Batch Geocoding and Static Map Custom Icons in Beta

Posted Oct 19th 2009 12:00PM by Antony Pegg

Hot on the heels of last week's releases we have another two Beta updates.

Geocoding Web Service Updates

Available at http://platform.beta.mapquest.com/geocoding.

Overhauled Documentation: First thing you'll notice is overhauled documentation and better examples for the previously available functions of geocode and reverse geocode. It should now match the style of the other services.
Batch Geocoding: We've added a new function that lets you geocode up to 100 addresses at once. Each address has its own ambiguity list returned in the results.
Map Biasing: If you provide a Map Bounds with your geocode request, then we will move the ambiguity results that are within the map area to the top of the list. For example, if you geocode the city of Lancaster, and prove a map bounds which contains south central PA, then Lancaster, PA will be at the top of the return list instead of Lancaster, CA.
ccTLD Biasing: We now default the first country used for geocoding to the country code found in your top level domain, instead of always to the U.S. For example, if your website is "myAwesomeSite.co.fr" we'll try geocoding in France first, instead of in the U.S. You can of course always override this merely by providing us the country as part of the address.
Ambiguity Static Maps: We've hooked the geocoding service up to the Static map service. Now, each ambiguity in the results also has a URL that provides a simple static map of the ambiguous location

Static Map Web Service Updates

Available at http://platform.beta.mapquest.com/staticmap.

Custom Icons: You can now provide us with the URLs of your own custom icons for use on the static Maps. Because we cache the icons for performance, there is a new function to flush an icon from our cache, in case you update the icon.
New Image Formats: You can now get static maps as .jpeg, .png, or .gif formats. the new parameter is imagetype=.
All Icons Available from pois= Parameter: All the icons used by the mcenter, pcenter, scenter, ecenter, and stop parameters are also now available as icon names for the pois= parameter.

More to Follow Coming Soon!

As we continue to iterate on our projects, we are striving to maintain a schedule of releasing new versions to beta every two weeks, with new features, bug fixes, and upgraded documentation, until the projects are complete and roll out to production. Stay tuned for more beta versions coming over the next weeks.