This book will help you use the amazing resource that is Google Maps to your own ends. From showing maps on mobiles to creating GIS applications, this lively, recipe-packed guide is all you need.

Overview

• Add to your website's functionality by utilizing Google Maps' power
• Full of code examples and screenshots for practical and efficient learning
• Empowers you to build your own mapping application from the ground up

In Detail

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 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.

What you will learn from this book

• Create simple maps and display them on mobile devices
• Style your own base maps
• Add your own tile maps as base maps or overlays
• Show vector layers on base maps in various types such as points, polylines or polygons
• Parse various vector formats such as KML, GeoRSS, GeoJSON, WKT, and so on
• Create a custom UI and customize your own ways to control it
• Respond to various events including mobile gestures
• Add additional libraries to extend the capabilities of the API
• Work with Google Services for geocoding, directions, StreetView, and so on
• Integrate open source or commercial GIS servers or services

Approach

Google Maps API Cookbook follows a fast-paced, high-level, structured cookbook approach, with minimal theory and an abundance of practical, real-world examples explained in a thorough yet concise manner to help you learn quickly and efficiently.

Who this book is written for

Google Maps API Cookbook is for developers who wish to learn how to do anything from adding a simple embedded map to a website to developing complex GIS applications with the Google Maps JavaScript API. It is targeted at JavaScript developers who know how to get by but who are also seeking the immediacy of recipe-based advice.

About the Author

Alper Dincer is a civil engineer with an MS degree in Geographical Sciences. He has more than 10 years of experience in developing web and mobile GIS/LBS projects. Since the beginning of his career, he was always passionate about maps and geo stuff. He started working as a research assistant at a university and then moved to a governmental agency to work with maps. He is also the co-founder of a tech company named Mekansal. He also has some achievements relating to geo web projects. In 2009, he got the first place in the ESRI Developer Summit Mashup Challenge with his open source project ExtMap. ExtMap was based on the Google Maps JavaScript API v2. He is one of the Google Qualified Developers of the Google Maps JavaScript API program. In 2010, he also worked as a proctor in the same program as a volunteer. As a developer and entrepreneur, he still likes coding with JavaScript, PHP, and Objective-C on different web and mobile projects. He completely agrees with Steve Jobs' quotes "Love what you do" and "Stay hungry, stay foolish". Balkan Uraz is a city planner with an MS degree in Geographical Sciences. He has over 15 years of experience in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Throughout his career, he has worked on several projects with one thing in common

GIS. In the early days of his career, he worked on projects involving municipal GIS and city information systems. He has also worked as a research assistant while he was conducting the tedious work on his thesis on routing systems. He has worked on major LBS projects for mobile operators in Turkey that involve both software development and building the data inventory. He co-founded a tech company that specialized in navigation data collection and navigation products. He has also been a GIS consultant for major companies operating in the areas of field tracking and real estate. In all his projects, he has worked around the same passion