Codefry Blog "APIs are awesome" - Web Map developed/deployed in less than 2 days

An interesting post by Google appeared on my Twitter feed describing how Google Maps APIs can be used to predict the future traffic conditions. "Predictive travel times" feature did not exist in the past, meaning taking advantage of historical information that already exist to make the best guess on a route and travel time. I was really incentivized to read this post since my daily driving commute to DC can be, at times, challenging. With constantly changing traffic patterns and very messy commute that Washington DC region has, I wanted to see these APIs in action. My mind was already going nuts with a number of use cases that could benefit from this Google Maps APIs code update.I soon realized I needed to "crawl first" (be familiar with Maps APIs) before "walking" (using "Predictive" analytics feature). I could probably get in-house help from my @Codefry teammates and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) experts, but this time wanted to do it on my own, from scratch. So, I challenged myself with a weekend project/deadline: "Develop and publish my own map" by utilizing JavaScript Google Maps APIs.What did I do and what was the final outcome? Steps below describe detailed activities before the final map product was deployed - click here to see the map in action!Get familiar with Maps APIsGoogle provides awesome documentation on how to get started (guides, reference material, samples, etc) with Google Maps JavaScript APIs. Get unique API key - used when Google Maps APIs are invokedWhile not required, obtaining your own key is strongly encouraged by Google (can be used for application monitoring, tracking, usage metrics etc.)Creating local test environment so that code can be run and tested quicklyI used TinyWeb lightweight web server that does not require any installation. Apache XAMPP worked great too.Write JavaSript/HTML code to develop a mapHere is some of the API functionality utilized in the map creation:- Drawing markers- Setting up baseline maps and giving user choice to change it- Drawing polylines and editable polygons- Invoking elevation APIs- Calculating route from point A to point B- Use APIs to get driving directions from point A to point B- Geocode addresses and points of interests ....- Setting initial extent (resetting map to its original state)- Showing latitude/longitude coordinates- Adding KML layers, etc.Deploy code- Running code by using Google Drive (I did not need to look for an external host)And roughly, after 250+ lines of code, this is how the final product looked like: Now that I am familiar with Google Maps APIs, I plan to start utilizing Google Maps "Prediction" APIs.Hope it will help me make better commute decision in terms of departure times and routes selection. More to come on this topic.~ ado trakicAdd This: Tags:#gis#apis#googlemaps#javascript