How to Make a Campus Map

Loughborough University's campus map is a great example of how to use the Google Maps API to help students and visitors find their way around a large campus.

The map uses the custom overlays function to overlay a custom map of the university on top of the Google Map. The custom map overlay includes features and locations that are not on Google Map's own map tiles, such as trees, tennis courts, football pitches etc.

The map also makes good use of polygons to make buildings on the map interactive. If you click on any of the buildings you can view the building's name, a photo of the building and links to its page on the university's website.

Finally, the map includes a very nice search facility that allows you to search for a building or feature by name or by category.

Loughborough University Campus Map

Hat-tip: Michael Lee

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Brown University on Google Maps

Brown University are using Google Maps to help students and visitors find buildings, parking lots and other facilities on their campus.

The Google Map uses a map overlay of the campus, which shows the names of the college buildings and is color-coded for ease of use. If you click on a building you can view a thumbnail photo and click on links to a video, a floor-plan of the building and its web page.

The Brown University Campus Map was developed by Fortune Ganesh.

Brown University - Campus Map

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Google Maps on Campus

University of Southampton Campus Map

Postgraduate student Colin Williams has created a campus map for Southampton University in the the UK using Google Maps and the University's Open Data Service.

The map shows all the University's campus buildings, live bus times for nearby stops and a number of categories of points of information. The detail for each category of marker is very impressive. For example, the retail category not only displays the locations of all shops on campus but also the locations of all vending machines. It even tells you what each vending machine sells.

The source-code for the map and the map marker set have been made available by Colin under a creative commons licence.

Via: OUseful.info

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Campus Travel on Google Maps

Campus Alternative Transportation Map

Wayne State University has produced a Google Map to show all the alternative methods of transportation on the unviersity's campus.

The map displays all the bus routes, campus shuttles, bike racks, parking lots, trains, walking routes and campus retail locations. The bus routes show all the bus stops with links to the schedules. The retail outlets include the locations of banks, restaurants, pharmacies, snack shops, bookstores, hair salons and the copy/shipping center.

The entire project was completed by and is maintained by students with some help from the Marketing and Communications department in the branding and functionality of the map.

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Pomona College on Google Maps

Pomona College Tour

This nicely designed campus map of Pomona College in Los Angeles shows the location of campus buidlings, halls of residence and campus services.

The map includes photographs of some of the buildings and even includes historical information about some of the more interesting buildings on campus. Those venues on the university that have Gowalla and foursquare entries even contain links to read users' tips.

The map markers are color-coded and the categories of marker can be selected from the menu at the top of the map.

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Spanish Google Maps Mashups Roundup

Accessia

Accessia is a Google Maps based application that allows users to view and get directions to university campus buildings and events. The University of Murcia in Spain is the first campus to use the application but more Spanish universities are coming soon.

The map includes a customised and fully detailed campus street map overlay on top of the base Google Maps tiles. Users of the map can get directions to anywhere in the campus. The map includes options to view Street View, webcams and pictures.

The map includes the option to find any campus buildings. From the side panel you can get directions, locate any building on the campus or find details about the locations of upcoming events to be held at the campus.

Minube

Minube is a nicely designed Spanish language social travel community that enables users to plan trips and share their travel experiences.

Minube allows you to browse the recommendations of other travellers and benefit from their experience. You can then plan your own personalised guide for your journey. including the places you want to see, the restaurants where you eat and the places you want to stay. The site even lets you compare flight and hotel prices.

Minube uses Google Maps throughout the site to show the locations of recommended locations.

SendaCLM

SendaCLM is a route sharing site for the region of Castilla La Mancha in Spain.

Users of the site can use Google Maps to create or find hiking or cycling routes. Users can include photographs and videos in their created routes. Users can add comments to routes created by others.

The site has plans to add kml and GPS downloading of routes in the future.

Barcelona Research and Innovation Map
The Barcelona Research and Innovation Map is a Google Map of all research institutions, research centres, technological centres, scientific-technical facilities, research and technology parks in Barcelona and its metropolitan area.

The map allows you to search its database by type of institution, by geographic area or by tags. All results are shown on the map and also listed by name. If you know of a research location that is missing you can add it to the map.

Locamio
Locamio is a free real estate listings site for Spain integrated with Google Maps. You can search for properties on the map by location and type of property.

The site includes Street Views of properties. Locamio also has its own Google Earth Layer and its listings are published in Google Base.


Read this post in Spanish

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Texas A&M University on Google Maps

Texas A&M University Campus Map

The Interactive Aggie Campus Map is one of the best University campus maps that I've seen that uses the Google Maps API.

The map uses shaded polygons to display the locations of individual buildings on the campus. Clicking on any of the shaded buildings will open an information window with information and a link to the building. The map is fully searchable and has options to display car parks, individual points of interest and restrooms.

The map also includes the option to view 360 degree panoramas of many of the buildings and a number of map tools. For example, there is a handy measurement tool that allows you to measure the distance between individual buildings. You can also view local bus routes on the map.

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Getting Around MIT With Google Maps

MIT Campus Map

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has produced a nice Google Maps mashup of the university's campus. It provides visitors with an easy-to-use way to locate an MIT building, room, or location.

The map uses an overlay to show the campus buildings, parking lots, green areas, and named features. The map comes with a search feature that will generate markers on all matches. Clicking on a building on the map will also open an information window with more details and a feature to link directly to this view.

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Google Map of Towson University

Towson University Campus Map

The Geospatial Research and Education Lab of Towson University, Maryland has created a Google Map of the Towson campus for the university website.

The map uses shaded polygons to show the location of university buildings on the map. Clicking on any of the buildings will open an information window containing the name and a picture of the building and a link to the department's webpage. The window also contains a link to get directions to the location.

It is possible to select the buildings that you want to view on the map by category, e.g. academic or residence. It is also possible to select to view parking lots by 'permit parking', 'accessible parking' and 'visitor parking'.

All the buildings on campus and all the parking lots can be selected from drop-down menus above the map.

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The USC on Google Maps

USC Maps

The University of Southern California has created a map of its campus using the Google Maps API. The map uses an image overlay to present an isometric view of the campus buildings.

It is possible to search for buildings and locations on the campus in the map sidebar. The buildings are organised into categories of Dining, Galleries / Auditoria, Patient Care, Libraries, Residential, Athletics, Parks and Plazas.

Each building on the campus also comes with its own information window, that explains a little about the building and its history. The information window also contains a link to the building web page on the University's web site.

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Campus Crime Google Map

EMU/Ypsi Crime Map

The Eastern Michigan University and the City of Ypsilanti have worked together to create a Google Map mashup that geotags crime in the area over the previous 60 days. Crimes shown on the map are categorised into arson, aggravated assault, burglary, criminal sexual conduct, motor vehicle theft, murder, robbery, and larceny from a vehicle.

The university's crimes are almost real-time, whilst crimes committed in Ypsilanti take a little longer to appear on the map. From the map sidebar it is possible to select which category of crime you wish to view, whether you want to view just crimes in the university or crimes in the city and the date range that you wish to view.

Via: Campus Technology

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