Google Maps Mashups 23

Seattle Food Inspection Map


The Seattle Food Inspection Map lets you examine the food inspection ratings for Seattle restaurants.

The map includes a nice slider function that allows you to search for restaurants in Seattle based on the inspection score. For example, you can set the slider to show only restaurants that have a score between 0-45 (a score of over 45 indicating a poor inspection).

Alternatively you could search for restaurants that you might want to avoid by setting the slider to only show restaurants with a score over 45.

NYC BigMaps


NYC BigMaps have used the Your Mapper map creation tool to map restaurant inspections and 311 service calls in New York City.

The restaurant inspections map displays New York City Department of Health inspections across 5 boroughs since Jan 2008 (22,440 restaurants). You can search the map by category, date range, keyword, and location. The map then displays restaurants on the map at the location you searched.

Track Maps using Google Analytics


Ubilabs has written up a very cool explanation of how you can track users’ interactions with Google Maps using Google Analytics.

The trick involves using Google Analytics event tracking on your map. For example you can add a tracking event to map markers to see how many times users click on different markers.

Ubilabs say that they regularly use Google Analytics on their created maps to track map types used (‘map’, ‘satellite’, ‘hybrid’ etc), location search (geocoding requests) and map marker and drag events.

Web 2 Map


The Web 2 Map is a metaphor of the internet, as seen by the organisers of the Web 2.0 Summit. The map assigns territories or ‘countries’ to different sectors of the internet, for example ‘social networks’, ‘search’ ‘e-commerce’ etc.

This year the map also includes a data layer. The data layer adds what might be seen as capital cities to the map. The buildings or skyscrapers in the city act as a metaphor for the different data segments within the dominant player in that sector.

For example, the Union of Social Networks includes a Facebook capital city. The Facebook city is dominated by a ‘social’ skyscraper but also includes a smaller ‘location’ building to reflect that Facebook also now includes check-ins etc.

findmark.org


Mark Bosworth, a GIS Analyst at Metro in Portland, has been missing since Friday September 16, 2011.

Mark is a cycle Oregon volunteer and was last seen walking to his tent in Riddle, Oregon. Mark’s family think that he may have had a recurrence of cancer that has caused him to become confused and possibly lose his memory.

There have been several sightings of someone fitting Mark’s description hitch-hiking near I-5. Therefore Mark’s family and friends have been distributing flyers up and down the I-5 corridor. This Google Map is being used to help plan where the flyers have been and need to be distributed.

If you are able to help with distributing flyers you can print them out from the website launched by Mark’s family – findmark.org. You can then use the map to see the areas where flyers still need to be distributed.

The Bambuser


One of my favourite smartphone apps is live broadcasting application Bambuser. The application lets you broadcast live video straight from you mobile phone or a webcam.

The only bugbear that I used to have with Bambuser is that it didn’t have a map of broadcasts happening right now, so that users could select from the currently live broadcasts geographically. Well, now it does!

The live Bambuser Google Map shows the location of live broadcasts, those recorded in the last 24 hours and even older recorded broadcasts. You can even watch the live streams directly from the map.

The Corruption Tracker Google Map


Having come across the concept of baksheesh more than a few times in my travels around the world I know how frustrating it can be to have to pay bribes to officials just to get them to do their jobs properly. It often seems that the practice is officially encouraged and that there is no point in reporting the incident.

In these situations it would be at least satisfying to be able to warn the rest of the world about the corruption.

The Corruption Tracker uses Ushahidi’s map reporting system to allow users to report and map any corruption that they witness or are subject to.

Users can report corruption by sending an email, by sending a tweet with the hashtags ‘#corruption’, ‘#bribe’, ‘#anti-corruption’ or ‘#theft’, or by filling out a short form. Submitted reports of corruption then appear on the Corruption Tracker Google Map.

London Bus Waiting


Transport for London recently started beta testing a new Countdown API to provide real-time departure information for all buses at every bus stop throughout London.

Next Bus London has quickly released a Google Map that shows the location of London bus stops and informs you how long you will have to wait to catch a bus.

To find out exactly how long you will have to wait you simply need to click on a map marker and an information window opens displaying the bus number, destinations and waiting times for the next few scheduled buses at that stop.

The University of Montana


I came across this beta campus map of The University of Montana today. The map includes a couple of nice features to help students and visitors find their way around the campus.

The Google Map includes a transparent overlay that adds interactivity to the buildings on the map. Users can click on individual buildings and get links to the building’s page on the university website and to printouts of floor plans of the building.

The map also includes a nice directions feature that allows users to quickly select and find walking, driving and bus directions between different locations at the university.

