Services for creating interactive maps. How to create your own map for satellite navigation Why do you need an interactive map

The winter cold outside the window and drifts on the roads do not please fans of outdoor activities and tourism, but they give enough time to finally make out the pictures, routes and impressions from past trips. Therefore, right now is the best time to report on your adventures and plan routes for the future. Of course, all travelers know and actively use the excellent Google Maps service for these purposes. However, the list of map services does not end there, and in this article you will learn about worthy alternative tools for creating, publishing and analyzing custom maps.

The online service Scribble Maps differs from many competitors in that this service is perfect for both beginners and experts in the field of cartography. Its simplicity and functionality make Scribble Maps one of the most popular mapping applications in education and science. The service offers users a wide range of options, including mapping maps, measuring distances, importing KML data, importing tabular data, applying custom labels, text, images, and much more.

open street map

The Open Street Map (OSM) service professes the same principles that formed the basis for the creation of the world-famous Wikipedia. All the information here is collected by the efforts of tens of thousands of volunteers who provide the project with data from personal GPS trackers, aerial photographs, video recordings, satellite images and street panoramas. Although the accuracy of these data varies considerably by region, it is still safe to say that OSM for some areas contains more detailed and up-to-date information than Google Maps.

For all registered users, the function of editing maps is available. You can export data from your GPS device, draw routes manually, put markers, mark interesting and memorable places, give descriptions and comments. It is possible to export maps in OpenStreetMap XML format or as an image (PNG, JPEG, SVG, PD), you can also get an HTML code to embed on any site.

Build-A-Map

Although Build-A-Map makes a somewhat frivolous impression with its large bright icons, it is still quite an adult tool for creating maps and diagrams. The source of cartographic information here is Google Maps, on top of which the user can create his own layers and apply the necessary data to them.

The Build-A-Map service allows you to add not only banal marks and tracks, but also text labels, circles, polygonal shapes, lightboxes with photos, lay routes, and so on. To all this, you can embed weather information, Google Places points, Panoramio photo hosting images. The map obtained in this way can be saved in the service storage and displayed as a link to it, or you can get a code for embedding in a web page.

tripline

The Tripline service is unlikely to be able to help in developing a route for serious travel, but for creating a multimedia presentation about the roads traveled, it is just perfect. In its work, the service combines three components: a track of your route, photos and musical accompaniment that best reflects the spirit of your adventure.

Putting it all together, the service will generate a spectacular story about your impressions, during which the viewer will move around the map along the route you have done and see photos tied to the shooting location. All this with great music, of course. Having spent one effort after the trip to create such an interactive report, you can insert it on your page or blog, send it to all your relatives and publish it on social networks.

ZeeMaps

ZeeMaps provides users with a fast and easy way to create and share interactive maps of the world. With it, you can visualize tracks on the map in KML, KMZ or GeoRSS formats, add your marks and comments. A distinctive feature of this service is the ability to work with tabular data. So, if you have a table with the coordinates of the desired points or, for example, the addresses of your customers, then you can feed this data to ZeeMaps, and it will accurately map it.

All maps are stored on the servers of the service and can be accessed at any time via a unique link. In addition, it is possible to print the map, save it as an image and get an html code to embed in a website or blog.

tripgeo

This service is interesting because it allows you not only to lay a track on the map, but also to see how it will look in reality. TripGeo uses data from Google Maps and Google Street View and combines them in one interface, allowing you to take a virtual trip along the chosen route.

You will need to indicate the start and finish points, as well as the desired mode of transportation (car, bicycle, on foot). In addition, you should specify a few more parameters regarding the rendering speed and image scale, after which TripGeo will select the optimal trajectory for you and immediately create a special widget in which the lower part will display a map, and the upper part will show a real view of this place. You just have to click on the Play button and go on a journey.

The TripGeo service can do a good job not only in preparing a trip, allowing you to more accurately find out information about the area, but also if you need a detailed explanation, for example, for guests of the city, driving directions. Now you do not have to explain by phone the signs of the street you need to turn into, you just send a link to the route created in TripGeo, and the person will definitely reach the destination.

The QuickMaps service fully justifies its name: you can make a map here as quickly as possible. To do this, you do not even need to register - just come up with a name for the card, a short description and you can get down to business.

Although at first glance it may seem that there are not so many tools here, in fact, everything you need is present. You can mark tracks with straight lines or freehand drawing, make text marks, import KML or GPX files from the web and upload them from your computer. And in terms of various markers, QuickMaps can give odds to much more serious services.

