I need to put a map on a website but the clients doesn't want anything but a simple outline of the United States. I used google maps styling wizard but still wasn't able to get just the outline. The reason I want to use google maps is I need to dynamically place markers using the latitude and longitude coordinates.
Thanks
Pretty sure you can't do this with Google Maps. You may have better luck with Leaflet:
Leaflet is a modern, lightweight open-source JavaScript library for interactive maps for desktop and mobile web browsers, developed by CloudMade to form the core of its next generation JavaScript API. Weighting just about 21kb of gzipped JS code, it still has all the features you will ever need for you web mapping needs while providing a fast, smooth, pleasant user experience.
http://leaflet.cloudmade.com/
Just use a single map image with the outline you want. If you need to generate the image yourself and really customize the map, you'll want to combine Leaflet with a few tiles generated with Mapnik, OpenStreetMap data (not the whole-world dataset probably), and possssibly TileCache.
http://tilecache.org/
http://mapnik.org/
http://planet.openstreetmap.org/
Related
Is there a way to insert the image overlay a layer below the streets but on top of the map background? The roads can be individually styled, so it should technically work, but I haven't been able to find the option for it.
The only lead I have found so far is this question: Google Maps API - Overlay Custom Roads
Which unfortunately doesn't really solve the problem of having to manually enter the street info.
I'm currently working on a custom map for a whole city and manually illustrate all the streets and enter the street names would take an enormous amount of time.
Any info would be very appreciated, thanks!
Try to check this documentation about Styled Maps. Styled maps allow you to customize the presentation of the standard Google base maps, changing the visual display of such elements as roads, parks, and built-up areas.
Here you can also find some sample code that you can use in your sample code.
Also you can find here the Styled Map Wizard.
Creating styles by hand and testing your code to see how they look is potentially time-consuming. Instead, you can use the Styled Map Wizard to set up the JSON for your map's styles. The wizard allows you to select features and their elements, apply operations to those features, and save the styles to JSON, which you can copy and paste into your application.
Is it possible to use with google api v3 something similar to this: https://earthbuilder.google.com/10446176163891957399-13737975182519107424-4/mapview/
Should I use google map engine to apply the night view overlay?
Please advice
The link no longer works, but assuming you want something like Google Maps' "night mode" (that automatically activates when navigating during night), yes, it's possible!
You need to use map styling, as described in this official documentation.
With style options you can customize the presentation of the standard Google map styles, changing the visual display of features like roads, parks, businesses, and other points of interest. This means that you can emphasize particular components of the map or make the map complement the style of your app.
(...)
To style your map, call GoogleMap.setMapStyle() passing a MapStyleOptions object that contains your style declarations in JSON format.
You can use the Maps Platform Styling Wizard as a quick way to generate a JSON styling object.
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
For a project I just completed, I needed to show the winning selection of a poll in each country. Ultimately we used Google Charts API, because the other Google World Map products did not allow the color of the water to be customized. In this project the water needs be black so it blends with the web page it's on. The only problem with the Charts API version is that it's max size is 440x220.
I've been searching the internet for a while and I've been unable to find a better, larger more customizable World Map product.
Is there a larger than 440x220 World Map product, for pay or open source, that allows me to set the color of the water so that it blends seamlessly with the web page it's on?
The OpenStreetMap project has both web and application map producers, and you have no restriction on the size of the display map nor on the styline. Check out their wiki to get you started.
If you like the offerings by Google in general, have you seen the option for a maps visualization using Fusion Tables? Also, there is a May blog posting describing using Fusion Tables with dynamic styling that could be relevant.
I wrote a tool to create SVG maps : Make a clickable map which also has a world map
that you can customize to your liking: Create a world map using Makeaclickablemap
Hope this will help you or any other folks who are after a customizable world map!
I'd like to create / use a UI element for a web-site that provides a world map, on which the user can draw a circle to indicate an area of interest. I'd like information on the coordinates of the area covered by the circle to be available to me via Javascript for sending back to the server over Ajax.
Does such a control exist, and if not how difficult would this be to implement using something like Google Maps?
Google would have that as part of it's api as would OpenLayers
maybe Artem GoogleMap can help you.