Mapping Hacks

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Chapter 4, Mapping (on) the Web

#40 Plot Points on a Spinning Globe Applet

HACK

And that’s all there is to it. Now, every image with a latitude and longitude

that you add to your photoblog will automatically show up as a thumbnail

on your Flash map. See “Publish Maps of Your Photos on the Web”

[Hack #8]

for another method to add photos to a map.

—Mikel Maron

HACK

#40

Plot Points on a Spinning Globe Applet Hack #40

An interactive, spinning globe easily adds the “oh, wow” factor to your

geocoded web pages.

Looking for a compelling way to display globally dispersed data that can be

tagged with latitude and longitude coordinates, such as travel photos or

events? Or perhaps you have a web form or JavaScript-enabled program that

needs latitude/longitude input and you’d like to provide your users with a

quick way to pinpoint the desired location.

Geosphere is an open source, versatile Java applet that does these things and

more, by providing an interactive globe you can embed in your web page.

The user can spin the globe, zoom in and out, and select pinpoints you have

specified or input their own coordinates. If you choose to display pinpoints,

they are hotlinked to URLs that will load in the browser when the user

selects them. The pinpoints can be separated into groups that the user can

opt to display or hide at will. Geosphere is highly customizable, so it is sim-

ple to fit it into your web site design. ...