GDrive: Driving Google Maps
Here's an updated set of bookmarklets to "drive" the Google Maps
driving directions. Just follow these steps:
- Save the following links to your bookmark bar:
GDrive: start
GDrive: stop
GDrive: reset
- Bring up some driving directions. For example Boston
to New York
- Zoom to a comfortable level. Lower is generally more fun to
watch.
- Click "GDrive: start" and you're off. You can stop and re-start
the trip. The speed is set by your current zoom level.
Have fun!
And more info can be found here on Google Maps
Hacking and Bookmarklets
Update: Added the walking man icon from the above link and pegged the
speed at the current zoom level.
(13:43) [/Maps]
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Google Maps
Holy cool. If you haven't seen this already, go check out Google Maps. It's still in beta, but
already provides a seriously nice interface (maps as big as your
screen, smooth scrolling, turn-by-turn details on directions, keyboard
short-cuts, do-what-I-mean searchs, and more). On top of that there
are many opportunities for playing with the data.
A good collection of how-it-works details can be found onas
simple as possible, but no simpler. So far, I've written Python
scripts to pull down titles based on lat/lon/zoom, download driving
directions and then parse out the route to upload to my GPS. And check
out these little bookmarklets found in the comments of the link above:
follow route
or
follow fast
(only tested on OS X Firefox. To use, drag to your tool bar then
click on one while looking at a directions map zoomed way in. No way
to cancel before the end yet)
So many things to play with!
Update: Modified the bookmarklet so that the starting marker now
moves along with the route: follow route w/marker (starting to drag down my poor little Mac's CPU. probably will work much better on a younger-than-3-year-old computer)
(09:39) [/Maps]
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