Map constructor (Yandex)

This service is part of the Yandex.Maps project and draws information, of course, from there. In very many cases, especially when it comes to the territory of Ukraine or Russia, these data can be even more accurate and detailed than those of foreign competitors. The map constructor allows you to draw a route, measure distances, draw polygons, put points on the map section you need. Markers here can only be of one type, but each can be accompanied by a number and a comment that will appear when you click on a point.

You can save the finished map and immediately get a code to insert into your website or blog. The capabilities of the service are best suited for creating interactive maps that show, for example, the location of your company or store, a driving route, or a gathering point for a social event.

Animaps

As the creators of the service hint to us in its name, it serves to create animated maps. With it, you can create a real multimedia presentation, where, according to the scenario you set, routes will be drawn, markers will appear and disappear, photos and even videos will be shown at the right points. To evaluate the capabilities of the service, it is best to look at one of the maps created by its forces.

The main feature of this service is that you can use it to accurately display not only the events that happened to you on the way, but also the temporal dynamics of the trip. Thus, Animaps is probably the most suitable service for creating an interactive report, after looking at which everyone will receive comprehensive information about your trip.

Bing Maps

Mapping service Bing Maps has long been somewhat in the shadow of its main competitor. And completely in vain - after the beginning of the friendship between Microsoft and Nokia, this service began to use data from Nokia Maps, which have always been distinguished by good coverage and excellent detail.

As part of Bing Maps, the user receives only a minimum of functions necessary to build a map, namely the placement of markers, drawing tracks and polygons with various types of lines, adding photos and comments.

To demonstrate the finished map, you need to save it, after which you can get a direct link to the map and a code for embedding in any web page.

Conclusion

In this article, we reviewed ten services designed to create, edit, and publish custom maps. All of them have their own characteristics and different functionality, so choosing the best one depends heavily on the tasks you are facing. If you just need to make a location map for the site, then the easiest and most convenient way is to use the Map Constructor from Yandex or QuickMaps. If you need to make an informative report about your trip, it is better to pay attention to Tripline and Animaps, which allow you not only to link photos and videos to the track, but also wrap it all in a spectacular shell. Well, for really serious work with maps, you should use Scribble Maps or Open Street Map, which have very rich functionality.

I am writing a post so that you, with the help of 7 pictures, create maps of your travels in Belarus, those points that you have already written about, about which you will write more. We need it for you and for us :)
It will help you (the authors) to structure trips and write reports. It will help us (readers) to lay new routes and see the unprecedented!
Especially the post is dedicated to taborovtsova , victogan , azarkinm , whom I already advised to create maps :)
And to many friends (including mutual ones) who constantly surf the country!
So, 7 pictures:
(you need an account with the Good Corporation, so if you don't have one yet, it's time to catch up!)

1. Explanations are superfluous


2. Explanations are superfluous

3. Explanations are superfluous

4. We do it in the indicated order, guided by fantasy and inspiration in writing the name :)


So, an empty map with a name has already been created! Now it remains to draw points!

5. Explanations are superfluous

6. We do in the indicated order. Steps 1 to 5 are repeated n times (the more dots, the happier the readers!). After completing the drawing of points (or when it's time to leave work:) press the "Finish" button. You can continue editing the map on the next business day.

And 7! Share a link to your map or embed the code in a blog (subject to HTML editing)


That's all. Now you can see where you have been most and where you have missed. Congratulations!

See also:

Want to create your own Google Maps of all the beautiful cities you've been to? Or maybe you want to create your own annotated map that shows convenient driving directions to your company or home? Or maybe you have clients in different parts of the world and you'd like to display their reviews on a Google map.

These are just a few of the many possible scenarios that might push you to build your own maps. Let's now take a look at some of the best online tools that make it easy to create your own maps in the browser without requiring any programming knowledge.

How to make a Google Maps map

One of the easiest ways to create custom maps is through the Google Maps site itself. Open maps.google.com and click Create Map under My Places. Next, find a place, or enter the coordinates manually, and save them in a custom map. Repeat that step until all places have been added to the Google map.

Later, you can change the style of individual pins, add text descriptions of points of interest, photos and videos - these will be displayed when the user clicks on your label or flag.

You can also use the "My Places" option in Google Maps to create a destination map. In this case, select the "draw line" tool and move it along the desired route. Double click to complete the drawing.

How to create more accurate route maps

If you have a smartphone, you can also use GPS apps like My Tracks for android free download from the website, which capture your location at different times and then create a complete route from those points. Once at the starting point, press the Start button on your phone. Once you have reached your destination, stop recording and the app will export your route as a Google Map.

Another option for drawing a travel map is QuikMaps . The program converts Google Maps to an image, and you can get directions on the map just like you would draw by hand on any canvas. After you sketch out the route, export it as a KML file that can be imported into Google Maps or Google Earth for publication.