Other layers allow users to view photos, art exhibitions, bus-stops, parking spots, places to eat and wi-fi locations.

timespentalone.com


Where Do You Want To Go? is a great idea to get people to share the places they want to go and why they want to go there.

To submit a desired location users simply need to enter a destination and some brief thoughts about why they want to visit. Whenever a user submits a destination, the destination is Tweeted by timespentalone with a link to the user’s Google Map.

The best submissions are added to the Where Do You Want To Go? main map. The main map rotates through the submissions to the site, showing a Google Map satellite view of the location and the submitter’s thoughts.

My only complaint with the application is that the map is a little slow. I’d like the application to move onto the next submission after about ten seconds or maybe add a button so users can manually move to the next map.


The application reminds me a little of ZeFrank’s A Childhood Walk

For his project Ze asked people to recreate a childhood walk in Google Maps Street View. He then put together a collection of the responses superimposed on top of the appropriate Street View image.

Google Maps based photo album


Codrops has created a very nice template and tutorial for a Google Maps based photo album.

This multi-level map and image gallery displays images related to their location. The first level of the map shows the location of places that have a set of images. If you click on a marker on the first level the map will zoom in and also display thumbnails of the photos at this location.

Clicking on a marker in the second level will result in the photo being displayed next to the map. The images can also be viewed in a lightbox and the map can be viewed in full-screen.

The Robot’s chaosinyourtown.com


Robots from the year 2029 have been sent back in time to destroy you and your home!

Yes – the robots are here to get YOU!

Chaos in Your Town lets you create a blockbuster robot film featuring your very own street and house. Using Google Maps Street View as the background to the scenes Chaos in Your Town creates an incredible Flash based movie that shows robots walking down your street, targeting your house and blowing it to kingdom come.

This is the best thing you will see this week. Don’t believe me? Then just have a look at the screenshots below – and then go and create your own movie.

A heat map of Somalia


Voice of America has used a series of Google Maps and over 10,000 separate data points on rainfall, food prices and refugee movement to explain How Somalia Descended into Famine.

The visualisation explains over a series of Google Maps how the non-occurence of last year’s rain season in Somalia has led to crop failure, this year’s spike in food prices and then widespread famine.

The rainfall map lets the user view rainfall levels throughout Somalia. If you click on one of the rainfall markers you can view a graph of rainfall at that location comparing 2010’s rainfall with rainfall in 2009.

The food prices map allows the user to select different towns in Somalia and view graphs showing the sharp rise in price of a number of different crops and other essential commodities.

Finally the famine map provides a heat map of Somalia showing the scale of the famine at different locations in the country.

Driving Directions


Google Maps has added the option to preview driving directions in 3D using the Google Earth plugin.

Now when you use Google Maps for driving directions you will see a 3D button next to your directions.


When you click on the 3D button the map will switch to the Google Earth view. An animated fly-through of your route will then be shown.

You can pause the flight at any time by clicking anywhere in the 3D view or on the pause button. It is also possible to jump to different stages in your directions by clicking on a step in the left hand panel.

Try a Flight

The GitHub – Masked Polygons


Swiss Trains have open-sourced the code for a very cool masking effect on Google Maps.

The effect transforms a KML polygon into a mask that effectively highlights the polygon on the map by shading the rest of the world. You can see a demo of the effect on this Swiss Administrative Boundaries Map.

When you select a region on the Administrative Boundaries Map the chosen area is highlighted and the rest of the map shaded out.

The mask is a very effective tool. If you want to use the effect in your own Google Maps then grab the code from GitHub – Masked Polygons.

Via Googlemapsmania

Customized Google Maps for Android


Custom Maps is an essential app for Android phones for any serious off-trail hikers, sailors or anyone else who needs detailed off-line maps.

The app lets you quickly create a custom map for your Android phone from any map image or photo file. The image can be a photo or scan of a paper map. It could even just be the photo of a map posted at the beginning of a trailhead or at the entrance to an amusement park, which you can capture with your smartphone camera.

To create a custom map all you have to do is choose two (or more) points in your map image and plot them on a Google Map. That’s all it takes. Your finished map can then show your GPS location and will work even when a data signal is not available like in a state park or when abroad.

I have a boat that is moored on a river with lots of tributaries and creeks, some of which are navigable and some of which aren’t. When you start exploring these backwaters it is very easy to quickly lose a sense of where you are.

Using Custom Maps I made an off-line map for my phone in less than five minutes using a scan of a river chart. Now I should never get lost on my boat again.

The source code for Custom Maps is also available on Google Code. Several new features are also planned for the app including distance measurement, marking map locations with icons and making it possible to geolocate map images without Google Maps or a data connection.

