Free GIS Tools – Google Map

It is not always practical or possible to use high end GIS software for specific tasks so free alternatives can be very handy. Not to mention that very often expensive commercial software can be cumbersome to use and produce dubious results (or not at all! – the supplier will remain nameless…). Good things can come for free.

Over the years I have collected a number of handy and free tools. I would like to share the list with you, starting with… Google Map API. I know, a lot has been written about it already but still not many professionals consider Google Map as a serious contender to “online GIS status”, and hence dismiss it outright as just a fancy toy, or even treat it as a GIS impostor. So, here are a few points why I believe it is a very powerful tool you cannot ignore. Just consider this:

• Enormous throughput capacity - to deploy and maintain on your own a custom online mapping system with equivalent capacity would cost you a fortune.
• Ready to use maps and imagery - the whole world of it, which would be prohibitively costly to replicate even if you are focusing only on a relatively small patch of land.
• Comes with 2D as well as 3D view option that works on many browsers - I can’t name any commercial software that can do that…
• Comes in 4 different flavours: Javascript (v2 and v3), Flash, Static Map and Mapplet – which gives you a lot of flexibility in choosing the right platform for your project.
• Works online as well as on mobile devices (with access to the internet) – a single development platform for two separate access channels, just think about cost savings!
• Bundled with handy web services: geocoder, reverse geocoder, elevation data service, data parser (txt, xml, kml, kmz, geoRSS), Street View panoramas, traffic, driving directions, local search, Wikipedia points of interests, videos and picture overlays, charts, spreadsheets and on-map advertising, if required.
• Easy to integrate with any data: as images via Web Map Service or kml/kmz, or vectors and point data via Web Feature Service, xml, txt, kml, geoRSS or JSON.
• Easy to extend with free custom libraries: drag’n’zoom, marker manager, marker labeller, drawing tools, etc. as well as your own code.
• Easy to integrate with any website – as long as it is freely accessible.

There are many more exciting features that could be included but I think the above is a pretty impressive list of capabilities that will be hard to match by any other commercially available software. If your project involves deploying a public access mapping application that has to be build from scratch, you can’t go wrong with Google Map!


Related posts:
Google introduces Aerial View
Live traffic on Google Map Australia
Manual geocoder for 70 countries
Google Map Static goes V2
Ingenuity of Google Map architecture

3D Earth View added to Google Map

Developers using Google Map API enjoyed integration of 3D Earth View for browsers and standard maps for quite a while – aus-emaps.com is one such site that took advantage of this integration from day one. However, users of the official Google Map site were provided with this option only yesterday. Flat “Terrain” map is still available but has been moved now to “More…” tab.


Google Earth Plugin was released to developers in 2008 yet it took 2 years to integrate with Google Map proper. It was quite a challenge to combine all the functionality consistently between different map options. Google is constantly working on adding more and more functionality. In case you did not notice, you can experiment with some additional functions by activating tools that are not yet officially released – just click on the red New! text in the top right corner of the screen to bring up a pop-up box with extras, such as “Drag 'n' Zoom” or “Aerial Imagery” which shows rotatable, high-resolution photos presenting features on the ground from four different perspectives.

I must admit that on one hand I am excited about all that new functionality and constant updates of Google Maps and API versions however, on the other hand, it all is starting to look a bit chaotic. It is quite a challenge to comprehend all available functionality options! As complexity of solutions offered by Google increases more and more users will be opting for “simpler alternatives”. This is in turn may be a great opportunity for developers to provide tailored applications.


First spotted on Google Maps Mania: Google Earth comes to Google Map
Via: Official Google Blog: Earthly pleasures come to Maps

Free weather widget upgrade

Free weather information tool that I launched in September 2009 has just undergone a small upgrade of functionality. It now also shows animated cloud cover over Australia in the last 12 hours. As all data displayed in the widget, the image is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in real time. Included is also a link to an interactive map with the latest weather information on aus-emaps.com site. I plan one more small update of functionality later in the year. Full instruction on how to integrate the tool with any blog or website is on aus-emaps.com free widgets page.


Cloud cover image is updated every hour and consists of 12 individual images, published by Bureau of Meteorology, which are converted into a single animated gif image with GD library. I am only now starting to discover this amazing image transformation tool for PHP.