Creating Google Maps from Excel Sheets

One slight inconvenience with the Google Maps tool is that the service does not allow you to enter waypoints in bulk. Yes, there are options to import KML and GeoRSS files, but how do you create those files?

Use BatchGeo, an interactive tool where you can import location data from a spreadsheet and mark those addresses on a Google map. You can copy and paste postal addresses or latitude and longitude coordinates and BatchGeo will display them all after decoding. It's a useful tool, but you can't export a map using a free account.

How to add animation to your Google maps

You may have seen flight tracking maps where multiple images of an aircraft follow different paths on the same Google map. If you would like to have something similar for your own Google Map, take a look at the Animaps service.

With Animaps, you can quickly create animated markers that move along a predefined path above the map. You can have multiple markers on the same map and their respective playback speed can also be adjusted.

Custom Google Maps for Advanced Users

Advanced users can create their own Google Maps by simply changing a few parameters in the maps URL. The Static Maps API (Static Maps API) has a complete list of parameters supported by Google Maps, as well as a few examples. The big advantage of using maps is that you can change them fairly quickly and easily embed them into web pages without using IFRAMES or JavaScript.



• You want to make a different version of an existing map. With other descriptions, other accents, change some objects. Changing a copy is usually much easier than doing everything from scratch.


• You want to make a map of other events, but in a close time interval. For example, after "Civil War in Russia" I want to do "World War I". Most of the background objects (countries, cities, railways) will match. There is no need to apply them again, you can copy an existing map, remove the excess, add a new one and save with a different name.
• You just want to experiment on the finished map. You can play with your separate copy as much as you like. In addition to copying the entire map, you can copy individual objects from map to map. For example, rivers and mountains have changed little in the history of mankind (although there are exceptions). I don't want to reapply them on every map. They can be imported from another map. Below I'll show you how.

Creating a new map



• The name of the card. Here, I think, everything is clear.


• Description and picture for the list of maps on the main page. Your card will not be displayed in the general list of cards on the main page until the "Published" checkbox is checked in the settings (which I will discuss below).


• Time step and time frame of the map (start date and end date). Time on the map is discrete. You can choose the minimum step - day, month or year, depending on how detailed you want to describe the events. The step is common for the whole map, in the current implementation it is impossible to make part of the map in detail, but not part. Unlike all other parameters, the pitch cannot be changed after the map has been created.


• Map type - satellite image or modern map (modern countries and cities). A satellite image is more suitable for describing historical events, a map is more suitable for describing modern ones. The user can always switch to another type (switch in the upper right corner of the map).


• Unknown area. If not all of the earth's surface was known to mankind during the period of history you have chosen, you can enable this setting. Then the Map will be covered with a black area, in the middle of which there will be a light window that can be adjusted. You can configure this window to change as the map events progress. (the maps of the Great Geographical Discoveries can be based on this). The user can disable this area (icon in the lower right corner of the map).


• Editors - If you want to fill out the map collectively, enter through "," the names of the users to whom you want to open editing (they must be registered). The map will appear in their "My Maps" window.



• "Published" - after that the map will appear in the list on the main page and will be available for viewing by users.


• "Editing is open" - any registered user can edit the map, not just editors. The history of map changes is saved and you can roll back to the previous version. Permissions settings, deleting a map, deleting the latest version are available only to editors.

Copying a map



1. Go to the desired map

 

2. Click on the "save a copy" icon on the bottom panel.


3. Log in or register (if not already registered).


4. Enter a name for the new card and click "save".

Importing objects



1. Log in to your card


2. Switch to edit mode (the "edit" button in the lower right corner).


3. Click on the "import objects" icon on the bottom panel.


4. Select one of the ready-made maps and click the "Show" button. A list of features on that map will be displayed.


5. Select the necessary objects with checkboxes and click the "Add" button under the list.


6. Copies of objects will be added to your map. After that, do not forget to save your map to the server.

Yandex.Maps is a mapping service that can be used to search for specific objects and obtain information about them. Any owner organizations can register in Yandex.Directory and indicate on Yandex.Map the location of your company or office. Yandex Map Constructor is a service with which you can make a location map or a list of stores to embed on your website.

On Yandex.Maps, any of your clients can then find your organization and get directions to it from their current location.

When searching in Yandex or directly on Maps, the user is shown the companies closest to him at his request. This helps to attract customers who are close to you.

This is our Russian analogue of Google Maps, which in some cases is more convenient than the Western service. First of all, if we are talking about domestic companies: Yandex. Maps update up-to-date information for Russia faster.

Why do you need a Yandex map on the site

We have previously written aboutfactors, which Yandex takes into account when ranking commercial sites. One is the full address, including a map (preferably interactive) on the contact page.

