No Expectations

Displaying Galleries and Images in Google Maps

by Kip Cole on Friday, October 10, 2008 at 07:54 UTC

Newly added today is the option to show a Gallery, or selected Images, in Google Maps. Additionally, the Keyhole Markup Language (kml) generated can be downloaded for your own use in applications such as Google Earth.

Look in the sidebar to the right. If available, the action to show a gallery or some images in Goggle Maps will be available. Click on the link and a map will be loaded with placeholders marked for the selected images. For galleries there will also be a link to display a dynamic slideshow as well.

For the more technically inclinded, the method used is to add “.kml” to the end of any gallery display or to any image search. This follows the contemporary RESTful method for managing web resources. For example:

• If http://www.noexpectations.com.au/galleries/luna-park-at-night displays the images on the screen, then http://www.noexpectations.com.au/galleries/luna-park-at-night.kml will download the kml file (and may launch Google Earth depending on your system’s configuration).
• The same idea is true for collections of images. If http://www.noexpectations.com.au/images?tags=people displays the images on the screen, then http://www.noexpectations.com.au/images.kml?tags=people will download the kml file (and may launch Google Earth depending on your system’s configuration).

There is still more work to be done to refine image sizes and improve icons but functionally it works so there’s no need to wait.

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