Is there a API to draw (say 50 pixel circular images) images on the map and automatically declutter them. For example the API will take as inputs 10 images and 10 lat/lon points and draw the images on top of the map and if the images overlap it will arrange them automatically with a line attached to image pointing to the actual location where the image should have been?
Thanks
Hi
Current VE does not have anything like this, although its becomming one of the top requested features (MS listening?). MapPoint does have something similar to this and as MS have said MapPoint and VE are eventually merging I presume we will have this kind of functionality eventually but no idea when.
Its interesting to hear how mapquest handle this.
Brian Norman
I'm actually building this for a client at the moment, since they are paying for it I cannot share it freely 
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All I can say is it is possible to do with the version 5 api and some serious javascript programming. (about 8KB)
I really don't see the point of this except for really small numbers of pins and maybe at maximum zoom level when clustering would like to be avoided (as you can't zoom any more).
I can tell you that with more then 100 pins it really doesn't work that well.
I would make a guess that the map point solution would require your data be stored with MSFT? You need to declutter for each zoom level so this is a fair bit of data.
I'm not sure what more I can say but I will see what I can do, the more people that use something typically means more testing, more bug fixes and a better solution for everyone.
John.
I dont have the algorithm to implement the declutter otherwise I can do the javascript part of it. If you know an algo and can share that will be great.
thanks
Yeah, I couldn't find anything useful so built a simple spiraling logic the looks for the closest positions near the overlap that are free. The examples from map point are all very simple with 3 pins overlapping, it becomes a little more intensive when you have 50 overlapping. (which happens if you zoom out to the world level)
John.
Send me an email chiragora to John at soulsolutions.com.au and we can talk.
John.
