Fun with Google APIs
During my free time, I’ve been spending some time getting to know the Google Gadgets and Google Maps API. I’ve decided that I needed to start putting this knowledge to use, and therefore decided to finally get started working on one of my pet projects.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Playa del Carmen is currently the world’s fastest growing town (by a rate of 26 percent per annum). Paper maps of streets, restaurants, bars and hotels in the area are outdated long before they hit the tourists. And, unfortunately, this area (by area, I mean Mexico) does not yet have a wonderful resource like Yahoo! Yellow Pages to easily find and display this information.
So, when I’m out taking my frequent walks, I’m going to try and take my handy Garmin GPS unit with me and try to start plotting some of the area’s attractions. Who knows, maybe one of these days Google or Yahoo! will wake up and realize that Mexico needs this type of service as well, and they’ll pay me lots of money to provide them with the data I’ve collected.
Currently, my work in progress demonstrates how to add custom overlays (street names) on the satellite images of the area. This is where the I’ve spent a bulk of my time thus far (it’s isn’t obvious yet!), since Google has made it a painstaking process to piece together the image tiles and make a map to work with.
Another piece of my project is the use of markers. I’ve added some markers showing some bars, restaurants and hotels. In the future, I hope to use different colored markers for each attraction, and possibly toggle the display based on user preferences.
I’d like to discuss my accomplishments and hurdles, but it’s late. I’ll hopefully get around to that in future installments. Until then, check out my progress at In The Roo Google Map – Playa del Carmen.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Good stuff – I could have used this to find you two weeks ago.
Biggest problem would have been the lack good internet connection at Iberostar, though – their browsers lacked Javascript support.