This gem is on Rubygems, simply type "gem install googlestaticmap" to install it.
Available on github at http://github.com/brentsowers1/googlestaticmap
Class for generating URLs for and downloading static maps from the Google Maps Static API service. GoogleStaticMap is the main class to use, instantiate it, set the attributes to what you want, and call url on the instance to get the URL to download the map from. You can also call get_map to actually download the map from Google, return the bytes, and optionally write the image to a file.
Get a simple static map centered at Washington, DC, with the default size (500 x 350), zoomed to level 11. image will be the binary data of the map
require 'googlestaticmap'
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:zoom => 11, :center => MapLocation.new(:address => "Washington, DC"))
image = map.get_map
Get the URL of the image described in the previous example, so you can insert this URL as the src of an img element on an HTML page
require 'googlestaticmap'
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:zoom => 11, :center => MapLocation.new(:address => "Washington, DC"))
image_url = map.url(:auto)
When using the url function you can force the final url to use http or https:
image_url = map.url('http')
Get a map with blue markers at the White House and the Supreme Court, zoomed the closest that the map can be with both markers visible, at the default size. image will be the binary data of the map
require 'googlestaticmap'
map = GoogleStaticMap.new
map.markers << MapMarker.new(:color => "blue", :location => MapLocation.new(:address => "1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC"))
map.markers << MapMarker.new(:color => "blue", :location => MapLocation.new(:address => "1 1st Street Northeast, Washington, DC"))
image = map.get_map
Get a GIF satellite map, with a size of 640 x 480, with a semi transparent green box drawn around a set of 4 coordinates, with the box outline solid, centered at the middle of the box, written out to the file map.gif:
require 'googlestaticmap'
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:maptype => "satellite", :format => "gif", :width => 640, :height => 480)
poly = MapPolygon.new(:color => "0x00FF00FF", :fillcolor => "0x00FF0060")
poly.points << MapLocation.new(:latitude => 38.8, :longitude => -77.5)
poly.points << MapLocation.new(:latitude => 38.8, :longitude => -76.9)
poly.points << MapLocation.new(:latitude => 39.2, :longitude => -76.9)
poly.points << MapLocation.new(:latitude => 39.2, :longitude => -77.5)
poly.points << MapLocation.new(:latitude => 38.8, :longitude => -77.5)
map.paths << poly
map.get_map("map.gif")
If you're working behind a proxy, create the map object this way:
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:proxy_address=>'my.proxy.host', :proxy_port=>8080, :width => 640, :height => 480)
If you have a public API key for tracking usage (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/staticmaps/#api_key):
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:api_key => "my_api_key")
If you are a Maps For Businesses customer with a client ID and private key (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/webservices/#client_id) (note that you cannot set an api_key if you want to use client_id and private_key):
map = GoogleStaticMap.new(:client_id => "my_client_id", :private_key => "my_private_key")
You can also specify a channel for better tracking if you are a Maps For Businesses customer (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/clientside/quota#usage_reports):
map.channel = "Tracking channel"
This has been tested and is working with Ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.3, 2.0.0, and 2.1.1, and JRuby 1.7.11.
Brent Sowers (mailto:brent@coordinatecommons.com)
To post comments about this gem, go to my blog posting at http://www.brentsowers.com/2010/08/gem-for-getting-google-static-maps.html. Contributions are also welcome! Fork the repo and issue a pull request, and I'll review it.
googlestaticmap is released under the MIT License. You're free to do whatever you want with this.