Google I/O – Google Visualization API

Posted by Martin

Overview: Google Visualization API works with JSON as an input source and produce interactive HTML5 / SVG chart. Currently 12 type of visualizations are available using a different packages. If not specified the API select the best color and scale to display the data.

Nice feature: As it already works in Google Fusion Table, the map package automatically detects country, states and other location name and display them properly on the map.  User still have the option to defined long / lat coordinate for specific points.

Read the API documentation.

Canadian Province Boundary files in google fusion table

Posted by Martin

I’ve been working on a project where I wanted to map some data based on the Canadian province boundary. After some research I found the Boundary files from Statistics Canada that provide cartographic and digital maps in three formats:

  • ArcInfo ® (.shp)
  • Geography Markup Language (.gml) 
  • MapInfo ® (.tab)
and google refine does not support any of those format :(
So I found and tested two file map converter exists:

Have fun!