Author: Lee Belbin, August 2019
We tap two different services from Google:
- Three of the basemaps that we designate as “Streets”, “Satellite” and a “Hybrid” of Streets and Satellite. These basemaps can be accessed in the Spatial Portal by clicking on “Map options” in the layers table (top-left) and selecting a basemap. By default, the Spatial Portal uses “OpenStreetMaps”.
- An address lookup service that can be used to define an area (using a radius in kilometres) around any location known to Google.
It is the latter that we include in the list of sources of ‘location’ within the spatial Portal. If it is known to Google, it can be mapped as an area. Examples include:
- A street address such as “39 Pangee Street Nyngan”
- A public agency such as “Queensland Museum” (see Figure 4: I have used a 10km radius)
- A private company such as “Giant Steps” near Healesville, Victoria (great Pinot Noir!)
- …and probably a lot more I have yet to discover.
Figure 4. Mapping a circle around a spatial feature from Google