googlestaticmap gem

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.

You must have an API key from Google for personal use, or if you have a business account, a client ID and private key from Google. If you do not have a key, you can obtain one from https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key

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(:api_key => "your API key", :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(:api_key => "your API key", :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.api_key = "your API key"
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(:api_key => "your API key", :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 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"

There are many other properties on the map that you can set. See https://github.com/brentsowers1/googlestaticmap/blob/master/lib/googlestaticmap.rb for all parameters.

This has been tested and is working with Ruby 1.9.3, 2.0.0, 2.1.1, 2.1.10, 2.2.6, 2.3.7, 2.4.4, 2.5.1, and the latest JRuby.

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.