Best way to combine offline map (e.g. Open Street Maps) with Google Maps for iOS? - google-maps-sdk-ios

We have implemented Google Maps in an app for tourists but we want to provide seamless offline maps. We can generate these from the OSM data and we can even display these on the Google Maps with a negative zIndex which means they generally only show when the online map tiles are not available. However there are some issues with this approach:
1/ After going offline, for a while, Google Maps shows a very poor version of it's map (i.e. if you zoom in it is very blurry).
2/ As user moves around the map, sometimes the cached tiles (poor quality usually) show up and disappear.
3/ We can't control the zoom level when offline and so sometimes our map tiles won't be shown if the user zooms too much.
Ideally we'd like to be able to know if google maps can't load a tile so we could display our own. Is this possible? Or can we fix the above issues?

Related

Google maps - move embed to static

So, i have custom route on my map. I put in on my web (local page to be precise). Unfortuently, on high dpi screen texts are very tiny. I've found static maps to be able to rescale map (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/static-maps/intro) but have no idea how to show my custom route on static map (route was generated from GPX file).
Is there any way to do it?
Regards!
So, after few hours of research i've found that i need to convert gps coords into polyline, ie. https://www.daftlogic.com/projects-online-csv-polyline-encoder.htm
It generates example link for google maps.

Google Maps - slowly moving map while gradually drawing predefined route

I am looking for a script / tool which will allow me to define a route on Google Maps and then create a series of frames where the map slowly moves along at a given zoom level while drawing the (previously defined) route.
If it is hard to imagine think of a mini map/overview for a time-lapse/video of a drive in a car. The time-lapse/video shows you the view through the windshield and this minimap/overview shows you where the footage is taken on a map. This is actually what I'm going to use it for.
Does anyone know of such a tool or a better place to ask this question (if this is not a proper place)?
If it does not exist I will have to create it using the Google Maps API.

Load Street view tiles faster

I have created a tool, in which there are different links for different street views.
But, my client says, when going from one street view to another, some tiles of previous street view doesn't disappear immediately. I told him its normal. I tried to find the solution for it, but there's nothing written to improve the loading time in the documentation. And, couldn't find on any other site/blog.
Can i do something like flash version of Google Maps? In Google Map's flash version it shows the whole street view as blurred image and then loads the tiles one by one. I don't know how to do that in v3 which is based on Javascript. (I'm using Google Maps API v3)

Alternatives to Google Static Maps when the URL gets too big

My end goal is view and print a document (eg, PDF) with business-specific info on it along with a map. The map must have
The aerial imagery background
The features from a KML file.
Google Static Maps works perfectly for this until the KML gets too complex to fit in the URL. I've already shrunk the URL by reducing long/lat precision and encoding the polylines.
Ideas:
I could get the aerial imagery from Google Static Maps, then programmatically draw my KML features onto it, but I'm not sure if that's allowed in the Google Maps Terms of Use.
Are there other ways to coerce static maps to give me what I want?
Does Google have a different mapping service that could ultimately convert a KML into an image with the aerial image background?
Any non-Google services that might help?

Google Maps streetview shows awesome panoramio photos in China - can we do this?

If you have a look at Google Maps and search for some place in China like Tiananmen Square for example, then drag out the little streetview man, he does not go on the roads like normal... instead there is a scattering of little blue dots where he can stand and get a view.
This is similar to a panoramio layer but much slicker, and it lets you click between photos taken within the same field of view.
This is all great, except when I turn on the streetview control with Google maps API v3 on the website I'm developing (which is about tourist destinations in China), it lets you drag the man around but then he turns grey like there is no data. There are no blue dots and he can't see anything.
I'm wondering if there is a way to turn on that same streetview panoramio mode that they have in maps.google.com? Possibly they won't let us have access to that yet....
I could add a normal panoramio layer but I am really wanting to have that really nice blue dot thing happening.
Pretty sure no. v3 of the API implements streetview with HTML5/canvas etc - ie native in the browser.
That 'lookaround' viewer, is implemented in flash.
I suppose you could try v2 of the API, that still uses a flash client.
... otherwise just add a request to the Google Maps API issue tracker - it tracks suggestions.