Location Mapping

[Raistlin]

Hi Guys,

This is gonna seem like a weird request but.....

I'm after a piece of software, or an online resource, that will allow me to take a map of the UK and plot points onto it with comments.

Basically, I would like to mark a number of areas of the UK with points (little red dots, small purple triangles, tiny orange swirly things, whatever) and then link that point to a comment so that you can click on it and read the comment.

It's also important that I am able to share the map, via email or the web, with other people without them having to have the software installed.

Any ideas how I can do this?

I'm happy to do it by creating a web page with the map on, putting the dots on as seperate images, and then hyperlinking the dots to a popup page with the comments in, but I haven't got a clue where to start with that.
Software that does it all for me would be better.

I also need to be able to edit it fairly easily and frequently.

[mrlipring]

look into the google maps api. there's a few guys doing stuff with it/flickr.com to enable gps photo stuff to be more useful.

perhaps you can harness it as well.

[Raistlin]

I think that may be a bit beyond me TBH, but thanks for the suggestion.

I've found something called SmartDraw which looks like it could do the trick.

What I'm trying to do is something like this (but including more people).

http://www.catsworthpcs.co.uk/Maps/

Hint: Click on the red map pin

I'd be interested to know if anybody likes the idea (perhaps I should open a seperate thread so that it gets more coverage). If enough people are interested I might spend some time putting this together on a larger scale.
If nobody's interested I won't waste my time :)

[mrlipring]

the good thing about the google maps is that you can zoom in and everything. Just having the static image there, you'll run outta room really quickly.

[Raistlin]

Hmmmm.....

Just had a look at the Google Maps thing. Apparently Google haven't made the API available yet, the only way to do it is to work around Google rather than with them. The methods available to do this seem questionable, and are frowned upon by Google - not really the sort of thing I'd want to expose CF to.

If you've got any links to articles where people are using the API directly I would be inetersted to read them as this certainly seems like the right way to go.

Thanks
__________________

Forgot to ask (for any member of the Team):

Is there any benefit in breaking the relevant portion of this thread out, and into the Website Discussion thread, under a new title?

Like I said, if nobody will be interested in the finished project then I won't even consider it, but if enough members are interested I will keep investigating.

Thanks

[mrlipring]

you COULD always use flickr and allow people to add their own notes to satellite photography of the UK.

take a look at geobloggers.com and see what they've been able to do.

[Raistlin]

Ok, thanks for that link.

I followed it about a little bit and found this page:

http://www.google.com/apis/maps/

Which says that Google have released a Maps API.

Unfortunately it all seems to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond my understanding at the moment, so I guess this is one project that's gonna get shelved until I can get my head around it.

I like the idea of using Google Maps though, could be very good indeed.

Thanks for your help.