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)
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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?
I've recently picked up some old photos of my city, and I was wondering if it is possible to use Google earth/maps to recreate the parts of the city that my photos show.
Most pictures are in street view, so it would be really great to have the old photos as a basis of a street view google map. Some are aireal photos so the "ordinary" map view is also interesting.
Is it possible? What's my first step?
Check out the docs on how to create a custom streetview panorama here:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/streetview#CustomStreetView
There's also an example of a custom "street view" in the docs, using the reception area of Google's Sydney office here:
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/streetview-custom-simple
That example only uses a single source image:
It looks like the hardest part will be creating either the "stitched" panorama image, or the individual tiles. Unfortunately Google leaves that to the reader, but there is a link to Wikipedia with some panorama tools that may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_photo_stitching_applications_(software)
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.
I am developing JavaME LWUIT application which needs to display some data on map.
And I'd like to use Google Maps for this.
I thought about the requirements to the maps and their user interface. They are
listed below:
Pannable map. It should be possible to scroll the map using the touch interface or navigation arrow buttions which are displayed on the map.
Zoomable map. At the best, there should be appropriate +/- buttons displayed on the map.
Search location by address and move to it (menu command).
Remember the last visited location.
Marker for the current location.
Markers with customable icon and text which is displayed when select the marker (click on it or select somehow).
I spent some time searching for appropriate Map Library for JavaME/LWUIT.
I expected to find a free library and map service (ha-ha).
See my results below:
MIDMaps library. URL: http://www.jappit.com/blog/midmaps-google-maps-java-me-library/
That library uses the Google Static Map Service. Not bad... but it needs a lot further improvements...
I found the follwoing issues with that library:
Markers: impossible to customize marker's icon and text. Displaying the marker's text on click/selection is not supported.
Map Panning: no UI controls for this (arrow buttons). Doing panning with menu commands is not a user-friendly.
Map Zooming: no UI controls for this (+/- buttons). Not so important...
License: not permitted to use in a mobile app if not a Google Premier User. Not a problem...
Nokia Maps API for JavaME. URL: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Develop/Maps/Maps_API_for_Java_ME/
Did not try. But looks like that lib fulfills all my requirements.
I am not sure about the following things:
Quality of the maps.
How much does it cost? I mean the cost of using the map service.
Nutiteq lib which uses OpenStreetMap service. URL: http://www.nutiteq.com/map-api
Not free the lib, but the map service.
Guidebee Map API. URL: http://www.guidebee.biz/
It's not free.
Now it's a time for me to ask questions. What should I do? Are there any advices?
Maybe I missed some possibilities or lib/services?
Thank you for your help!
See the Makeover demo in SVN (I updated it to use Google maps instead of Yahoo maps API which was killed off). The GoogleService API should be available in the SVN history it was (deleted because of licensing nonsense) within the IO services directory and it includes local search etc.
Terrence has a a demo that includes allot of interesting features including a browseable map.
You can also look at Waze although I haven't checked it myself, I saw people using open street map and AFAIK there is an open source mapping application based on that (although the license might not be appropriate for you but it might still be useful as a learning aid).
After some additional investigations I decided to use Nokia Maps. And now I have a working application which displays interactive map with my data markers on it and also my current location.
I chose Nokia Maps API because it provided real dynamic maps (panning, zooming, tiling) and fulfilled all my requirements, except "Remember the last visited location" (can be implemented on my own).
I met the following problems:
Using the maps from LWUIT, not from an ordinary MIDP application. I used the approach shown here Nutiteq SDK with LWUIT and also implemented my own MapWidget class for LWUIT.
Displaying additional info on marker click. There is no support for this in the lib. I had to implement it on my own. Details are here JavaME Nokia Maps API: how to display additional info on marker click
Additional info related to the choosing proper map library can be found here Discussion on Nokia Forum
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.