nearby.org.uk blog » GeoRSS

Google indexes ‘Related Maps’ aka GeoRSS feeds

Barry — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:53:42 +0000

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?

My Maps Container

Barry — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:15:00 +0000

When using the Google’s My Maps feature you can display multiple maps at once simply by ticking the boxes, however the ‘Link to this Map’ will only ever include 1 map, so you can’t easily send a group of maps to someone.

… So a new script – this time under the gokml.net banner – for creating a ‘container’ KML that simply opens a bunch of maps at once – this KML is openabe in Google Earth, but also you can share the link so others can see your batch of My Maps at once in Google Maps.

Create a KML container for a group of My Maps

As a total aside I notice My Maps, now sport a (Geo)RSS feed

Letting your KML loose

Barry — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:53:29 +0000

I think I have mentioned this before, but have a page that helps share your KML file via various Google services.

Following a post on the Maps help group, realised could update it with some other ways to use the KML (even non Google!)

So view the latest page at

Publishing your KML for Google Earth, Google Maps and Beyond

suggestions for other links welcome in the comments!

More Maps.Live.com inc KML2RSS

Barry — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:32:39 +0000

The people at Live.com (Microsoft!) have been making some huge improvements to their map system of late, adding lots of data in both 2D and 3D. maps.live.com has long been good in the UK as it uses imagery from getmapping which is at least 2m resolution, but 25cm in many places. It’s now been backed up by lots of Birds Eye imagry which are static photos taken at an angle, which is great for visualising cities. How these are available in the 3D view (which is currently downloading so havent tried it…) ! Also now supported is visualling KML, GPX and GeoRSS files.
Anyway that was kinda rambley, the point of this post was to highlight small feature I found by accident and not sure it been highlighted on other blogs, namly you can subscribe to a RSS feed for many collections, including a KML or GPX file directly, effectively giving a KML to (Geo)RSS converter!

Example: Recent Geographs KML file as GeoRSS

(looks like we can input any KML/KMZ url in there!)

The State of the Map…

Barry — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:04:29 +0000

Over the weekend I attended OpenStreetMap‘s first conference “State of the Map“, all in all a very enjoyable time, great to to listen to all the talks, and also chat with various mappers, meet up with various people I’ve only met before in cyberspace.

Hopefully it will inspire me to actually contribute, esp as frequent two ‘holes’ in the current data…

An interesting little snippet from Ed Parsons talk, is this slide, which shows KML/GeoRSS publishing as indexed by Google, somehow I think I reconsise the British Isles hotspot; geograph, which publishes many KML feeds, (about 600k (the Superlayer, and also a file per photo), of which about 300k are reported to be indexed in Google’s main index, so show up well in ‘User Generated Content‘ in Google Maps!)

Everyone (nearly) – me third from left

RSS & GeoRSS to KML

Barry — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:54:53 +0000

Spured on by comments on Stefan’s Ogle Earth blog, have created this little page as a wrapper to the excellent service provided by geonames.org to automatically convert a RSS feed to KML. It also does RSS->GeoRSS and GeoRSS->KML.

http://www.nearby.org.uk/rss-to-kml.php

Hopefully should make it a bit easier to load a (Geo)RSS feed into Google Earth in the style of a RSS feed – it auto updates.

… really need more to talk about, been kinda quiet of late…

Feeding GeoRSS and KML content to your Google Maps API based Map!

Barry — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:31:16 +0000

All hail the new GGeoXml class, just introduced into the Google Maps API! Now you can easily (usually 1 or 2 lines!) add content that you have in KML/Z or GeoRSS to a Google Map in your API page.

This is the same functionality that has been on the main Maps site (well the GeoRSS support is new!) for a while: nice for this to migrate to the API.

TIP: to try it don’t forget to use &v=2.x in your api loader to get the latest version that includes the GGeoXml.

To celebrate here is a Geograph Demo – following some testing will make it an official feature.

KML (& NetworkLink) for Nearby & any Geo-WordPress!

Barry — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:03:39 +0000

Following the addition of GeoRSS, earlier today while out photographing some PhotoSpots (TBA), I had an even better (possibly) idea, now that my WordPress stores Lat/Long, why not output KML too! The icing on the cake is you can also wrap it in a NetworkLink so that peoples Google Earth will auto update. (I am surprised couldn’t find this done already!)

And if that isn’t enough then I also release the code under GPL – note its the first time written anything for WordPress, so might not be a tidy as could be!

Anyway see it in action on my series of PhotoSpots:

As a Auto Updating Network Link
or direct Google Earth KML file

or even on Google Maps! (will also auto update!)

- as all these list the PhotoSpot category, each post includes a link to open the actual spot, so just click the world icon in the balloon to open

Download the Source or view the source: WordPress KML Generator and NetworkLink Wrapper

Installation: This is not a proper plugin, so just drop the .php files into the root of your WordPress folder and you should be done (but you can configure the icon to display if you wish by editing the wp-kml.php file)

Use: Normally you would only provide a link to the Wrapper – which in turn links to the feed itself, but the feed is useful like in the above example to plot directly on Google Maps. You can also specify a particular category to display like the above example or otherwise will include all geocoded posts.
Important: Requires the GeoPress extension be installed (to get geocode info)
Only tested on WordPress 2.0.1 – Works For Me – Your Mileage May Vary – no guarantee, implied or otherwise