posted
One of my side-volunteering activities includes being an officer in a small state-wide non-profit organization. Kansas is a fairly large state (200 miles x 400 miles, roughly) and our members are spread out all over this state.
I keep the official membership list, and I would like to find some simple "mapping" software (preferably free?) that would let me plug in these addresses (would only have to be city, I guess) and let me see a visual overview of where the majority of our membership population lives in our state. Doesn't have to be greatly detailed, this is just for a visual.
Does GoogleMaps have any kind of software like this? I know I have seen sites where you can build maps for the entire world, but I want one for just our state, and it would have to be able to handle some of our very small towns or rural areas.
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
There's lots of software to do things like this, though I can't think of one offhand that would be turnkey for you and free.
However, you can do it very easily with just a little bit of scripting or manual tweaking. Just create a KML file ( http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/ ) with markers for each city (sized by the number of members in that city) (though each address would be fine, too) then load that KML file in Google Earth or Google Maps.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
There's a Google Maps API, but I'm not sure how easy it is to use. I haven't looked closely at it,but it seems to require some programming knowledge to use.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
(To overlay your stuff in Google Maps, just search in the maps interface for the URL to your KML file; that should work. It is also possible to get google to index the KML file so it shows up on searches -- I'd suggest not using real addresses, then).
edit: ah ha, it shows up under my maps when you go to "import".
Btw, I'd strongly recommend coming up with a reasonably easy way to update a KML file by hand (meaning, fiddling with excel to add all the extra markup)/with a little scripting. Creating a map from scratch would be a major pain, especially one you wanted to keep updated. If you already have the data in a spreadsheet or database, regenerating a KML file will be comparatively trivial.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Maptitude, you are welcome to join Hatrack if you'd like, but starting by advertising your own product isn't the way. Please revisit the terms you agreed to in the user agreement.
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Maptitude is a major player in GeographicalInformationSystems. I very much doubt that anyone working there would waste their time spamming, and I know that its execs would highly disapprove such action.
Probably a longtime lurker and/or infrequent*poster decided to help out by copying&posting some useful info along with a link... ...assuming that the link was to Maptitude (I ran across this thread well after the deletion) rather than to a phishing/malware site.
posted
Gosh - I forgot I even started this thread and asked the question (yes, it's been that kind of week).
Thanks for all the great ideas -- I will start trying some of them.
Is just creating a "new map" in Google the exact same thing as what Fugu is suggesting I do by making a KML file to import? Or do I get different results?
Going to look at Maptitude too
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Maptitude ain't cheap, and its user guide is over 500pages long. Whereas Google's MyMap will do everything you want, relatively simply and for free.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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