Hi,
I love how the Map Suite Web Edition allows for integration with Google Maps & Virtual Earth. Are there any plans to have this available in the Map Suite Desktop Edition?
Thanks!
Support for Google Maps & Virtual Earth
Clint,
We have it on our Feature List but it’s not been decided yet when it will be available. I will let you know here when we have a concrete plan about it.
Ben.
I’d like to second the request for a tie-in to Google Earth in the Desktop Edition. This functionality would be a huge benefit to us.
Kimberly,
We are working on that and if everything goes well, we will have Google Map integrated in Desktop Edition in the new Beta which will be released around 22rd this month. :)
Thanks for using Map Suite. Let us know if we can make your coding easier.
Ben.
Thank you Ben! This is excellent news. I appreciate the quick response.
Kimberly,
I was working with the developer adding the Google Maps support and it looks pretty slick. One issue is that per Google’s licensing we cannot obscure or hide the Google logo form the image. This is fine however Google put a size limitation on the image we can retrieve from their servers at 600x600. This means that if your map area is larger than that then we need to splice a number of these images together. The result is possibly more than one Google logo and attribution to the map provider. We are going to see if we can get it down to just one and still be in the license but this is Google’s doing and not ours. Not to burst any bubbles but it is something I noticed when I say it in action. I have seen other tools that integrate it without any any logos and I am sure there are violating the license… Maybe we will include a way to disable all but one logo and leave it up to you the customer on how you feel about it.
David
Hi
This is great news! Will the next beta also have support for Vitural Earth?
Thank you for the heads up about the Google logo, David.
Hopefully you'll be able to resolve the licensing issue to get it down to one logo. I don't think having one logo is an issue at all; as a matter of fact, it might be a selling point for us. If having multiple logos causes us any grief, I'll let you know, but I fully understand this isn't your issue.
Thanks!
Kimberly
Clint,
Virtual Earth will not be supported in the upcoming release which will be available around 22th this month. We are still working on the Google Maps one and I think it will be ready then without big problem.
Thanks,
Ben
I have some news on the Google Maps and the logo issue. We are re-working the way we pull down the maps from Google to minimize the number of logos. Currently the map size limit is around 600x600 so what we are doing is to always pull down the maximum sized image and then manage the area on or off screen internally. What this mean is that for every 600x600 area of your map you will have a logo. That is the minimum number we can get away with. The good news is that we will cache the larger data so no more than that many will be shown even if you slightly pan around.
The nice thing about this solution is that the position of the logos are predictable and don’t take anyone by surprise. I will try an post some picture of the effect next week. I look forward to everyone’s feedback. We are doing what we can within the license.
David
Sorry that as the Desktop’s GoogleLayer is not 100% perfect before the deadline; we just exclude it in the latest Beta which released early today. It’s very close though and we will have a separate extension posted it in our developer’ blog in a couple days. Just keep you updated and thanks for Choosing Map Suite.
Ben
Ladies & Gents,
I have an update on this topic. We have finished adding the Google functionality and we are making a new release to add it directly into the Desktop Edition. The new release will be out by Monday. We were not able to add a sample to it but I will be posting information on how to use it on the Developers Blog here in the discussion forums today or tomorrow ahead of the new build. I will post on this topic as soon as it is available on the website.
David
Thank you for the update! I look forward to seeing the software on Monday!
Guys & Gals,
It’s here, download the latest version and try it out. We have some sample code at the link below. The link is to the Developers Blog forum and I recommend subscribing to get e-mail updates to that forum.
We welcome your feedback as this is pretty new and will likely have little issues with it. Currently the documentation isn’t updated and we do not have any How Do I samples yet so if you have questions just let us know. We will have all of this up to date in our next release.
Virtual Earth is the next in line and we will try to get that out soon as well.
gis.thinkgeo.com/tabid/143/afv/topic/aff/16/aft/5155/Default.aspx
David
This is looking quite good. Getting a little bit of glitching when panning but a refresh fixes.
Is it possible to get this working when our other layers are in DecimalDegree units?
Gordon,
Glad you like it. If your data is in decimal degrees then you will need to project it to overlay on top of the Google imagery. You can see I create a separate spatial index for projection 90013 to make the spatial query correct and faster. To build this just create a ShapeFileFeatureSource and specify the projection and then call the BuildIndex specifying a different file name.
Proj4Projection proj4Projection = new Proj4Projection();
proj4Projection.InternalProjectionParametersString = Proj4Projection.GetEpsgParametersString(4326);
proj4Projection.ExternalProjectionParametersString = Proj4Projection.GetGoogleMapParametersString();
ShapeFileFeatureLayer worldLayer = new ShapeFileFeatureLayer(@"..\..\SampleData\Data\Countries02.shp", @"..\..\SampleData\Data\Countries02_90013.idx");
worldLayer.ZoomLevelSet.ZoomLevel01.DefaultAreaStyle = AreaStyles.Country1;
worldLayer.ZoomLevelSet.ZoomLevel01.ApplyUntilZoomLevel = ApplyUntilZoomLevel.Level20;
worldLayer.FeatureSource.Projection = proj4Projection;
Guys,
Here is how you build a spatial index just for one type of projection. I used the from as decimal degrees and the to as Google's projection.
David
Proj4Projection proj4Projection = new Proj4Projection();
proj4Projection.InternalProjectionParametersString = Proj4Projection.GetEpsgParametersString(4326);
proj4Projection.ExternalProjectionParametersString = Proj4Projection.GetGoogleMapParametersString();
ShapeFileFeatureSource fs = new ShapeFileFeatureSource(@"..\..\SampleData\Data\Countries02.shp");
fs.Open();
Collection<Feature> features = fs.GetAllFeatures(ReturningColumnsType.NoColumns);
fs.Close();
ShapeFileFeatureSource.BuildIndexFile(features, @"..\..\SampleData\Data\Countries02_90013.idx", proj4Projection);
I’ve not managed to get this working. We have shapefiles (including the samples with the beta, say countries 02) and project data in WGS84, but projecting as you describe does not seem to align this with google maps data.
Sometimes it aligns, but zooming in or out it may not… and what is strange is that the direction of zoom does not always cause the displacement in the same direction, i.e. points display too far south, zoom in, points too far north, zoom in, points too far south again.
Any chance of a sample that shows countries 02 or some other WGS spatial data overlayed on a google layer?
Gordon,
I just want to make sure of a few things. Did you set the Map1.ZoomLevels to the GoogleMapsZoomLevel? Also did you trun on snapping its like IsSnappingMode = true. These two things makes sure that the map control snaps to the same zoom levels that Google Maps uses. Also I highly suggest you build special shape file index for the country02 with the Google projection. There is a BuildIndex API where you can pass in the features, aka use a get all features, and then a projection object with the from decimal degree and to the Google projection. Name this file something like Countries02_Google.idx and when you load the shape file use the overload to specify you want to use an optional index. This will speed things up. I think your issues will be foxed though by setting the snapping and the zoom level on the map.
If you would take some pictures and post them here just to make sure my hunch is right.
David
Gordon,
If you are still having problems I can post a sample on Monday along with some screen shots.
David