Book Image

Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook

Book Image

Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook

Overview of this book

Day by day, the use of location data is becoming more and more popular, and Google is one of the main game changers in this area. The Google Maps JavaScript API is one of the most functional and robust mapping APIs used among Geo developers. With Google Maps, you can build location-based apps, maps for mobile apps, visualize geospatial data, and customize your own maps.Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of clear, step-by-step recipes that will help you to unleash the capabilities of the Google Maps JavaScript API in conjunction with open source or commercial GIS servers and services through a number of practical examples of real world scenarios. This book begins by covering the essentials of including simple maps for Web and mobile, adding vector and raster layers, styling your own base maps, creating your own controls and responding to events, and including your own events.You will learn how to integrate open source or commercial GIS servers and services including ArcGIS Server, GeoServer, CartoDB, Fusion Tables, and Google Maps Engine with the Google Maps JavaScript API. You will also extend the Google Maps JavaScript API to push its capabilities to the limit with additional libraries and services including geometry, AdSense, geocoding, directions, and StreetView.This book covers everything you need to know about creating a web map or GIS applications using the Google Maps JavaScript API on multiple platforms.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Encoding coordinates


The polylines and polygons that you draw using the Google Maps JavaScript API consist of arrays of LatLng objects in latitude and longitude pairs.

The length of these arrays increases substantially, especially when you have shapes with too many nodes, in the case of long polylines or polygons that have too much detail.

Dealing with these arrays (that can be retrieved by the getPath() methods of polylines and polygons) is a major problem, especially when you have to save the shape to a DB. Serializing and deserializing lengthy arrays is frequently hulky.

However, you can compress the paths of the shapes with Google's polyline encoding algorithm.

Note

Detailed information on Google's polyline encoding algorithm

You can find detailed information about the polyline encoding algorithm at the following link:

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/utilities/polylinealgorithm

By using the geometry library, you can encode and decode the paths of polylines and polygons...