Skip to main content

Merry Christmas Everyone

            Another year has come and gone and it is that time of the year again, when you are thankful for everything merry and bright. May this Christmas be bright and cheerful and may the New Year begin on a prosperous note! Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!


Comments

Recommended for You

Where does Google get it's live traffic data from?

Referring to a post that I wrote earlier, Google’s - Live traffic Layer , ever wondered how Google collected this data? I was wondering the other day, how Google received live data to display it on their maps as a layer! I looked up the web and found something very interesting and am sharing the same with you all. As we all know, the traffic layer is available most accurately in several states in USA. Most major metro areas in the US have sensors embedded in their highways. These sensors track real time traffic data. Easy to miss at high speeds (hopefully anyway, traffic permitting), more commonly noticed may be the similar sensors that often exist at many busy intersections that help the traffic lights most efficiently let the most amount of people through. The information from these tracking sensors is reported back to the Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT uses this data to update some of the digital signs that report traffic conditions in many metro areas. They als...

Geodesic Polyline

    Today we will have a look at a very interesting polyline example - "The geodesic polyline". Now the first question that will pop is "What is geodesic?". Mathematically, geodesic means the shortest line between two points on a mathematically defined surface, as a straight line on a plain or an arc of a great circle or sphere.     The next question after reading the above definition is clearly, "Why do we need geodesic polylines?" and that would be followed up with "What is this Great Circle?". We will discuss this first, before we move on to the actual example today. The example is very very similar to the normal polyline example, with just a small change.     Having said so, I will now try to explain why we need a geodesic polyline? The shortest distance between two locations on the earth is rarely a straight line as the earth is roughly spherical in nature. So any two points on the earth, even if they are very close lie on a curve a...

Ground Truth - How Google Builds Maps

    Todays's article is cross posted from The Atlantic 's Tech section. The article was posted by Alexis Madrigal who is a senior editor at The Atlantic , where he oversees the Technology channel. So, thanks to The Atlantic and Alexis Madrigal, we will have an exclusive look inside Ground Truth , the secretive program to build the world's best accurate maps.     Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view. The deep map contains the logic of places: their no-left-turns and freeway on-ramps, speed limits and traffic conditions. This is the data that you're drawing from when you ask Google to navigate you from point A to point B -- and last week, Google showed me the internal map and demonstrated how it was built. It's the first time the company has let anyone watch how the project it calls GT, or "Ground Truth," actually works.     Google opened up at a key moment in its evo...

Drive along - Cool coding

         This is something that will demonstrate to you the power of mapping! This is a Google Maps API v2 example, but just copy and paste the code in an html file and you will see something very cool! This will prove that mapping is real fun!          Let's have a look at the code first. Copy this code in your html file. Don't worry about the length of the code and the post in general. Just execute the code and you will surely enjoy what you see! <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/> <title> Drive Along </title> <script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&amp;v=2&amp;sensor=false&amp;key=ABQIAAAAu3HXU_hLdVPTFGqLed_FCxT2yXp_ZAY8_ufC3CFXhHIE1NvwkxQbblEPYBGNoRsuuSU9aBfSq4VAZA" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script src="http://econym.org.uk/gmap/epoly.js" type="text/javascript"> ...

Retriving co-ordinates...

         We have seen 2 Google Maps API v3 examples wherein we have retrieved the latitude-longitude co-ordinates of the point of click on the map. In the first example we have displayed the co-ordinates in the information window and in the second , we have displayed the co-ordinates in a form in the information window.         Today we will create a code to retrieve the latitude longitude co-ordinates in a text box while simultaneously a marker appears on the map as well. So, here goes the code. <html> <head> <title> Google Maps API v3 - Adding marker on Click and retrieving the co-ordinates in a text box </title> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var map;    //When using event as a parameter to a function declare map, strictly as a global variable fun...