I've seen some sites, that use Google Maps, have the ability to show 'Points of Interest' on the map. Similar to what Google Earth does.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: http://i.imgur.com/5OCor.jpg
How can I do this? :/
As far as I know, Google Map does not have a 'Points of Interest' feature for you to enable.
But you always can do it on your own. First of all, you have to obtain a POI database, e.g. Open source POI database? - Stack Overflow
Next, select the POIs visible in the viewport. Then add them to the map using GMarker. You also have to add or remove the POI as user pan and zoom the map.
As you can see this requires fair bit of programming. Google Earth has already packaged this into a great application. But this isn't available in Google map API (that I know of).
One possible source of POI data is http://compass.webservius.com - it's a REST API allowing access to a database of millions of businesses in the USA, searchable by business type (industry code), latitude/longitude bounding box, etc.
Related
I want to make an interactive map web application for a game that I play. Basically I want it to be a kind of Google maps clone, where I have a vector-based graphic of the region area and I can zoom in and out to reveal certain level of detail.
My research into map APIs has returned little results. OpenStreetMaps and Google Maps only allow custom maps with real geolocation data. My project requires the creation of a map with nonexistent locations. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to approach this? Thanks.
I think you can use "real" GPS coordinates and then customise the base layer beneath. The GPS Lat Long coordinates (between -90 and +90 each) offer as good a scale as any to then locate your fictional positions.
Google Maps has an API that allows putting custom layers and base maps here:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/maptypes#CustomMapTypes
OpenStreetMaps will also allow this. Some recommended guides available here:
https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/
Good luck!
Is there any Javascript API that does not display the entire world map and later allows to zoom and click to individual countries, but instead just displays the country we are interested and allows region-level clicks? In other words, I am looking for an API similar to JVectorMap but this does not have comprehensive support for all countries and it does not show street-level view when zooming further deep into state/city level. I hope my requirements are clear. If I am interested only in let's say England's map, I want the map to show just England but allow state and city-level clicks with street-level or near street-level views at the lowest level as an optional feature (not too many details at the lowest-level). Google Maps, jHERE etc. seem to show the entire world map and allow to zoom-in, which is not something I want.
thanks,
Paddy
If you only want the street maps for one country to be visible, you could download the Open Street Map data into a PostGIS database for that country and that country only, and generate tiles. There are several tutorials on how to download data and make tiles, e.g. http://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server/
So I've looked at all the previous questions asked and found that nothing was answered to the point of what most are asking and I would like to rephrase the question asked about making clickable maps.
The idea - Have a map of a singular city in the USA that I could use jquery to outline the towns inside said city. I would then like to be able to go into further detail of said town showing things like shopping centers, parks, street names, available housing, etc.
I could use the map detail I received from the city to draw/outline all these small sections from a vector file I have.
This doesn't necessarily have to remain on the same page but it would be nice if it did.
If this could be too expensive hiring someone or too long to sit and code for one person, then my next option would be using Google Maps. Now I know that Google Maps doesn't have the most up-to-date visuals so I was wondering if it was possible to set up all my own markers and possibly pictures of locations if they don't exist on Google?
The Result - A custom map that's somewhat reminiscent to that of Google Maps only without the hassle of Google Maps itself and if there was a search option for the map using Google Maps as a last resort I wouldn't want the search results to display anything but locations within the city limits.
Or should I just use DreamWeaver to hot-spot a map that each link to their respective location details?
These are similar examples I've found but most are just hover and click but nothing further. http://davidlynch.org/projects/maphilight/docs/demo_usa.html
http://exploregooglemaps.blogspot.com.br/p/resources.html
there is a great plugin doing that, it is jvectormap :
http://jvectormap.com/
it is very lightweight & cross browser (vml is used for non svg support) & very easily extensible (which imo is better than have a plugin full of option you don't need, here it has the minimum then you add what you need) through on click, on mouse over call back to start with & that shall be enough for most cases.
lightweight if you convert your map correctly (limit to the max the level of details).
now the conversion of the vector map for use by the plugin can be tricky but there is a wiki about it :
https://github.com/datag/jvectormap/wiki/Map-converter-notes
i've redacted the part of the wiki about using GIS software on ubuntu. using SAGA-GIS was indeed a saviour & a good thing to learn to publish any map for the plugin in no time.
I'll add that i've tested anymap from anychart & fusionmap from fusioncharts and that imo jvector is the winner without any contest for cross-browser/customisation ease/flexibility/bandwidth/execution efficiency... & last but not least it is free !
If I do a search for a city or neighbourhood which google recognizes, like Fernwood, Victoria, I get a pretty map with a drawn boundary. Is there any way to access this kind of information with the google maps API?
I am not looking to draw my own lines on maps, I am looking to make a map showing multiple neighbourhoods with limits on the same map. Bonus points for the ability to style these limits (eg: fill them in like a regular polygon)?
I'm pretty sure that this kind of functionality is not supported by the api and works only for google maps.
I had implement this by finding the boundaries that i needed insert them in my postgis db and then send them with json whenever the polygon was within the map viewport.
Hope it helps
I want to make a website that displays my map, has panning, zooming and other features.
The google API seems to be the right thing for me. Just one question : Can i use the google javascript api with my own map images on my own server. I dont want to use the actual google maps, just its capability to display zoomable/scrollable maps in a browser
Technically this may be possible using the Overlays section (Ground overlays allow image overlays on the map) of the API and hooking half a dozen events to handle the redrawing at different zoom levels, tiling, hiding the real information about whatever location Google Maps thinks it is showing, etc.
But it is definitely not designed for such purposes and I'm not sure if it would be legal to use it in that way, would have to read the license.
There are other alternatives out there that would be able to achieve this functionality without the level of work needed to get Google Maps to cooperate I believe.
No, I don’t think so.
You may also want to look at OpenStreetMap. I have seen custom map-images being used with its interface.
I think you'll find that the Google maps interactivity code is geared towards working with Google map servers for the underlying map. However, you could put your own layers over their maps and then serve up your own content so long as it used the same mapping co-ordinates.