Viewing posts about Google Api.

Determining Nearby Waterfalls

Calculating distance by roads

Finding geographic proximity is nothing new for me. While I've played with the Google Distance Matrix API before I've also had some fun using alternative (Warning: Mathematical!) methods for measuring distance with flat planes, spherical approximations, and tunnels. When I looked at adding a simple…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted December 2, 2013
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Using Gecoding to Find the 'Closest City'

Outside of fetching elevation information for each point on the upcoming waterfall refactor I decided to add a new feature. Listing the county and exact latitude/longitude is helpful for explaining where a waterfall is located (as well as showing it on a map, of course), but listing the 'closest…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted November 25, 2013
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Google Elevation API

A related piece to the new waterfall site (that I'm still actively working on) is geodata - that is, the coordinates of each waterfall and nearby features, paths, etc. The existing waterfall site had each coordinate saved inline with the fall record, a very sloppy and elementary implementation.…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted November 21, 2013
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Finding the Closest X to Y

Following roads to get distance information

Finding the distance between different locations is a programming task that I've done a number of times. The idea seems simple - the user wants to know the closest branch, store, or distributor relative to them. Ignoring some possible use cases (commuting routes, varying convenient starting…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted April 21, 2013
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Web Development Goals

I've always been a bit of a goal- and task- orientated person. The only thing I enjoy more than making a long to do list at the beginning of a week is crossing the items off of the list one at a time. Now that I'm a 'real adult' with a full time job and puppy, I decided to create a list of goals to…

  • Category Personal
  • Posted November 28, 2009
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Google Static Map API Introduction

On several of my previous blog posts I ran into the need to show something on a map. While Google Maps was the initial idea to implement, all I wanted was a single image with a few lines or markers. Embedding a map seemed a bit much for this simple task. My second idea was taking screen shots of a…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted October 5, 2009
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Distance Compare Class Part A

This post assumes advanced understanding of PHP scripting and some object-orientated knowledge.

One area of PHP that I haven't had much experience with yet is classes. I have a rough idea of what they do, but after working with a few inefficient classes, figured that they are more trouble then…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted June 28, 2009
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Setting up the Hiking Website

Even though my waterfalls site turned out to be a great way to chronicle adventures through wilderness, it has several areas that are lacking. The biggest area is the Google Maps functionality, which is shaky at best. It can only show the end points and major points along the route, but I didn't…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted June 4, 2009
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Topographic Images on a Google Map

This post assumes intermediate understanding of the Google Maps API.

While I was working on a personal project I bumped into the need to create a Google Map that included locations and driving directions of the different Keweenaw waterfalls. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the Google…

  • Category Web Development
  • Posted April 23, 2009
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