Area Maps

Mapping services such as MapQuest are great for navigating city streets by car, but when you get down to a certain level of detail, you may want to be able to produce a customised map that shows the detailed features of the area. For example, a university campus could show a map that includes building names and local amenities, while a shopping area would display the names of stores. The Area Map service allows you to produce detailed maps for a specific area.

Maps are optimised to fit on a Pocket PC screen, and can be navigated by clicking on the image. Here is an example map showing the UWO campus. (Interact with it here.)



It's quite simple to create a map. Simply upload an image, and then click the points of interest one at a time. (Note: this site does not host maps at this time due to space limitations, but the source code will be made available soon.)

Note that this service took only about an hour to first implement. This shows just how easy it is to create a useful service on top of the Herecast infrastructure.

It would be equally easy to create detailed maps of individual buildings (rather than an entire area.) A future enhancement would be an integrated map service that could be zoomed to different levels of detail.