Maps in China
Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 8:52 pm
I'm not sure where to request this, so thought I'd start here. I'm the Membership Clerk in the Beijing 1st Branch - working to get our records updated so we can use the mapping tools on maps.lds.org (a great resource by-the-way -- GREAT JOB!).
Unfortunately, the current mapping in China both with Bing and with Google have an offset issue between the street view and the satellite view. This is a known issue that will likely not be corrected anytime soon by either Bing or Google. There is a workable solution though, at least with Google maps.
Google provides a local mapping service in china with the exact same interface as maps.google.com, but done in Chinese and w/out the offset issue. This service is found at http://ditu.google.com/ (ditu is the pinyin for "map" in Mandarin). I'd like to request that the map team add the http://ditu.google.com/ map interface as an optional view in the mapping tool, at least when members in a China branch are logged in.
I'm certain this isn't at the top of any priority list due to the small number of members that is affected by this - but if someone could look in and just see how hard it is, as I'm thinking it may be as easy as adding http://ditu.google.com/ on the backend in replace of http://maps.google.com/ as the api's are identical.
I'd be interested in helping out on development as well if needed / allowed / desired.
Thanks,
-Todd
Unfortunately, the current mapping in China both with Bing and with Google have an offset issue between the street view and the satellite view. This is a known issue that will likely not be corrected anytime soon by either Bing or Google. There is a workable solution though, at least with Google maps.
Google provides a local mapping service in china with the exact same interface as maps.google.com, but done in Chinese and w/out the offset issue. This service is found at http://ditu.google.com/ (ditu is the pinyin for "map" in Mandarin). I'd like to request that the map team add the http://ditu.google.com/ map interface as an optional view in the mapping tool, at least when members in a China branch are logged in.
I'm certain this isn't at the top of any priority list due to the small number of members that is affected by this - but if someone could look in and just see how hard it is, as I'm thinking it may be as easy as adding http://ditu.google.com/ on the backend in replace of http://maps.google.com/ as the api's are identical.
I'd be interested in helping out on development as well if needed / allowed / desired.
Thanks,
-Todd