Via: Open Source at Google

Google Maps Mashups 19

Google Street View Generator

Giacomo Andreucci has released a wizard called Google Street View Generator. Giacomo’s wizard even lets you set the size of your Street View static image and can display a preview.

The New Jersey State Atlas


The New Jersey State Atlas is using Google Maps to showcase aerial photography of the entire state taken in the 1930’s (OK … I admit there is no satellite imagery from the 1930’s).

The opacity of the aerial photo layer can be adjusted. This means it is possible to compare the aerial view of the state in the 1930’s to Google’s current satellite imagery and observe how the state has developed over the last 80 years.

The map also includes the option to view Google Maps’s annotated roads and to switch to the map view. It is therefore very easy to find locations in the state that you might want to see with the 1930’s aerial view.

Uboot-sim!


Uboot-sim! is a Google Maps based game, inspired by WWI submarine combat. In the game you control submarines in the North Sea and the Atlantic sea, hunting freighters and avoiding dangerous destroyers.

You can move your ships and hunt down your opponents’ boats by right clicking on the map. The game includes some clever collision detection algorithms, which means you can’t move your ships over land.

If your ships get destroyed by your opponents you can build new ships and U-boats in your dockyards.

DART St. Louis 2011


In April 2011 over 250 creative St. Louisans gathered to throw darts at a huge map of the City of St. Louis. Participants then had one month to visit the area where their dart landed and take a photograph.

DART St. Louis 2011 is a Google Map of the resulting collection of photographs. It provides a wonderful snapshot of St. Louis as it is today, one random block at a time.

Neighborhood Change in Connecticut


Neighborhood Change in Connecticut lets you view aerial imagery of Connecticut from 1934 side-by-side with the modern satellite view on Google Maps.

This map, created by the Trinity College and University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center, lets you explore the changing landscapes of Connecticut from the 1930’s to the present. The dual map control allows you to zoom in on different areas and compare the past and present views. For example, in the picture above you can see commercial development on formerly rural farmland.

As well as imagery of Connecticut from 1934 the map includes aerial imagery from 1990, 2004 and 2006.

45° imagery transitions


Google have added some cool transitions for the 45° imagery (Bird’s Eye view) in Google Maps. Now when you zoom in and out of the 45° imagery in Google Maps there is a smooth transition between the different zoom levels. Google have also added transitions when you rotate the imagery.

The transitions only work in Google Chrome at the moment. To see the transitions in effect check out this animated view of Venice in Google Chrome.

DFLD Radar


DFLD Radar is a Google Map of real-time air traffic over Europe.

There are quite a few live aircraft tracking maps already but DFLD Radar has a nice USP. DFLD Radar colour-codes the aeroplane map markers by altitude. The redder map markers indicate that the plane is flying at a lower altitude and the greener markers show planes flying at a higher altitude.

You can also click on any of the plane markers to read further details, such as the type of plane and vertical speed.

Fluglärmkonturenkarten

One consequence of all that aircraft traffic over Europe is quite a lot of noise pollution. Fluglärmkonturenkarten (you really do have to admire Germany’s skill in eradicating those useless spaces that other languages insert between words) is a series of Google Maps showing noise pollution around Frankfurt Airport.

These heat maps show noise levels around the airport using data from 2007 and also show noise level predictions for 2020 in two different traffic modes.

Berlin Elections Map


The Beliner Morgenpost has used Fusion Tables to create this nice Berlin Elections Map. The election was held on September 18th to elect members to the Abgeordnetenhaus. All 141 seats were up for election.

The map allows you to click on any of the political parties and view the constituencies where their candidates won. It is also possible to search the map by address or by district to view local results.

Census Map Maker

The Wall Street Journal’s Census Map Maker lets you create your very own census map for any neighborhood.

Once you have logged into the Census Map Maker with your Facebook or Twitter account you can start building your map. To create a map you simply need to click on the census blocks that you are interested in on a Google Map and then press ‘save’.

That is essentially it. Once you have clicked on your chosen census blocks you have your very own census map. The map can show the race breakdown for each block you clicked and for the entire selected area. The map even comes with it’s own pie chart of race and ethnicity in your defined neighborhood.

Shaded Relief Map

The Shaded Relief Map fills in a couple of Google Maps missing map types.

As well as providing the usual satellite, map and hybrid layers the Shaded Relief Map includes a shaded relief and a natural map layer. The natural map layer displays Tom Patterson’s Natural Earth map.

The Shaded Relief Map also includes a number of handy tools. Users can click anywhere on the map to find the elevation at that point. Users can also measure the distance between two points on the map and measure an area, for example a building or piece of land.