UK unlocks vaults of spatial data

I reported last year that UK government made a commitment to release majority of its spatial information collected and maintained by the Ordnance Survey for free public use. The first set of data, including raster maps and vector topographic information, is now available for download. Ordnance Survey has always been a model national mapping agency with very efficient system in place to produce high quality and up to date spatial information for the UK. Til recently it operated on fully commercial basis and now is quickly catching up with “open access” initiatives.

Australia has also opted for open access approach. However, after initial enthusiasm surrounding gov2.0 taskforce and initiatives such as MashupAustralia aiming at unlocking volts of government spatial and non-spatial data things have slowed down to a standstill. The biggest achievement so far is adoption of Creative Commons licensing by many government agencies but access to data have not improved dramatically. No new data has been added to data.australia.gov.au catalogue since January although it is good to see that NSW and Victorian governments followed with similar initiatives.

Intriguing map of government censorship

Google has just published a small map application showing world wide statistics about “Government requests directed to Google and YouTube” to remove content from services, or provide information about users of services and products. The information covers period between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009. You can draw your own conclusions however, general media has already started sensationalising the story with titles like: Big Brother is watching us on Google.


I would like to use this example as another proof that analysing information spatially can give additional insights into the issues under investigation. In particular, information presented as a list draws attention only to countries at the top of the list, namely Brazil, Germany, India or US. However, presenting the same information geographically can add additional perspective on the whole issue. What got my attention on this occasion was a geographic spread of countries with requests by government agencies. These are predominantly all established democracies in Europe, Americas, South East Asia and Oceania. There is a notable absence of requests form countries in the old communist block as well as the Middle East. There could be a number of reasons for this phenomenon warranting further investigation but just to provoke some thoughts, is it possible that, contrary to a popular belief, citizens in democratic societies are subject to higher level of censorship than those form more restrictive political systems?

First spotted on: Google Maps Mania

Google Maps Navigation launch in UK

In November last year I reported about Google entry into the mobile GPS Navigation market with its fully featured Map Navigation application for phones running on Android 1.6 OS. Now the application has been also launched in the UK. Australia should not be too far behind.


In contrast to other iPhone based tools from major GPS navigation companies, this one is totally free although it does rely on the Internet connectivity to work. For Google it is all about enabling a new advertising channel that can deliver highly targeted and localised ads with search and driving directions queries as well as in reference to points of interests displayed on the map. These are still early days for advertising on mobile devices but it appears Google is attempting to transfer its successful online model onto this platform.

More 3D anaglyph experiences

Google is not alone in reprocessing Street View imagery into complementary color anaglyps to enable 3D viewing experience. Norc, a Romanian based mapping portal with extensive inventory of street view like imagery covering major cities in Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Hungary, has also started serving anaglyph 3D view option. The effect is much more refined than imagery provided by Google. The example shows the Royal Castle in Krakow, Poland.

This is a very crude way of enabling 3D experience but also the easiest to implement. Microsoft with its Photosynth experiment is trying alternative, “modelled 3D” view, based on multi-image processing but also with mixed results. I don’t know if you realise but there is already a technology that enables viewing pictures and movies in 3D without glasses. An Australian company TriDef patented several years ago a process of converting pictures into a proprietary 3D format for viewing on special screens. I have seen it in action and it is a very natural looking 3D effect but it didn’t grab attention of mass audience as yet. If of interest, you can purchase from them software or a DVD player that will convert any movie into stereoscopic 3-D in real-time to view with special glasses on your current TV set or monitor.

All that money spent on technology to replicate the nature yet not many realise that human brain is actually perfectly capable of processing a single, flat image into 3-demensional perspective and you don’t even need any glasses for the full effect! It is a natural 3D perspective effect, exactly how you see everything around you – not the kind you see in the movies where things “jump at you” or “float in the air”. You only need to know how to look. It is great fun to view old, even black and white pictures in 3D. Movies and documentaries on wide screen HD TV also look great. This is a prime case of those “mysteries of human eyesight and brain” which cannot be patented and commercialised so, no one is really interested in telling about. I meant to write a post on this topic a while ago - I do my best to do it in the nearest future! For now just enjoy artificial effects.

First spotted on Google Maps Mania: Street View in 3-D Gets a Competitor