But this is only one of the reasons why you need a map on a web resource.

It is also needed for other purposes:

• To show the client where you are, in which area of ​​the city. Many people just find it easier to navigate on the map, and not on the address.
• With the help of the map, the client will be able to lay out a map or a route on how to get from his current location to your store, cafe or office. At the same time, if the site has an interactive map, he will not need to leave your site.
• If you have several points of sale or offices, you can indicate them all on the map. The client will choose where to get closer, more convenient and faster.

You can’t do without a card for those companies that only talk about their offer through the site, and the completion of the transaction takes place offline. These are workshops, shops, beauty salons, various industries, pharmacies and hospitals. Let's figure out how to make a location map or a list of addresses for installation on the site in the Yandex map designer.

To embed a Yandex map, you need:

• Create a map in the constructor;
• Get the card code;
• Insert the code on the site (it is suitable for sites on any CMS).

There is a special service for creating maps -Yandex Map Constructor .

If you have mail on Yandex, you can switch to the service and immediately start creating a map. Click the Create Map button.

You will see a workspace where you can create your own map. All maps you create will be saved in the map list.

Let's try to create a map. Consider an example: your office is 10 minutes walk from the subway. You want to show on the map the route from the metro to your office.

First of all, we name and set the description of our card (not necessary, but it will be more convenient, especially if there are several cards).

Then you start editing the map. On the map you can:

• Put labels;
• Draw lines and polygons;
• Specify information about traffic jams (pulled up automatically, Yandex itself will take care of this);
• Create layers.

Let's go back to the example. We need to specify the path from the metro station to our office. We find the desired station on the map, then select the "Lines" tool and simply draw the path with the mouse. Then we can adjust the appearance of the line: thickness, transparency, color. As you can see, the designer immediately calculated how many meters you need to go.

Then I propose to put also a label indicating the office. Select the "Marks" tool, and put a mark by simply clicking with the mouse in the right place. Then we set up the label: write a description, select a color and type.

• Interactive - you can increase, decrease, fully interact with the map;
• Static - will be on the site in the form of a simple picture. Suitable if you know that your target audience has a mostly slow connection.

It is better, of course, to use an interactive map.

Let's try to create a map for the case if you have two stores or two offices in the same area.

In the same way, we create a new map, name it and write a description. Then select the Marks tool. We put a label in the right place and set it up.

This will be an indication of the first office (shop, salon, branch). Now we need to specify the second one. We do everything in the same way, only I choose a different color for this label - to distinguish. Let it be green.

That's it, the map is ready. You can save and paste on the site.Even if for some reason you can't do it now, you will always find the finished maps in the list of maps:

As I wrote above, after creating the map, you need to copy the code and embed it on the site.

After you have created a card, click "Get card code". You will see a piece of code that you need to embed into the site.

Usually the map is placed on the site:

• On the "Contacts" page;
• In the footer (footer) of the site;
• Less often - on the main page or the "Delivery and payment" page (mainly when it comes to pickup).

Having a ready-made card code, it is easy to insert it on the site. I will show you several ways, primarily for WordPress site owners. You can even make settings yourself.

Let's look at how to insert a map on a WordPress site on the "Contact" page. We already have our address, phone number written on this page, and a map will be placed below all the content.

We go to the administrative panel of the site. Go to the "Pages" section:

Then we find our “Contacts” page there and select “Edit”. Switch the editor from Visual mode to Text mode.In the map constructor, select the iframe code and copy it:

At the very bottom, after the text, paste this code and update the page.

Here is our map on the site:

You can edit the width and height directly in the code provided by Yandex (width, height tags - set the desired numerical value in quotes).

Another option for placing a map, which is often used on landing pages, is to insert the map into the footer (footer) of the site. To do this, you will need to edit the HTML code of the page by inserting the code proposed by the designer there.

On WordPress, you can edit the footer through the admin panel. Go to Appearance - Editor - Footer:

To edit a file, you need to have at least basic knowledge of HTML. If you are not so good with this, it is better to entrust the work to a web developer (you can even find a craftsman on freelance).

Yandex.Maps plugins

For different CMS, you can use official map plugins, or modules that allow for quick integration.

For example:

• For 1C Bitrix: "Your network of offices on the map" and "Yandex. Map of infoblock objects";
• For Drupal: "Geofield Yandex Maps";
• For WordPress: "Yandex Maps API";
• For Joomla!: "Yandex.Maps for Joomla" and others.

You can see the full list of plugins in Yandex Help.

As you can see, it’s not so difficult to make and embed a Yandex map on a site, and with basic knowledge of HTML, it’s quite possible to do it yourself.

Take care of your customers and help them find your store, restaurant, beauty salon or office faster. Create a map and post it on your website.