[Taxacom] Yet another use for Google Maps

[Jim Croft]

And there does not seem to be much of a limit to how many records can
be displayed by Googlemaps.  An implementation accessing the
Australia's Virtual Herbarium cache can render c. 30k records of the
genus Acacia across the continent without blowing up (but slowly).
For an on-line freebie this is pretty impressive.  c. 8k records for
Dodonaea no problem.

Anyone had other experiences displaying large numbers of records in
Google maps?  Presumably the limit depends on available memory?

jim

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 7:42 PM, Bob Mesibov<mesibov at southcom.com.au> wrote:
> Google Maps is a great online tool for planning and reviewing fieldwork. It offers zoomable road maps, the Google Earth satellite image layer and a hill-shaded terrain map with rough-enough contour lines. Like Google Earth, it also has Street View (where available on the ground), which gives ground-level views of sampling areas and their access.
>
> I've now started using Google Maps to plot specimen locality data as they accumulate. These data are entirely private - they haven't been uploaded to Google.
>
> The trick is very simple: build a KML file for the locality data and put it on a Web server to which you have access. Open Google Maps in a browser and put the URL for the KML file into the search bar, then click 'Search Maps'.
>
> If you've never had experience with KML: a KML file is just a text file with the suffix '.kml'. You can build one in any text editor. Below is the full text of a KML file which will plot 3 localities for species X - just the localities in this case, not any metadata. Latitude and longitude must be in decimal degree format, with the usual conventions that lats S of the Equator are negative and longs W of Greenwich are negative. The '0' after the long, lat is elevation, here set at ground level.
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
> <Folder>
> <Name>SpeciesX</Name>
> <Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long1,Lat1,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
> <Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long2,Lat2,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
> <Placemark><name></name><description></description><Point><coordinates>Long3,Lat3,0</coordinates></Point></Placemark>
> </Folder>
> </kml>
>
> You can also open a .kml file on your own computer in the Google Earth application on your own computer (Windows users: right-click the file name in Explorer, 'Open with...' Google Earth). However, I'm finding Google Maps faster and more useful because of the road and terrain mapping.
>
> For a full treatment of KML, see http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kmlreference.html, but note that not all these features are supported in Google Maps.
> --
> Dr Robert Mesibov
> Honorary Research Associate
> Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
> School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
> Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
> (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
> Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
>
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Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
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... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
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