Yeah, my question was about how I can automate the process of re- generating the coordinates of all the hotspots. Perhaps that's somewhat outside the bounds of the Google Maps API, although I imagine it's an issue that people who work with Google Maps deal with frequently. What are the approaches I should consider?
Thanks again for your help. On Jun 25, 5:46 pm, Miguel Angel Vilela <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm still not sure I understand what you mean with "re-record the > coordinates of each of the hotspots within the vector file" but surely when > hotspots move you'll need to re-feed their positions somewhere, somehow, to > re-generate your tiles to reflect those new positions. Re-generating the > vector file and re-slicing it into tiles sounds like a natural approach (not > having a faint idea of what your actual workflow looks like) so I hope you > can automate that. > > > > On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 23:41, Jack <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks for your thoughtful response. I can indeed build and update my > > own tiles. My question is how, when I do that, I can capture the new > > coordinates of the hotspots (which will get shifted around every time > > I update the vector file). > > > I'm planning on building an Adobe Illustrator file that will be sliced > > up to create the tiles. The various hotspots will be part of the > > vector file. This is important--I'm not overlaying the hotspots on > > top of the map; rather, they are part of the map (in fact the map is > > nothing more than lots of hotspots images). Then, I'd like to add > > Google Maps markers to emphasize the location of each of the > > hotspots. > > > I'm sure that I will need to add/remove/move hotspots down the road, > > and when I do that I don't want to manually re-record the coordinates > > of each of the hotspots within the vector file. Is there a way to > > approach this that lets me avoid doing that? > > > On Jun 25, 5:21 am, Miguel Angel Vilela <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 00:23, Jack <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I'm new to this, so apologies in advance for the likely naïveté of my > > > > question. > > > > Welcome to the forum :) > > > > I'd like to create a custom map using Custom Map Types (http:// > > > > > code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/ > > > > overlays.html#CustomMapTypes). The image for the map will be a single > > > > vector file, which I will then slice up into smaller tiles. The map > > > > will include a hundreds of "hotspots" which I'd like to identify with > > > > markers. > > > > This is to implement your own map imagery or tile overlays, so you would > > > need to re-generate tiles every time there is an update to the original > > > vector file. This is a good option if you have way too many hotspots and > > > they don't change very often. > > > > However, if the source data changes too fast, so that by the time you > > > re-build the tiles they are already obsolete, you'd need to either live > > with > > > non-live tiles (e.g. refresh x times per day/week) or just drop this > > > approach. > > > > Here's my problem: I expect that over time there will be subtle > > > > > changes/shifts to the underlying vector file, and the coordinates of > > > > the "hotspots" will therefore change. I don't want to have to re- > > > > record the coordinates of all the "hotspots" every time this happens. > > > > When the hotsptos change, you'll need to somehow change whatever files > > you > > > are using to represent them on a map. If you'll be using your own tiles, > > > you'll need to re-build them. If you use some other sort of file (e.g. > > KML) > > > you'll also need to re-generate that file. > > > > How should I approach this? I want to set up a system where the > > > > > vector file is "smart" and knows the location of the hotspots and can > > > > therefore easily update the coordinates if changes are made to the > > > > vector file. > > > > Let's assume you have some sort of data base or data store with the live > > (or > > > frequently updated) data of where hotspots are. If building your own > > tiles > > > often is not a good option for you, I can see at least two alternatives: > > > > 1. KML. You can either create a static KML file and re-generated > > > periodically (easier) or create a web service that will return the KML, > > > generating it on-the-fly from the source vector data. > > > > 2. Fusion Tables. If you have really way too many hotspots for the above, > > > try this: > > > Map your data with the Maps API and Fusion Tableshttp:// > > googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/05/map-your-data-with-ma... > > > > I'm just starting to build this system, so I can use any approach. Let > > > > > me know if I'm thinking about this problem in the wrong way or if I > > > > should be using a completely different set of tools. > > > > > -- > > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups > > > > "Google Maps JavaScript API v3" group. > > > > To post to this group, send email to > > > > [email protected]. > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > > [email protected]<google-maps-js-api-v3%2B > > > > [email protected]><google-maps-js-api-v3%2B > > [email protected]> > > > > . > > > > For more options, visit this group at > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3?hl=en. > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Google Maps JavaScript API v3" group. > > To post to this group, send email to > > [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<google-maps-js-api-v3%2B > > [email protected]> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps JavaScript API v3" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3?hl=en.
