Hello
I spend the last evening on this problem, and I finally found the solution to my problem.
It was not so difficult.
The idea is, as Chris B. said, to load the SVG file with GDownloadUrl, parse it with GXml.parse() and add in the DOM tree every SVG elements I need
To simplify, I have supposed that all the SVG elements was put in a big group called "mainGroup". I have also supposed that some elements can be in the file.
So here is the library, based on the Google Maps Custom Overlays:
// create the object
function overlaySVG( svgUrl, bounds)
{
this.svgUrl_ = svgUrl;
this.bounds_ = bounds;
}
// prototype
overlaySVG.prototype = new GOverlay();
// initialize
overlaySVG.prototype.initialize = function( map)
{
//create new div node
var svgDiv = document.createElement("div");
svgDiv.setAttribute( "id", "svgDivison");
//svgDiv.setAttribute( "style", "position:absolute");
svgDiv.style.position = "absolute";
svgDiv.style.top = 0;
svgDiv.style.left = 0;
svgDiv.style.height = 0;
svgDiv.style.width = 0;
map.getPane(G_MAP_MAP_PANE).appendChild(svgDiv);
// create new svg element and set attributes
var svgRoot = document.createElementNS( "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg", "svg");
svgRoot.setAttribute( "id", "svgRoot");
svgRoot.setAttribute( "width", "100%");
svgRoot.setAttribute( "height","100%");
svgDiv.appendChild( svgRoot);
// load the SVG file
GDownloadUrl( this.svgUrl_, function( data, responseCode)
{
var xml = GXml.parse(data);
// specify the svg attributes
svgRoot.setAttribute("viewBox", xml.documentElement.getAttribute("viewBox"));
// append the defs
var def = xml.documentElement.getElementsByTagName("defs");
//for( var int=0; i<def.length; i++)
svgRoot.appendChild(def[0].cloneNode(true));
//append the main group
var nodes = xml.documentElement.getElementsByTagName("g");
for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++)
if (nodes[i].id=="mainGroup")
svgRoot.appendChild(nodes[i].cloneNode(true));
});
// keep interesting datas
this.svgDiv_ = svgDiv;
this.map_ = map;
// set position and zoom
this.redraw(true);
}
// remove from the map pane
overlaySVG.prototype.remove = function()
{
this.div_.parentNode.removeChild( this.div_);
}
// Copy our data to a new overlaySVG...
overlaySVG.prototype.copy = function()
{
return new overlaySVG( this.url_, this.bounds_, this.center_);
}
// Redraw based on the current projection and zoom level...
overlaySVG.prototype.redraw = function( force)
{
// We only need to redraw if the coordinate system has changed
if (!force) return;
// get the position in pixels of the bound
posNE = map.fromLatLngToDivPixel(this.bounds_.getNorthEast());
posSW = map.fromLatLngToDivPixel(this.bounds_.getSouthWest());
// compute the absolute position (in pixels) of the div ...
this.svgDiv_.style.left = Math.min(posNE.x,posSW.x) + "px";
this.svgDiv_.style.top = Math.min(posSW.y,posNE.y) + "px";
// ... and its size
this.svgDiv_.style.width = Math.abs(posSW.x - posNE.x) + "px";
this.svgDiv_.style.height = Math.abs(posSW.y - posNE.y) + "px";
}
And, you can use it with the following code:
if (GBrowserIsCompatible())
{
//load map
map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map"), G_NORMAL_MAP);
// create overlay
var boundaries = new GLatLngBounds( new GLatLng(48.2831, 1.9675), new GLatLng(49.1872, 2.7774));
map.addOverlay( new overlaySVG( "test.svg", boundaries ));
//add control and set map center
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(48.8, 2.4), 12);
}
So, you can use it exactly as you use the GGroundOverlay function, except that your SVG file should be created with the Mercator projection (but if you apply it on small area, like one city or smaller, you will not see the difference).
This should work with Safari, Firefox and Opera. You can try my small example here
Tell me what do you think about it.