Calling Google Maps by Address
Sunday, January 28th, 2007
Interest in embedding Google Maps (gmaps) into web pages and blogs is at an all time high. The Google Maps API is probably the most popular API the company has ever published. In spite of the API’s popularity, it’s basic use (as a means to define and display graphical map data) has been troubled by the difficulties of geocoding.
In a nutshell, geocoding is translating street address data into coordinates of latitude and longitude. This is necessary because the calls to the Google Maps API you have to make from your own web site have to call the map you want to display by the coordinates of the map’s desired centerpoint.
The javascript needed to call the map for a specific address might look like this: (more…)