Simon Willison’s Weblog

HeatMapAPI (via) Cool (or should that be hot?) API for adding heat maps to any Google Maps application. 19th July 2008, 11:46 pm

OSM routing, A*, cycle-filtered, python (via) A python library for finding routes using OpenStreetMap data. 5th July 2008, 3:13 pm

Berlin Zoo on OpenStreetMap. Someone has added all of the animal enclosures in Berlin Zoo (with German animal names) to OpenStreetMap. 5th July 2008, 3:07 pm

Dopplr place googlemaps, with and without Yahoo Geo API bounding box adjustment. Dopplr uses Geonames for most geo information, but is now mixing in bounding box data from the Yahoo! Geo web service to improve the default zoom level for their maps. The JSON callback API means no server-side code is required on Dopplr’s end. 17th May 2008, 11:35 pm

OSM Super-Strength Export. Awesome new feature on OpenStreetMap: you can browse to anywhere on the map, then hit “export” and download a rendered bitmap or vector (PDF and SVG) image of the currently displayed map—and because it’s OSM there’s no watermark and a very liberal usage license. 22nd April 2008, 9:56 am

KML: A new standard for sharing maps. Google’s KML format, which is already supported by both Microsoft and Yahoo!’s map software, has been accepted under the wing of the Open Geospatial Consortium and is now an international standard. 14th April 2008, 6:36 pm

London Connections. Marvellously obsessive blog about the vagaries of London transport, including some really nice custom created maps. I love detailed maps of tube stations; anyone know a good place to find them? 2nd April 2008, 8:53 pm

About our maps. Why and how EveryBlock rolled their own maps. 5th March 2008, 1:05 am

Google Maps Without the Scripting. Google Maps has finally added a simple API for retrieving static map images. 4th March 2008, 11:54 pm

Information Freeway (via) Really lovely interface to Open Street Map, sadly suffering from a horribly vague name and almost no publicity at all. 14th October 2007, 11:58 pm

Poly9 FreeEarth (via) Seriously sexy embedable 3D Flash globe, with a JavaScript API. 10th May 2007, 9:17 pm

Multimap API: Decluttering Markers (via) V1.2 of the Multimap API is out, and the nicest new feature is automatic decluttering of close-together markers. 14th February 2007, 11:30 am

Introduction to Neogeography (via) Having run in to Andrew Turner at last year’s EuroOSCON, this is the first O’Reilly Short Cuts PDF that I’ve been seriously tempted to buy. 27th January 2007, 12:09 am

Mapping the postal network. Image of a GPS trace for a unit that was left on and sent in the post. 20th December 2006, 12:43 am