How do I use my own maps instead of google maps?

Question

Hello!

Is it possible to use my own map instead of google maps for my app. How can I do that...Where should I look?

Answer 1

You may want to check out MapTiler, an open source map tiling tool for Google Maps (and other mapping systems) which runs on Windows and Mac OS X.

MapTiler will automate the tiling process for you through a simple GUI wizard, and in addition, once the tiling process is finished, it will also generate a simple HTML viewer where you can see the results immediately.

Custom Map Tile Overlays are quite an advanced topic in the Google Maps API (even the documentation will warn you in red about this). However, I am sure you will be able to use and understand the HTML viewer of MapTiler.

Answer 2

I think you need Open Street Maps (OSM). I have a little GPS app (Maverick Pro) on my Droid, and it can use 3 types of maps: google, bing, and "OSM". The latter seems to be what you need: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Main_Page

Answer 3

You would need a few things:

1. A source for data about your geography, in the US see the TIGER Line data published by the Census Bureau.

2. Software to render the geo data into maps that are visually meaningful, for example Mapnik. Use something like OpenLayers to generate the movability and nice user features people expect.

3. Software to deliver the rendered maps efficiently to your users, ie TileCache.

There is a nice summary of this FOSS approach here: http://m.alistapart.com/articles/takecontrolofyourmaps

Answer 4

PostGIS, Geoserver, GeoWebCache, OpenLayers, + GeoEXT gets you all the software you need. Data is up to you and some of the examples above are good ideas.