Saturday, May 30, 2009

Google maps: Offline without an internet connection

Recently I went on a trip which required me to have interactive maps, but i did not have an internet connection, thats when I stumbled upon GMap Catcher, it is a python based application which allows offline caching AND backing up of the caches. You can even specify the level of zoom upto which the map should be downloaded, and both the road maps and sattelite maps are downloadable. Very useful tool indeed.

http://code.google.com/p/gmapcatcher/

To run the linux version, just extract
cd
python maps.py

Center the map to where you want it and just click download, the latitude and longitude are already set to the current center of the map, choose the zoom level and you are good to go. Just check the 'offline' button to view the downloaded content offline.

And yes to backup, just go to your home folder, view> show hidden files, and just copy the .googlemaps folder to back up the whole cache.

1 comment:

naveen said...

Hey,
I am Naveen. A novice at linux. Finally took the plunge and replaced windows with Ubuntu. Can u pl guide me through the commands for installing gmapcatcher on ubuntu?
Regards