Sunday, May 3, 2009

Show your data on Google map using C# and JavaScript

Almost every one of us who use internet has seen the Google map, Google earth and Google street view etc. Good thing is that Google also share its products in a manner that you can customize them according to your needs. In this article I am going to share a simple technique to show your data on Google map.

Background

Previously I wrote an article on how to count the visits and visitors on your website and save the data in a table including the IPs of the visitors. Then one day I visited a site that was offering to show the similar data on Google map. I started to discover how I can do that if I have a database of IPs. I found that Google share some Maps APIs that offer lot of functionalities including placing a marker on the map if you can provide its coordinate, means the Latitude and longitude of that point on the earth.

Now the only problem was that I had to translate the IP into its corresponding coordinates. I searched again and found some web services on net that can return the coordinate of an IP. That’s all I needed to know to achieve the Goal and now it was just a matter of implementation.

How to do that .. Using the Code

Assuming that you have a table in a database that has two columns for earth coordinates you want to plot on Google map as shown below.

If you have a table that has IPs like in my previous article, you can add two new columns in that table, and then use some web services to update the table for coordinates manually or you can write a small program to call such a web service to update your database automatically. Or may be you want to show your shipments destinations on the map, or you might be interested in showing the location of showrooms of your products around the world and you have a similar data for that. Possibilities are endless.

Now how to plot this data on Google map? Google provides some API methods that you can call in JavaScript from your website and supply the coordinates to place a marker on the map. First you need to add APIs reference in your HTML in header tag as;

<-script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&sensor=false&key=abcdefg" type="text/JavaScript"><-/script>

Note: You need to obtain a unique key for your site from Google before publishing your site. For test purpose on localhost you can use the above code as it’s. Also I am placing a ‘-‘ in every HTLM tag to display on this page, please remove that before running the coed.

Second; you have to place a div element in the page where you want to show the Google map, set its size etc according to your layout needs.

<-div id="map_canvas" style="width: 100%; height: 728px; margin-bottom: 2px;">

Third, you can create a Google map object by passing it div element where you want to show the map.

var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById('map_canvas'));

Also you need to tell what location on the map should be in the center of map, first you get the point from Longitude and Latitude values. For example if you want to see London in the center of the map you can use method as

GLatLng(51.5,-0.1167)

Now you can pass this point to setCenter method with zoom level of your map ranges from 1-20, I am using level 2 to see whole world in my map, increasing this number will zoom the map to your center location.

map.setCenter(new GLatLng(51.5,-0.1167), 2);

Then you can specify a location on the map for Google to place a marker at that location by calling addOverlay method with GMarker object as argument that takes the actual coordinates of the location. For example to place a marker on Toronto, you can call write the following line in script.

map.addOverlay(new GMarker(new GLatLng(43.6667,-79.4168)));

You can specify as many markers as you want. Now you are ready to see the map. Put them all together in a JavaScript function and call it onload event of the page. The complete script will be something like;

<-script type='text/JavaScript'>

function initialize() {

if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) {

var map = new Map2(document.getElementById('map_canvas'));

map.setCenter(new GLatLng(51.5,-0.1167), 2);

map.addOverlay(new Marker(new GLatLng(43.6667,-79.4168)));

map.setUIToDefault();

} }

But wait a minute.. Java script! Isn’t it client side programming? .. Then how can you pass the data to Google API from a database on your server? Right, this is the problem that you have to deal with. You need to use a combination of JavaScript and any server side scripting e.g. ASP.NET C#, VB, PHP or CGI whichever suites your environment. I used C# and JavaScript to complete this.

You have to generate the JavaScript on the server for Google APIs and render it on the client by using an “asp:Literal” control . You also need to place a Div control on the page in which Google APIs can render a customized map in the browser and add reference to Google APIs script. So you only need two controls on your page a Literal and a Div. The complete HTML is shown below including Google API references for MAP.

