Symbols and Heatmaps in the Google Maps API

The Google Maps API provides a robust platform in which you can add geographical context to your data in a variety of ways. Data visualization is therefore one of the elements at the heart of the Maps API, and today we’re introducing two new techniques for visualizing your data in flexible and dynamic ways.

Symbols

At SXSW Interactive in 2011, I attended a session on geotemporal data visualization that made me keen to make it easier for Maps API developers to build visualizations similar to those discussed. For this reason I’m particularly excited to introduce a simple, yet powerful, new concept to the Maps API v3 that we call Symbols.

Unlike the image icons currently used for marking locations on a map, a Symbol is defined as a vector shape. The size, stroke width, color, and opacity of the shape, are all set by the Maps API application and can be dynamically modified. A small number of shapes, such as a circle, are provided by the Maps API, and custom shapes can be expressed as an SVG path.

Symbols open up a wide range of compelling new possibilities for data visualization and visual effects. For example, the below map illustrates the expansion of the Walmart chain of stores between 1962 and 2006:

In addition to using symbols to represent point features you can also decorate polylines with Symbols. One or more symbols, such as an arrowhead, can be placed at fixed positions on the polyline or repeated along the polyline. Because the polyline that has been decorated does not need to be visible, this feature can also be used to created dotted or dashed polylines, and just as the style of the symbols can be dynamically modified, so too can their location on the polyline:

Heatmaps

Developers often ask how they can represent large amounts of data on a map. Improvements in web browser technology have increased the number of markers that can be rendered by a Maps API application, but above a certain threshold the density of markers can overwhelm the user.

An alternative approach is to use a heatmap, and to enable this approach we’re launching support for browser rendering of heatmaps by the Maps API using the new Heatmap Layer. Your Maps API application can define the colour spectrum, intensity range, and behaviour of the heatmap when the map is zoomed. Here’s the Walmart example from above, but this time visualized as a heatmap:

If you have any technical questions about these new features, we recommend engaging with our developer community online, or joining our regular Google Maps API Office Hours. If you’re at I/O come see us in person at Office Hours in the Google Maps developer sandbox.

 

A New Way to Follow the Google Maps API Google+ page

To the Google Maps Developer Relations team, the most exciting feature of Google+ is the opportunities it gives us to connect with Google Maps API developers from around the world. That’s why today we’re very excited to announce the launch of the Google Maps API Google+ page.

The Google Maps API Page will be used to give helpful tips about using our APIs, announce our office-hours hangouts, and point you to new cool maps that we find. We’ll also use the page to tell you about upcoming events, highlight announcements, link to helpful articles, and a lot more. It’ll also give us a stronger means to connect with our valued developer community. For instance, today we announced the next Google Maps API Office Hours, in which you can connect to the Maps Developer Relations team through Google Plus Hangouts.

Over the past couple of months, the Maps DevRel team has been connecting with Google Maps API developers through our personal accounts. We’ve now created a new circle that you can follow that has all of us in it.

For years, this blog has been the primary way for developers to keep up to date about the goings-on in the Google Maps API world and that isn’t going to change. We see the new Google+ page as adding a new way for you to connect with the Google Maps API team.

Gibran on The Bright Side

 

“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.”

– Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931)

Lebanese writer and philosopher

A simple challenge where everyone wins (you and those around you). No risk. No additional time required.

Within the next 3 weeks (or maybe the next 3 minutes), set a 2-day period as your days (or your team’s days) to inspire others. Two days where you’ll put on blinders to anything negative and be the one in the office who everyone else can count on for words and actions that inspire and encourage. Two days where you’re the light for other people – your colleagues, your prospects, your customers – no matter what.

Allow nothing negative and focus only on your service to others.

Once you set your 2 days, fully commit to the effort regardless of the inevitable challenges, regardless of the weather (please, never the weather). Fall off the inspirational horse at 2:11 on the first day? Get back on at 2:12 – no excuses.

Remember, you wake with an option for your daily attitude. Challenges will come up regardless.