Creating a Google maps custom overlay/tiles over several zoom levels.

Question

I want to add a custom overlay (a png) in the middle of the ocean. This is fine for high to medium zoom levels, but at lower zoom levels Google maps doesnt have any imagaery for the tiles.

I want to be able to overlay these data-less tiles with images of the sea, but i am aware that using one huge png is bad practice, so I'd like to be able to create several tiles and piece them together over all zoom levels.

Does anyone have any info on the best way to do this?

Thanks

Answer 1

You may want to look at the Virtual Earth API, which allows you to set up your own tileserver (all the details are in the documentation) -- for example, this approach has been taken for overlaying details of a large development here

Answer 2

Google maps api support opportunity for overlay tiles. Each tile must be 256x256px. When you get your custom tile images you can write functionality for overlaying google tiles. I have a tutorial wich show how to implement this functionality but its in russian. You can try to read this tutorial using google translate functionality. Direct link