Google indexes ‘Related Maps’ aka GeoRSS feeds

June 27th, 2009

Just stumbled on this today, and not seen it noted anywhere yet, but (recently?) Google has exposed its index of ‘Related Maps’ on Google Maps.

If you open the ‘Show Search Options’ option, there is an entry ‘Related Maps’ - this mainly seems to be GeoRSS feeds its found out in the wild, but does include maps from ‘My Maps’, but strangely not KML files (which are mostly indexed in User-Created Content I guess)

Oh and if you where wondering, yes did find this when checking something out on geograph. (Note the link at the top to view Related Maps)

Still waiting for the day when we get good access to Googles GeoIndex, the AJAX Search API gives very limited (32 results max, and no urls! oh and doesnt include all the options included in the ‘options’ dropdown on Google Maps either), feels so this data could/should be exposed more?

Geolocated websites on the go?

June 22nd, 2009

Want to quickly access location based websites, while on the go?

Then enter:

m.nearby.org.uk

into your mobile browser.

Very privative, only goes to the nearby location links service, and a few pages on geograph. But between them give access to a fair number of (UK esp) websites.

Disclaimer: Only tested on a Google Android phone so far. Doesn’t seem to pickup GPS position (yet). To be honest surprised not found something like this in the Android Market.

If works out will probably add direct links to other websites, and possibly make it configurable so can choose which sites to show :)

ITM <-> WGS84 (<-> Irish Grid <-> British National Grid) PHP code

May 13th, 2009

With Ireland soon to be moving to ITM (Irish Transverse Mercator) coordinates, over IG (Irish Grid) that has been used since about 1965 in Ireland, many websites - including Geograph.ie and nearby.org.uk will be looking to support ITM coordinates - even if they still use Irish Grid.

So to that end have been looking for PHP code to do the conversion, but thanks to a little bit of inspiration from FieldenMaps.info’s Javascript Ireland Coordinate Converter (an excellent resource in its own right!), realised it would be simple to add to the conversion class we already use. In fact as ITM is based on GRS80 which is effectivly WGS84 the conversion was just a matter of plugging in the constants used by ITM, and the code just worked.

Better yet as Geograph is Open Source (and we got permission to open source the code based on OSGB’s conversion spreadsheet), the code is available for anyone to use as a PHP class. It should be trivial to add support to our Javascript class - which will do shortly!

Grab the class from Geograph SVN (or even better do a SVN checkout!) and put it somewhere safe. (but you will probably want to remove the “extends Conversions” bit from the definition - we use that for convience in Geograph source)

Then can just use it

$conv = new ConversionsLatLong;
list($lat,$lng) = $conv->itm_to_wgs84($e,$n);

But as we already use the same code for Irish Grid, and OSGB36 British National Grid, can also use it for them, and even IG< ->ITM conversion

list($lat,$lng) = $conv->itm_to_wgs84($e,$n);
list($lat,$lng) = $conv->irish_to_wgs84($e,$n,true);
list($lat,$lng) = $conv->osgb_to_wgs84($e,$n);

list($e,$n) = $conv->wgs84_to_itm($lat,$lng);
list($e,$n) = $conv->wgs84_to_irish($lat,$lng,true);

list($e,$n) = $conv->wgs84_to_osgb36($lat,$lng);
//even a short convience function to create a 10 figure grid reference
$gr10 = $conv->osgb36_to_gridref($e,$n);

See it used in anger here and here.

Multi Destination Routing + Altitude Profile

May 8th, 2009

There is a tool on nearby for taking a multi destination route - and loading it into Google Earth. It was also used to load directions into a “My Map”, but thats basically redundant now, but as the script just converts the directions to a KML file, there are many useful things that can be done with it…

Such as plotting an altitude profile with gpsvisualizer.com***, but to make it even easier, have added a button to the page, that links direct to the form on gpsu with the data prefilled as well as the ‘add altitude’ option enabled.

Enjoy! (Oh and let me know if there are any other interesting destinations would like to load the KML file into!)

Multi Destination Routing Toolkit

*** which Adam recently added the functionalty to add alitude automatically - previsoully a problem as the KML files from Google maps dont include altitude

Where in British Isles are people viewing photos?

April 24th, 2009

view-depth1-9
In a similar vain to the maps produced here, now that Geograph British Isles has a view counter for each and every photo, we can plot maps of viewing. :)

This map is obviouslly heavily influenced by where photos have actully been submitted; s for comparison here is a depth map of photo submissions.

Don’t know what it means, or if actully useful, but sure is pretty!

 

(click the thumbnail to see 1px per km scale version)

Directions to My Maps finally!

April 23rd, 2009

Google has just added a new feature to Google Maps to save a set of directions into a My Map! This makes obsolete a popular script on ere :)

But they have gone a step further! This screenshot probably explains it best

nice.

(via)

Warning: it seems the ‘Save to My Maps’ overwrites the previous content of a My Map, not append like I would expect :(
Edit: maybe its only temporally, if it happens to you, try disabling and reenabling the map - see comments.

is it ScenicOrNot?

April 4th, 2009

ScenicOrNot

ScenicOrNot is a new mashup from the good people at mySociety - with the simple aim of finding the scenic spots across Great Britain; I’ve no idea what the super secret purpose of this site is, but they have promised to release the data, so it could be used in lots of exciting ways… 

 

Oh and of course the photos are sourced from Geograph British Isles.

Go rate a grid square now! Also at http://digg.com/u18iG

URLsnipper for Google URLs

March 31st, 2009

I am often copy/pasting links to Google searches - particully on Google Maps. Nearly every time I have to hand edit the URL - mainly as I KNOW a large proportion is redundant. Quite frankly a long url is scary, and others know it too. 

Anyway so I created a little script for my own use to cut down the URL automatically:

URLsnipper for Google URLs

It has a good understanding of Google Maps URLs, and reasonable for Google Web search, so it makes a fair attempt at deducing unneeded bits, however it also provides tickboxes to truely customise the result to your own taste :)

Example (a fairly mundane one)

will add support for other urls at some point, blogsearch, news etc. 

 

Partly inspired by this

looking for Atlantis…

February 20th, 2009

There is lots of hype of Atlantis being found found in Google Maps, and while its clear its NOT Atlantis itself, maybe it is evidence of someone searching for it… 

The path followed by the ship is regular, as though its a search grid?

The question is did they find something? And the Sun exposee is just a coverup for the real discovery - hide something in plain sight and all that…

 

:-P

Leaky and verbose URL parameters…

February 18th, 2009

Disclaimer: this post is a rant - turn away now!

I can’t keep quiet about this any longer, its getting me more and more annoyed. Google Maps includes a “Link” function - which creates a link to the current map, which is very useful - particully as the map is estentially ‘ajax’ style, but the parameters are definitly starting to suffer rot and lack of ‘love’ in maintaining them.

For example to just display a simple KML file, you get this corker:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http:%2F%2Fwww.geograph.org.uk%2Ffeed%2Frecent.kml&g=Any+Street,+London,+UK&ie=UTF8&ll=55.053203,-3.208008&spn=17.762194,33.793945&z=5

There are so many things wrong with this url, its unreal. The first is the source - doesnt do
anything as far as I can see, an empty (but immensely useful) geocode, etc; but somewhat ironically I have HAD to edit the url provided by the function before I was willing to post it here, see that g param - yes that’s my (now made up!) home address.

Yes thats right, if you not careful Google Maps might get you to inadvertently share your home address - seriouslly WTF!

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