg".
You can obtain the average distance from multiple different routes to your destination by specifying the alternatives parameter in your search request to true. See: http://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/directions/#RequestParameters
Best of all, there is no requirement from Google to display the Google Map in your application when using this service.
I should also mention the drawbacks to this service, if you choose to use it.
The request time it takes to process your request will be slightly longer than if you were to use the Distance Matrix API.
You'll have a lot of unneeded data in the return object, for instance the individual "steps" of the route in the returned json object is not necessary based on your application requirements.
Given the drawbacks, I'd still highly recommend looking into the Directions API for your application.
I don't know if Google Static Maps count as a map, but it should, since it's a Map and from Google.
You could calculate the route and then show it as an image from Static Maps. No extra map loading times required. Only one image.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/staticmaps/#Paths
Many developers have been able to do this with the Bing Maps REST routing service http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff701705.aspx. It requires a bit more development but works well. Here is an example: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Bing-Maps-trip-optimizer-c4e037f7
Streetmap and arcserver can solve a vehicle routing problem but it's not free. Read more here: http://www.esri.com/data/streetmap.
Related
I'm looking for a solution to get data to create a simple roads-only map.
Within a small area specified by lat/long I need data that allows me to draw custom lines between given street coordinates (start and endpoints are basically enough and only from major streets). Coordinates from intersections are also fine to connect those with my custom lines.
Another approaches would be to get all the major street names within the specified area via reverse geocoding and then - somehow - get coordinates for each of this streets.
There was a similar request a couple years ago:
Get street graph for a game using Google Maps API and I'm wondering is it still a big deal to achieve this kind of technical information in a simple way?
EDIT:
I researched the topic but no result gave me the satisfaction I was looking for. For instance Google's Directions/Roads API are both depending on routes. OSM/Google Maps API are filled with information around a specified geo location but without any technical data I need. To be simple: An Array of intersection/street-point coordinates (are they even called coordinates?!).
I think I'm lost - or even stuck - in terms of my own search phrases. I'm not looking for a copy & paste snippet more like a direction or some hints where to focus next or how it is done.
With the clarification of geocodezip's comment I've found the following related question:
How to get all roads around a given location in OpenStreetMap?
This fully suits my demand to get specific road information within a certain location using OSM instead of Google Maps API.
Many thanks
I am developing a web app based on the Google App Engine.
It has some hundreds of places (name, latitude, longitude) stored in the Data Store.
My aim is to show them on google map.
Since they are many I have registered a javascript function to the idle event of the map and, when executed, it posts the map boundaries (minLat,maxLat,minLng,maxLng) to a request handler which should retrieve from the data store only the places in the specified boundaries.
The problem is that it doesn't allow me to execute more than one inequality in the query (i.e. Place.latminLat, Place.lntminLng).
How should I do that? (trying also to minimize the number of required queries)
You could divide the map into regions, make an algorithm to translate the current position into a region, and then get the places by an equality query. In this case you would need overlapping regions, allow places to be part of many of them, and ideally make regions bigger than the size of the map, in order to minimize the need for multiple queries.
That was just an outline of the idea, an actual implementation would be a little bit more complicated, but I don't have one at hand.
Another option is using geohashes, which are actually pretty cool, you can read a write up about them, along with code samples, here: Scalable, fast, accurate geo apps using Google App Engine + geohash + faultline correction
You didn't say how frequently the data points are updated, but assuming 1) they're updated infrequently and 2) there are only hundreds of points, then consider just querying them all once, and storing them sorted in memcache. Then your handler function would just fetch from memcache and filter in memory.
This wouldn't scale indefinitely but it would likely be cheaper than querying the Datastore every time, due to the way App Engine pricing works.
I currently have a service area system based on zipcodes, customers would enter an address(zipcode) and it would return the available service times for their service area (a service area can have multiple zipcodes), what I need to do now is instead of using zipcodes to create service areas I need to use a boundary system where I can draw polygons on a map and when customers enter an address we would geocode it and compare against the service area and return appropriate service time, a system like this would be more accurate because the problem I have now is that zipcode boundaries are of very different shapes and it is impossible to make an accurate service time map. I'm having problems thinking of an easy way to accomplish this.
to get you started:
Google Maps tutorial
After researching deeper on this topic, I found what I was looking for!, I could use the ray-casting algorithm to spot a point(coordinates) inside a polygon, the polygon's coordinates I can easily get from Google maps, In essence what I will be doing is:
Make a Google maps area selector to build polygons.
Save polygons point coordinates array to database.(as service region/area)
Geo-Code customers addresses and save to DB as well (First time will pull from Google maps and save on DB for future use).
4.Use the Ray-Casting Algorithm to loop through all the "polygons" until it returns true and we would know to what polygon the address belongs to, if it returns false then we know we don't service that area.
References:
Raycasting algorithm with GPS coordinates
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Ray-casting_algorithm
I have been using Google maps api to get customer to a specific location using a constructor like this
new google.maps.LatLng(42.999, 54.000);
With the exact longitude and latitude as the arguments. What I want to do now is not use the lat, long option and use a keyword like rest area that would bring up the closet rest area. I am not quite finding it in Google map api here https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/reference
Can some one help me come up with a constrctor that can take a key word and locate the nearest one in googLe maps.
You're going to have to use the google geocoding API.
Basically you do a request to google with a search string and it returns an object containing the long/lat for areas it may have found... There's a lot of options in there and you can do fairly neat tricks which are already carefully explained by google themselves.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/
There are some limitations to the # of requests you can make per-day. To keep this to a minimum you can ofcourse make a server side script that pre-fetches results for things that will be re-used (for example the long/lat for office location of a large enterprise which may have a dot on a map on the website...).
Simplest way would be to make a json request with a few parameters and parse the return json in js, like getting the long/lat of the first result returned.
If I understand correctly, you want to use keyword search for things around a particular location. I would suggest using the Places library of the Google Maps API:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/places#place_searches
This allows you to search by category or by keyword over Google's datastore of 10s of millions of Places.
I am working now on little project.
In one view i am returning data for google maps API (longitudes and latitudes).
Under the map I have to implement few buttons to add point of interests on the map in this location which is actually showed.
There could be some buttons/types of POI like schools, banks, atms etc.
So, let's go back. When I put all my markers on map how to add there points of interests?
I would like to get below data for them:
longitude (needed for show)
latitude
type
title
description
I know, that there is google local ajax search api, but I am not sure if it is correct way to do.
I know how to find this data using google maps interface, for example:
Example Map
http://maps.google.pl/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=pl&geocode=&q=category:%22Banks+%26+Financial+Institutions%22&sll=51.510202,-0.12144&sspn=0.01859,0.05549&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ei=N4hUS7ynEc7AjAeWtNm4CA&radius=1.19&rq=1&ev=zi&hq=category:%22Banks+%26+Financial+Institutions%22&hnear=&z=15
but how to do this using API?
Thanks.
The Google Local Search API can be used to obtain a small number of such points at a time, as in this example. Or you could just add the Googlebar to your Maps AVI v2 map.
Access to large numbers of such points at once is not available from Google, and is generally not available for free.
In addition to Google, there are other data providers you can use. For example, the API at http://compass.webservius.com allows you to retrieve data on more than 16 million businesses in the US (including name, lat/long, business type / industry code, etc).
The Google API is a Javascript API.
If I understand you correctly, you want to add markers on a Google Map using the Google Maps API.
The documentation suggests that either you hardcode your Markers or create one by creating a Marker Manager.
I have never used Google Maps API but if you want more info, visit the documentation here.
Good luck!