Group Project - RV Google Map Overlay

prkaye · #1 03-04-2011, 08:20 AM

As I was walking into work this morning I had an idea. It would require a group effort though, as it would require entering thousands of data points.
There are now thousands of RV's in various places all around the world. Google Maps supports a feature that allows one to create "overlays" (http://maps.google.com/support/bin/a...&answer=155420). I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we had an overlay showing the location of every RV in the world? You could click on an RV-point on the map and it would bring up information about the aircraft, who it's registered to, etc. Lots of questions to sort out - would it be restricted to completed RVs? Many of the datapoints would be located together at airports, how would these best be presented? How would we coordinate population of such an overlay? Could separate overlays for various regions be somehow merged to create a master RV Overlay?
It could be a neat way to map-out the whole community in a visual way, and also be a useful tool for quickly identifying what other RVs you might find when traveling.
Thoughts?

Mike S · #2 03-04-2011, 09:30 AM

This has been done a time or two in the past, always seems to die off.

I have no idea if the old maps are still in existence, and just forgotten, or if they died from lack of use.

JordanGrant · #3 03-05-2011, 08:31 AM

With the flying RVs, all the data is already in the FAA's database. Probably wouldn't be that hard to extract it and turn it into something the Google API can use.

Actually, most of the data for the ongoing RV projects already exist in Doug's databases on VAF. Between the VAF registration data and the RV White Pages, you have enough to at least plot points to the city level (if not actual addresses). Just have to see what Doug is comfortable giving up, I suppose (privacy issues notwithstanding).