Posts Tagged ‘my maps’

My Maps Container

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

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 :)

HowTo: Copy/Move features between My Maps (GoogleMaps)

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

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.

Howto: Alternative to paging on MyMaps (GoogleMaps)

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

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Update, 2nd August 2008

Suddenly it seems that the KML export from My Maps no longer pages like it used to, so this process is now a lot quicker!

Just use the link ‘View in Google Earth’, and paste it directly in the search box to get access to the geographical culling method. No more going and creating a kml file or any sillyness.

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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!

Howto: Save Directions to a MyMap (GoogleMaps)

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

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 :)