Viewing Data Points in Google Maps & Streetview

Hello All,

Well, its finally time for me to focus fully on my company, All About GIS, LLC! As a Geospatial and Business Intelligence service provider, All About GIS offers GIS and Alteryx professional services and training to the Retail and Telecommunication industries. Nuff said - please wish me well on my new endeavor!

Now for the main topic of this post. Have you ever wished you could view your Alteryx data points in a dynamic Google Map instead of the static images currently provided by the Map Tool? Then check out my Google Streetview and Map Viewer (GSMV) macro! If you have a spatial data point file, run the data through the GSMV Macro to output a local .html file, similar to the one at right.

There is only one question you need to answer in the macro, and that is where you wish the html output file to be placed. A select list is created of your data points to the left of the map. Choose a  location from the list to place a corresponding numbered map icon on the map. You'll need Internet access to zoom in and out, pan, and toggle between the standard Map and Satellite Google Map backgrounds.

Dragging the Google Pegman onto the map fills the map window with a Streetview panorama of the current location. Once you are finished navigating the surrounding streets, you can close the panorama window which returns you back to the map window. In order for the macro to run you are  required to supply the Address, City, State, Latitude, Longitude and Centroid of each location in your input.

You are limited to the number displayed on one page to 100 locations, which is the maximum number of points to efficiently view on one page.

I've documented how I created the macro (see above, pardon the artistic liberties I've taken) predominantly using the htmlpassthrough tag while using the Text Tool's Expert Mode. You can reference previous posts by me (Generating Interactive Web Pages Using Html, i.e. The Cuppa Joe Finder module) and on the UK Alteryxuser blog by Adam Riley (Street View Macro). The main difference between these Alteryx applications and this one is that multiple markers can be placed on the Google map that represent your locations of interest. Here are a few suggestions as to what you might use this macro for:

• verify geocoded points
• check out what, or who, is nearest to your locations
• view the visibility your location has, or will have from the street.

I'm hoping to post this macro on the Alteryx Module Exchange, yet if you wish to get it sooner, send me an e-mail titled "GSMV" and I'll reply with the macro. Note: This has only been tested with Internet Explorer 8.0 and higher.

Till next time, enjoy!

Ron

http://allaboutgis.net/