8Motions blog

Part of the server used to host J2memap dev tools and 8motions are migrating today. If you still encounter some issues let me know.

MGMaps, another provider of free mobile mapping software has been forced to remove the GoogleMap support of his software.

Sad news. For j2memap, I’ve been trying to contact GoogleMap and the Microsft several times, to get an agreement with them to use more “legally” their map. Only Microsoft answered, but the offering was at that point (beginning of this year) not really mature. Google never answered despite several letter to different people….

Note that if you use the “proxy mode”, the Google statellite tiles might not appear because their proxy is blocking a single platform (mine) to do too many request per day (too many does not seems to be very big, something like 1000 requests)….

Technorati Tags: mgmaps, google maps, mobile, maps

Just a short reminder, about what is supported as type of file for j2memap (both the library and the program):

- .loc

Used by geocaching application

- .gpx

Used by many gps related program. A subset of GPX1.1 is available, mainly include support for waypoint, trackpoint, track, ….

- .kml

Google Earth format (and used by many mapping application).

viewformat
viewrefreshmode
name
styleurl
style
iconstyle
color
coordinates

and a few others

- geoRSS

The following geoRSS tag are supported:
geo:lat
geo:long
georss:point
georss:line

(note that pubdate ,title and description are displayed)

- Others XML variant

As I’ve made a lot of interconnection with various XML providers, there are much more tags supported, a few of them:
address  : the address of the point
tel         : telphone number (usefull, as you have the ability to call this number directly)
photoUrl

So it’s already an impressive list, that can help you to create or use some cool mashup.

Also, as a new features, if the description contains an img reference, this description is displayed as an icon,like this:

And remember, as you have the ability to load KML created by Google MyMaps, you just can load them directly, like this one:

Another example, with different markers:

Technorati Tags: j2memap, 8motions, kml, mobile, gmap, gmap mobile, gpx, mymaps, where

Or at least, that’s what I read in my logs! . Expected price: 869€!

Technorati Tags: 8600, Nokia, Luna

A new version of the library has been deployed. As usual, go to http://j2memap.8motions.com and register to download it!

This correct some small bugs, and include the latest version of the Google Map API numbers….

As you have probably noticed, J2memap as a project is moving to a company. And the great news of the week is that the project of this company was one of the winner of the “OSEO“(in French, sorry!) contest, organised by the French research agency: it was one of the 158 selected file out of 1153 proposed, and one of the twenty selected in the emerging software category.

So last Wenesday was the official ceremony, at “La Sorbonne”, with the french minister of education and research, Valerie Pecresse.

This mean also some funding for the project, and a great recognition as an innovative product. So expect to see more in the future.

This does not mean that J2memap will stop, or will be a commercial product: it will remains a free product for non commercial use….

In the latest release of J2memap library, a new interface has been defined: MapCustomOverlay

If you create a class that implements MapCustomOverlay, you will have the ability to dsiplay new layers on top of an existing map.

The implementation is easy, there are two methods:

   String getTileURL(int x,int y,int z,int sizeSq,boolean isSat);

and

    public boolean isTransparent();

  The last one just have to return true if transparent, or false otherwhise. The getTitleUrl must return to URL of a tile to be loaded at the corresponding x,y positions. sizeSq is the size of a square, usually 256, while isSat is true if the user is currently displaying a satellite image.

  To convert x “pixels values” into longitude, you can use MapCanvas.LonFromX() and MapCanvas.LatFromY() for y value.
  To display this layer, call the setOverlay(MapCustomOverlay) function (with null parameter to remove it). Just one overlay can be displayed at a time.
  This can be used to easily create WMS overlay, if you know the URL of a WMS server.

  Latest question, is: great, but what happens if I do not want to program and I want to be able to display a custom layer? Well, something good is coming, but if you want to test it, just drop me an email

• Better feedback when a map is not found at a certain level of zoom
• upgrade with new googlemap version….
• Imrpvoed support of KML file (with custom icon support)

A separed post about the KML support later on

Interested by creating cool mobile mashup, or by helping this nice project?

We are looking for some help/ideas in the following areas:
- You have some mashup ideas that you would like to implement?
- You want to participate to the project and you are a server side developper (Ruby On Rails?)
- You have some j2me knowledge
- Or you just want to help us on some various task (like managing forum!)

Just contact me (thomas.landspurg at gmail.com )

Short notice to announce the update of j2memap to V09.19. This contains mainly update for GoogleMap API, and some custom menus for better navigation. Let me know if you have an issue with version.

The library has been also updated, so for people who see “red squares” while using the library, please go to the developper web site and download it.

Technorati Tags: j2memap, googlemap, mobile, mapping

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