I would like to get a rough description of the streets/roads type. For example when using routing algorithms, we would like to avoid sending long vehicles to inappropriate roads (narrow streets). In Google Maps highways and narrow roads are quite different and the difference is presented very clear in high level. It would be nice if we could get this information through an API to optimize the routing algorithms.
Since you have a google-maps tag, I assume that you'd also want this feature in Google Maps API, there are currently no features for this in the Google Maps API, however, you may file a Feature Request in the Issue Tracker for Google Maps APIs in order for the engineers to review the feasibility of your request.
I'm quite new to the Google Places API. What I want to achieve is create a simple search box where people can search places based on Google places, and choose one of them to get the coordinate (latitude, longitude).
Currently I'm using the Google Places API. All the steps are pretty straight forward, but after using it for a couple of day, I realize that sometimes the result from the Google Maps search box is better than the Google places API.
Below is what I test right now for Google Maps and the Google Places API
I test the result from the Google Maps search box with maps.google.com and see all the autocomplete.
I'm using the Google places API without any limitation in radius (orderby=distance), sensor is false, I put the user current location in the location parameters and the text into the keyword field.
Based on this configuration, the results are different. May I know if someone knows and would be willing to share how to configure the Google Places API URL to get the same results as with the Google Maps search box?
Or is it unachievable? That is, will the Google Places API search result not be as good as when we search in Google Maps? If so, is there any policy that does not allow people to only use the Google search box and the coordinate result without showing the map?
I believe Google Maps autocomplete uses a combination of results from the Place autocomplete and Query autocomplete services. Based on your mention of rankby=distance, it sounds like you're using the nearbysearch service, which will return somewhat different results from the autocomplete services. Have a look at the Google Places API documentation for the details of using the autocomplete services.
https://developers.google.com/places/documentation/
I want to use th Google Map API for my desktop tool.As I dont want to show any Map control in the UI I just want to give some address to API and the google should return me the city,country,zip etc.
Please tell me how I can achieve this.
You can't use the Google Maps API in a situation where you're not going to display a map. From the documentation:
Note: the Geocoding API may only be used in conjunction with a Google map; geocoding results without displaying them on a map is prohibited. For complete details on allowed usage, consult the Maps API Terms of Service License Restrictions.
I suspect you'll need to look for other commercial solutions for your situation.
Note that although I work for Google, this post is not made on behalf of Google - it's just based on the public documentation.
all, which google map API could be use for search nearby business spot information like ATM/Branch (address and coordinates information etc)
thanks for help
This service is provided by Google as part of their Places API. As of today, it is only a developer preview, and you must have an Adsense account to register.
A search request will return up to 20 establishments, which indicate their type, so they can be filtered. There seems to be no way to perform a more direct search by type for now.
When I type in addresses in Google maps for locations in Asia, quite a lot of them are off by more than 200 metres. For example, "blk 85 bedok north road, singapore" is off by more than 300 metres. While I don't expect Google Maps to be spot on every time, sometimes the error is too great for certain use cases. What options do I have to handle inaccurate Google Maps locations in a web app? The web app should let the user enter an address or postal code as part of an entry and I will geocode the address and store the lat-long.
You could use bing, yahoo's and google's Geo Location api's to find latitude and longitude for a location, average the results together and use the result. Thus, if they all agree, you still get a good location, but if they disagree you get the best approximation of all three.
You could even programmatically compare the results from each engine and throw out any that don't agree with the others (for instance, if bing and yahoo agree and google does not, you could throw out google).
Beyond that, if you have a collection of addresses you know to be wrong, you could simply store the correct longitude and latitude for those points, and override the results in those cases.
Of course, to get around this problem at all, you'll need to geocode the addresses, check their validity in some way (as described above), and plot them using their latitude and longitude.
You don't have any fixes for this really, you're at the mercy of the accuracy of google maps here. The important part is you don't know if the address in inaccurate when doing one search to the next, so nothing you can do to handle it.
You can post a topic here and google will see it and often respond as well: Google Maps Local Listing Forums. I'd open something there with some of your examples and hope they get more accurate...that's all you can do in this case.
There are always other alternatives as well, yahoo and bing have mapping APIs, but I have no idea how much better or worse off you'd be going that route.
The problem is not the lat/lng data, in fact, they are correct. The problem is that the geo coords of the map tiles of the public Google maps api are inaccurate. The maps at maps.google.com are provided by a different map provider than the map tiles used with the public Google Maps API that you can embed in your website, use in your own applications, etc.
Check my recent posting at Google Maps & apps with mapview have different current positions
Is the result out on maps.google.com as well as through the maps api?
If on google maps live site the result is accurate then you can do an ajax search to return the correct lon/lat.
I have used this when geocoding UK postcodes
Geocoding UK Postcodes with Google Map API
I tried to reply to the upper answer, but I am not qualified enough yet. Just be aware that whatever you're using for geocoding, sometimes has restrictions on the use of that data. For example, google's geocoding API isn't allowed to be used to display information retrieved anywhere but google maps. The same might be for the others, I don't know what your project is, but it's something to be aware of.