Google Maps: Power Tools for Maximizing the API

Create custom applications with the Google Maps API

Featuring step-by-step examples, this practical resource gets you started programming the Google Maps API with JavaScript in no time. Learn how to embed maps on web pages, annotate the embedded maps with your data, generate KML files to store and reuse your map data, and enable client applications to request spatial data through web services.

Google Maps: Power Tools for Maximizing the API explains techniques for visualizing masses of data and animating multiple items on the map. You’ll also find out how to embed Google maps in desktop applications to combine the richness of the Windows interface with the unique features of the API. You can use the numerous samples included throughout this hands-on guide as your starting point for building customized applications.

• Create map-enabled web pages with a custom look
• Learn the JavaScript skills required to exploit the Google Maps API
• Create highly interactive interfaces for mapping applications
• Embed maps in desktop applications written in .NET
• Annotate maps with labels, markers, and shapes
• Understand geodesic paths and shapes and perform geodesic calculations
• Store geographical data in KML format
• Add GIS features to mapping applications
• Store large sets of geography data in databases and perform advanced spatial queries
• Use web services to request spatial data from within your script on demand
• Automate the generation of standalone web pages with annotated maps
• Use the Geocoding and Directions APIs
• Visualize large data sets using symbols and heatmaps
• Animate items on a map

Bonus online content includes:

• A tutorial on The SQL Spatial application
• A bonus chapter on animating multiple airplanes
• Three appendices: debugging scripts in the browser; scalable vector graphics; and applying custom styles

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to Maps and the Google API
Chapter 2: Designing Web Pages with Embedded Maps
Chapter 3: Web Page Scripting: An Introduction to JavaScript
Chapter 4: Advanced JavaScript Topics
Chapter 5: Google Maps API: The Building Blocks of Mapping Applications
Chapter 6: Windows Mapping: Embedding Maps in Desktop Applications
Chapter 7: Markers: Identifying Locations on the Map
Chapter 8: Feature Annotation: Drawing Shapes on Maps
Chapter 9: Interactive Drawing: The Basics of Drawing on Google Maps
Chapter 10: Geodesic Calculations: The Geometry Library
Chapter 11: The KML Data Format: Persisting Spatial Data
Chapter 12: Adding GIS Features to Mapping Applications
Chapter 13: SQL Spatial: Backend Databases for Spatial Data
Chapter 14: Marker Clustering: Handling Many Markers on the Map
Chapter 15: Web Services: Updating Maps On the Fly
Chapter 16: Map Annotation and Map Generation Techniques
Chapter 17: More Google Services: The Geocoding and Directions APIs
Chapter 18: Visualizing Large Datasets
Chapter 19: Animating Items on the Map
Chapter 20: Advanced JavaScript Animation