My Google Map Blog

We mentioned last week that Google Maps Engine is being shut down and as a result three Google Earth Pro only layers that depended on Google Maps Engine have been dropped. They were still visible over the weekend, but as of Monday 1st February 2016, they are no longer showing in Google Earth Pro. Google Maps Engine appears to have been shut down today, 2nd February 2016.

Another Google mapping related product is the mobile app My Tracks. According to its support page it will not be available after April 30, 2016. We at first thought that My Tracks might have been dependant on Google Maps Engine, but have not been able to find any evidence of this.

Google Maps Engine does have a lot of user created maps. One of the first things Google did after announcing its deprecation a year ago was to remove those maps from the Google Maps Gallery, which had a noticeable effect on the quantity of interesting maps available. However, new maps based on the newer My Maps are being created all the time so be sure to check out the gallery if you have not done so recently.

Another effect of the deprecation of Google Maps Engine is that Google stopped releasing imagery update maps via that platform. The last such map to be released was the May 2015 update. Since then, they have used the Voyager layers to provide imagery update maps, but much less frequently with only two so far being released.

The post Google Maps Engine and My Tracks coming to an end appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Released in February 2014 the Google Maps Gallery is a good way to find interesting maps that are based on Google’s mapping products. The Gallery used to include maps from several Google products, including Google Maps Engine(GME) and Google My Maps.

In January of this year, Google Maps Engine was deprecated by Google and it will be turned off on January 29th, 2016. As part of this deprecation, Google initially stopped allowing GME users to publish their maps to the Google Maps Gallery, and in the last week have removed all GME maps from the Gallery.

In addition, Google has recently retired one of its older authentication API’s known as OAuth 1.0 which was deprecated in April 2012 in preference for OAuth 2.0.

There is a special type of KML network link that causes Google Earth to load the linked data as a layer in ‘Layers’ instead of the usual ‘Places’. Maps loaded this way cannot be copied/edited or rather annoyingly even bookmarked. This allows map publishers to let users view their maps but not easily copy them. We believe that Google Earth used OAuth 1.0 for this type of network link.

Because of the retirement of OAuth 1.0, a couple of weeks ago Google pushed out Google Earth version 7.1.5, which includes the new OAuth 2.0. Google then sent out an email to GME users stating that users wishing to view their GME maps in Google Earth will need to upgrade to version 7.1.5. As of this writing however, we are still able to open some public GME maps in older versions of Google Earth.

Last year we showed you two different ways to open maps from the Google Maps Gallery in Google Earth. At the time, clicking the “View in Google Earth” button always loaded the map via Google’s special network link that loaded the maps in ‘Layers’. However, that has now been changed so that they load as ordinary KML’s in ‘Places’.

So, what do the above changes mean to you? We do recommend upgrading to the latest version of Google Earth – find download links at the end of this post. If you have public GME maps, they are no-longer easy to find on the Gallery so, consider porting them to My Maps or finding other ways to publicise them. Google’s own ‘Imagery Updates’ maps are no-longer easy to find and even if you know where to find them it is not obvious how to view them in Google Earth. For example this map has no obvious “View in Google Earth” or “download as KML” options. However, it is possible to view it using this KML file and by looking at the format of that URL, you can view other GME maps in the same way.

Google Maps Galley, a great way to find interesting maps.

It is possible to view the Google Maps Gallery using Google Earth’s internal browser by using the “Earth Gallery” button found at the right of the “Layers” header. However, Google Earth has a tendency of crashing when viewing the Gallery this way due to its internal browser being somewhat outdated. We recommend either going directly to the Maps Gallery website in your browser or configuring Google Earth to open web pages in an external browser. To do this go to Tools->Options->General and tick “Show web results in external browser”.

The post Google Maps Gallery drops Google Maps Engine appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Last week Google sent an email to users of Google Maps Engine notifying them that support for the Google Maps Engine product will end on January 29th, 2016 at which point the product will be deactivated.

The email states:

As an organization, we want to focus our efforts on delivering rich location content via our APIs, and enabling customers to take advantage of the capabilities provided by our Google Cloud Platform products.”

The move should be seen as Google transitioning customers to already existing alternative products, especially Google My Maps (formerly Maps Engine Lite) which has come of age and now has most of the important features of Google Maps Engine. Google goes on to suggest alternatives:

Google has scoped some alternative solutions for some common GME use cases. Please find the following resources on solutions for some particular use cases below (additional options will be added as they are scoped):

• Create a map using Google My Maps
• Building spatial applications with Google Cloud SQL and Google Maps API
• Serving raster layers on Google Cloud Platform
• Building a store locator with the Google Maps API and Cloud SQL”

Here at GEB we have not used Google Maps Engine extensively and would love to hear from our readers which features are not yet available in alternative products that will be missed.

The post Google Maps Engine deprecated appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Back in 2007 Google first introduced My Maps which allowed anyone to create and share their own maps directly in the Google Maps interface. Since then Google Maps has received a significant upgrade which went live for all users in February this year. The older version, now referred to as ‘classic Google Maps’, still exists and if necessary you can switch back to it by clicking on the question mark in the lower right hand corner of the new Maps, and selecting ‘Return to classic Google Maps’.

Separately, Google created Google Maps Engine, formerly known as Google Earth Builder, which was initially targeted at enterprise customers and later extended for use by nonprofits and researchers in the Google Earth Outreach program. In March last year, Google introduced Maps Engine Lite, a free version of Maps Engine. In October last year, it introduced Maps Engine Pro, a paid for version targeted at small businesses. These last two products were recently renamed My Maps Pro, and My Maps.

Maps Gallery is the place to find maps that users have created and shared publicly.

People who had created custom maps were, until recently, mostly still using the classic My Maps. However, Google is encouraging users to switch over to the new My Maps, and in the near future will transition everyone automatically.

One such user is George Stiller, the creator of MyReadingMapped, an excellent site with a lot of Maps content that we have featured no less than 17 times in the past. For a list of those articles, click here. George decided last week to take the plunge and switch over to the new maps before being automatically upgraded. He has blogged about his experience and I highly recommend that anyone who is facing the upgrade read through his blog posts so that you know what to expect.

The post Moving to the new My Maps appeared first on Google Earth Blog.