<-html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<-head id="Head1" runat="server">

<-title>Your Data on Google Map

<-%--Google API reference--%>

<-script src="http://maps.google.com/maps? file=api&v=2&sensor=false&key=abcdefg" type="text/JavaScript">

<-/script>

<-/head>

<-body onload="initialize()" onunload="GUnload()">

<-form id="form1" runat="server">

<-asp:Panel ID="Panel1" runat="server">

<-%--Place holder to fill with JavaScript by server side code--%>

<-asp:Literal ID="js" runat="server">

<-%--Place for Google to show your MAP--%>

<-div id="map_canvas" style="width: 100%; height: 728px; margin-bottom: 2px;">

<-/div>

<-/asp:Panel>

<-/form>

<-/body>

<-/html>

Now how to create the script on server that can show all of your markers on map? Here is a method to do that, you need to pass it the table discussed above that has Longitude and Latitude values in two columns, for the points you want to mark on MAP and this method will generate the complete script with all map markers in the Literal control on the page.

private void BuildScript(DataTable tbl)

{

String Locations = "";

foreach (DataRow r in tbl.Rows)

{

// bypass empty rows

if (r["Latitude"].ToString().Trim().Length == 0)

continue;

string Latitude = r["Latitude"].ToString();

string Longitude = r["Longitude"].ToString();

// create a line of JavaScript for marker on map for this record

Locations += Environment.NewLine + " map.addOverlay(new GMarker(new GLatLng(" + Latitude + "," + Longitude + ")));";

}

// construct the final script

js.Text = @"<-script type='text/JavaScript'>

function initialize() {

if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) {

var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById('map_canvas'));

map.setCenter(new GLatLng(51.5,-0.1167), 2);

" + Locations + @"

map.setUIToDefault();

}

}

<-/script> ";

}

One you call this method in the .cs file of your ASP form, it will create a complete JavaScript for Google to create a map and marker on your page.

Click here to see a live demo of this article. That site shows a marker on map for each location from where any of my sites has been visited. If you have visited any of my sites you should see a marker on your city on the map. Here is a snap of that demo site.








I have created a sample project for this article that you can download by clicking here. It also has a sample access database in it. You can simply run this project in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 without changing anything.

You can visit Google page about Maps APIs for more details about using and customizing Google Maps.

18 comments:

  1. Google maps take part in all the applications today.Recently as site founding map.Google Maps shows the exact location by satellite view,street view etc.Recently i want to know the Ip-Address details on the site www.ip-details.com.There i found google maps for viewing the IP-ADDRESS server situated location.

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  2. Thanks VENKAT for sharing the information.

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  3. Thanks for the articles, this was usefull to me

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  4. Jzak Allah i was trying to find something like it. It is really a very good composed effort to help other

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  5. Aslam u alaikum!!

    I am trying to use this code but this not in running form..I have used Visual 2008 and error was that this project is not valid..
    And now i am using visual 2010 and project is updated but project is not available..
    Kindly help..

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  6. Thank you. This was helpful for me :)

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  7. how to write a web service to translate ip addresses to coordinates?

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  8. I have to do assignment... how far man can travel given time from given address.It is stand alone application using c#.It is same like this http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm

    please help me..isanka88@gmail.com

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  9. Hello, first of all let me appreciate your hard work. I would like to have the same thing but in sql server database. Can you help me

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  10. Great work.., nice article..., thanks mate..., you save my day!!! ;)

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  11. Hi? How to create google map in C# ?

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. assalamu alaikum.,it's my first time in visual studio and i've downloaded your google map sample project. But I don't know how to run it in visual studio for me to see the output. Please help. Thank you.

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  14. assalamu alaikum.,it's my first time in visual studio and i've downloaded your google map sample project. But I don't know how to run it in visual studio for me to see the output. Please help. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  15. assalamu alaikum, I have tested ur code on Visual Studio 2010.The Code runs successfully and the browers shows the Initial code, but atonce the page becomes blank. any suggestions please.

    ReplyDelete