Alternative Fuel Stations on Google Maps

The U.S. Department of Energy is using the Google Maps API to show the locations of all alternative fuel stations across the country.

The Alternative Fuels Data Center map allows users to find alternative fuel stations by address, zip code or along a planned route. In both an address search or in the route planner users can also refine which type of alternative fuel they wish to view on the map. 

The map includes options for users to embed the map on their own websites and to add alternative fuel stations that are missing from the map.

Create an Animated Trip with Google Maps

Trip maps created with Go Pro Travelling now include some amazing animations that show the progress of a trip on a Google Map.

Go Pro Travelling is a great application that helps users easily create a Google Map of any trip whether it be a walking tour, a bicycle ride or a vacation. Users can plot their journey with Go Pro Travelling and add information and photographs to each stage of the trip and create a great mapped record of their travels.

Every travel map now created with the app is automatically transformed into an animated map! Users can use the play and pause buttons to play back a trip, view the trip in chronological order or use numbered buttons to skip to any part of the journey.

The animations between the different stages are pretty amazing. Planes, cars and people fly, drive and walk across the Google Map creating stunning transitions between the different stages of the journey. The screenshot of Go Pro Travelling above doesn't really do the animations justice so check out the video below or check out an animated trip map here.

How to Make a Twitter Map

Tweet Map is a simple Google Map that constantly updates with the latest Twitter messages around a location. For example, I've been using the map to keep up-to-date with the latest tweets from today's Web Summit in Dublin.

To start reading tweets from a specific location users just need to enter a zip code (the map also works with UK postcodes). The map then centres on the zip code area and starts loading tweets. If you keep the map open then the tweets will keep coming.

Tweet Map isn't the prettiest or even the most effective Twitter map available but the source code and a handy tutorial is available for this app on the Ravenrend Blog. The map was built using the Google Maps API, jQuery, Underscore.js and Backbone.js.

Inside Street View of Google's Data Center

Google has released indoor Street View imagery of their Data Center in Lenoir, NC.

You can now take a virtual walk around Lenoir's data center floor (which appears to be guarded by a Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper), stroll through the Google's offices and even walk around the exterior of the facility to observe Google's energy-efficient cooling infrastructure.

Google has also released the following YouTube video to help explain what you can see as you tour the data center in Street View.

Environmental Performance on Google Maps

Yale University's Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks countries on performance indicators covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality.

The 2012 Country Performance Map visualises EPI indicators using Google Maps. The map shows a heat map of each country's EPI ranking and allows the user to view the EPI's other performance indicators via a drop-down menu.

Users can mouse-over a country to reveal the country's ranking and ranking trend in an information window. Clicking on a country takes the user to the country's dedicated country profile page where all the performance indicators for the country can be viewed on one page.

Google Image Maps

This week I've come across two interesting Google Maps that have been created with the GMap Image Cutter. The GMap Image Cutter is an application that can take any image or digital photo and cut it into map tiles which can then be displayed using the Google Maps API.


Folketinget og Regeringen uses an image of all members of the Danish parliament. The map of the image was created by microformats.dk.

The image shows all 179 representatives of the Danish parliament, 175 from Denmark, 2 from Greenland and a further 2 from the Faroe Islands. The image also portrays the current members of the Danish government.


The London DataStore - Picture Viewer displays a series of thumbnail maps for every field in the first hundred datasets on the London Datastore. The thumbnail maps were combined into one 10,000 pixel image and then turned into map tiles with the GMap Image Cutter.

Using the Picture Viewer Google Map users can zoom in on individual maps that visualise various data sets from the London DataStore. This map was created by GeoTalisman.


The Danish Parliament map and the London DataStore map are both nice examples of how the Google Maps API can be used with digital images. Cognitive Consilience is another map that uses an image with the Google Maps API and takes the concept a little further by using some of the API's functions to make a more interactive visualisation.

Panoramio Google Maps Hangout Game

Google's photo sharing website Panoramio has released a hangout game for Google+. The Panoramio - Hangout Game involves players trying to guess where a photograph was taken using Google Maps.

Google+ users can invite their friends to play the game in a hangout. The game is played in rounds. In every round, one player is the round master and the other players are the guessers. The round master chooses a photo. Then the other players take guesses at where the photo was taken. When the time is up, the player who made the best guess wins, and becomes the round master for the next round.

Solar Power Potential with Google Maps

MIT has used the Google Maps API to create a Solar Tool that shows the solar potential of rooftops in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The map colors the rooftops of Cambridge buildings to help indicate the amount of solar energy that could be produced with solar panels. Users can click on individual buildings to see how much electricity can be produced from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, how the financial investment will pay off, and how much pollution will be reduced. 

Master & Commander on Google Maps

For the last four years The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project has been accurately mapping the Aubrey–Maturin series of historical novels by Patrick O'Brian.

The novels tell the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. You might be more aware of the characters from the movie Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe, which was adapted from three of the novels.

The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project recently reached a significant milestone in the project, having now mapped over half of the novels.This means that readers can now visualise on individual Google Maps Captain Jack's journeys in eleven of the novels

Chicago Gangs on Google Maps

WBEZ91.5 has been busy mapping Chicago gang territories. The Chicago Gang Map uses Fusion Tables to help map out the Chicago Crime Commission's 'Gang Book'.

Gang areas are displayed on the map by colored polygons. Users can search the map by address and click on the polygons to reveal the name of the gang operating in that area.

Also See

London Street Gangs - a number of Google Maps that London Street Gangs claim shows gang territories in different parts of London.