nearby.org.uk blog

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!

Google Maps doesn’t include a method to copy/move features between maps, however as you can import and export features using KML files you can easily use these features to archive the job.

I’ve moved the meat of this post to a Thread on the Google Maps Group - better for Google to be hosting it.

Introduction

In order to keep the map working at reasonable speed Google Maps needs to limit the available features visible at once, quite simply the more features shown the slower the map gets.

For MyMaps the features are split into pages, so that a reasonable amount of data is shown on one page - effectivly enough that will work at a reasonable speed. This normally results in between 60-200 features at once, but sometimes that is not enough.

However Google Maps uses a different limited method when displaying KML files, a regional geographical culling based method. A certain number of features are shown, to give a reasonable overview, but then as you zoom in more features become visible. This often results in more results being visible, but importantly doesn’t impose the arbitrary pages, so its often more friendly on the user, as can just zoom in on an area rather than flick though pages to find their area.

I’ve moved the meat of this post to a thread on the Google Maps Group - let Google host it!

Google Maps doesn’t include a method to save ‘Driving Directions’ easily into MyMaps. Fortunately they do include KML import/export for most features, so can export the route as KML then reimport it into a My Map.

I’ve moved the meat of this post to a Thread on the Google Maps Group, better for Google to be hosting it

Now that Google have just announced a brand spanking new NON JS Maps API, to be able to display maps with a simple img tag, similar to the Chart API. Well I thought it would be fun to re-purpose the
FlashEarth code to create a network link to display Google Maps in a popup balloon on Google Earth. Not totally sure the utility, but sure is fun (until the novelty wears off!)

Open in Google Earth

Hopefully needless to say the map inside the balloon is static and non draggable.

Update to clarify: You get to draw 1,000 maps daily, which is probably plenty, but go over that and the maps will stop working for you.

Update: as alluded to in the official post, you can use the static API to load a quick map, while the rest of the page loads, then at the last minute change it into a dynamic map. A series of demos showing various ways of lazy loading!

Lately I have have been playing a lot with displaying KML files on various properties of Googles, and I thought it was about time I bookmarked the useful pages for my own reference - Firefox has them in the recent list now, but in 2 months time? Anyway in the end thought it would only take bit longer to collate them in a webpage, and make them dynamic links, so without further ado:

Useful links for publishing a KML via Google