Google Maps Data API vs Google Maps API - google-maps

What is the difference between Google Maps Data API and Google Maps API?
I noticed the former is deprecated but it is not replaced by the latter. It seems to me these two APIs are meant to do separate things, but it's not clear what that is.
I want to create a private clone of the public Google Maps and add custom annotations to search results.

Google Maps Data API was deprecated in favour of Google Fusion Tables, and provides a means whereby you can store data in spreadsheet-like tables and do a lot of clever stuff such as geocode addresses, and export as kml, query the data etc.
So, Google Fusion Tables provides storage for your data.
Google Maps API provides you with online mapping tools which can be used to display or capture information - which you could then go on and store in Fusion Tables.

Related

Google Maps REST API to Create Custom Maps?

I have a database table with a listing of thousands of locations. I would like to create a custom map (accessible from the main Google Maps splash page by going to Menu->Your places->Maps. These are the same maps that you can create yourself at google.com/maps) using REST URLs to drop dots associated with my location addresses. The populated custom map will then be accessed through google.com/maps. I am not looking to embed Google Maps on a web page.
I've looked here, but I have not been able to find a set of REST URLs that I can use to do this. Most of the APIs provided by Google comes in the form of client-side JavaScript libraries.
Is there a way to create a custom map using exposed REST endpoints from Google?
The brief answer is no.
Maps Data API has not been available since 2011 (see Maps Data API deprecation announcement) and as for now there still is no way of doing it programmatically (see Allow programmatic access to MyMaps)

Is GTFS-realtime data in Google Maps Directions API

I would like to know:
Is GTFS-realtime data available from the Google Maps Directions API?
If not, are there plans to include GTFS-realtime data in the Google Maps Directions API?
I am a member of a team developing a web application that integrates Google Maps Directions API. The website provides a "Trip Planner" form in which the user enters From, To, Date, and time data to display trip options into the website. Our website visitors are specifically interested in Bus transit options.
The integration is working wonderfully. However, the data returned by the Google API does not contain GTFS-realtime data. We know that the realtime is known to Google through GTFS feeds provided by the transit provider, and we see the realtime data when doing an identical search via https://www.google.com/maps.
I looked at the "Transit Specific Information" that is returned in the Google Maps API DirectionsResult Object (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/directions#TransitInformation). There is no reference to real-time information in this documentation. Even if real-time information is supplied (and I suspect that it is not), there would be no way to distinguish between scheduled and predicted times.

Extract raw data from google maps

What data can be extracted from google maps? It seemed to me that I can just poll information about places and geography through their api. I'm looking to pull down a map of a city from google maps and then make my own map from it in order to throw that data into a game engine. A brute force method would be extracting the bitmap images and then processing that information, but is there some standard of geographical information I should explore? And if so, can I get that information from google maps?
If you want your own copy of a map you might be best off looking at Open Street Map, the Google TOS will likely dissallow the use that you are looking for, while OSM is open source and you can download the entire data set at will should that be your desire.
For mapping applications I would look into QGIS, it's again free and a powerful tool.
You can extract datasets and metadata from Google Maps Engine for use on other platforms. You can use the Google Maps Engine API to programmatically access and download data and metadata/configurations from your Google Maps Engine account. This approach is best when you need to download a larger number of data sources from your Maps Engine account or if you’ve updated vector tables using the Maps Engine API.
To download data with the Maps Engine API, your application must handle OAuth 2.0 for authentication as well as the calls to retrieve data via the GME API.
So far the easiest solution in the data extraction industry is to use a Google Maps Web Scraping Template.
Google Maps web scraping template
is an advanced feature of the industry-leading free data extractor Octoparse. They built dozens of templates covering all popular websites, which are ready to use preformatted crawlers. You can use it to extract the business name, reviews, ratings, address, websites, phone number, and open hours, etc.
If you think the template doesn’t meet your needs, you can build your own crawler to extract other information.
Other advanced solutions to extract google maps data include using open-source projects on Github, using python framework/library, use a web scraper chrome extension, etc.
You can check out this article 5 Free Google Maps Data Extractors

How to legally add fake places on Google Map for Application Testing

We have an application that detects nearby business of a particular genre. To test the app I want to add few fake business in the locality.
Does google provide any sandbox type of stuff for google maps?
Can i add places via Javascript test my app and then remove them?
What should be the best way ?
did you want to find business places with google maps javascript api without any databases in your backend script?
i think you must add places in your database and use it with google maps api to show/find places for your users.

How to retrieve My Places maps data from Google Maps?

Is it still possible using JavaScript to get My Places data out of Maps? With the move to Fusion Tables and deprecation of the Maps Data API, I can't seem to find information on how to get this data...if it's even available in FT.
The Maps Data API was the only programmatic endpoint to accessing this dataset. However you can still export the data by selecting a map, and then clicking the KML link.
A variety of tools are available for visualizing, importing, and converting KML data in case you want to import it elsewhere.