Caught this while trolling MXNA from injun #576871. Basically, they utilize Flash for what it does best and show additional graphics, mainly runtime, vector drawn plots/lines/graphics over top of Google Maps. The example includes a New York City Subway example. When compared to it’s boring forebear, you can see why someone would want to utilize this technology.
I downloaded the beta code (assuming beta b/c of the b) they have available, and was very impressed. Nicely commented JavaDoc style, and even includes a build of the JavaScript Kit, which is used to allow JavaScript and Flash to speak to eachother easily. A little light on a glorified API wrapper, though.
I will say this. This is a glaring example of what paying attention to women and beer vs. Trig in high school will do in the long run… either that, or I am just not a map geek. There is some SERIOUS math stuff going in there, mainly in the Flash side, which is really nice. I’ve used a lot of that abstracted stuff in the past, and man does it help. You know the result you want, and the code helps you get there without having to worry about how it really works.
All I’d ask for is further abstraction in terms of methods via a wrapper class. While x, y, latitude, and longitude getter/setters are great, so to are “moveMapToHere”, and events for “map latitude and longitude changed”. Overall, great effort, and nice to see how Flash can compliment an existing technology by what it does best.
Nat’s got some additional coverage over at O’Reilly Radar, although his title is backwards.