Thursday, May 29, 2008

Beijing map

Since the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are approaching, I think it would be of general interest to have maps of Chinese cities available to people travelling to China.



Google Maps does not provide maps of Chinese cities on its international version. Only some roads are shown on their maps. They have another different server (DITU) to provide maps of Chinese cities, but this server does not show the satellite imagery.



So, I am working on a mashup to combine satellite imagery from Google Maps and the maps provided by Google Ditu. The final result is shown in this Beijing Map mashup.

UPDATE (2008/06/01): There is an improved version of the Beijing Map using a modified GMercatorProjection object. Now the markers on the map can be managed just as they are in standard maps. You can still have a look at the first prototype of the Beijing Map, just if you are interested. The original link has been changed to the last version of the map.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Google Maps: Geocoder

Looking for a geocoder?

I have been doing some tests with the Google Maps API. The intention is to start a series of articles covering different topics related to maps, geopositioning and cartography.



The first one is a general purpose geocoder. The geocoder allows you to obtain the coordinates of a point, either given its address or because you know its position on the map.



Hope you will find this topic of interest.