MapLib: Turn Any Image Into A Google Map

By Amit Chowdhry ● Nov 13, 2006

Now you can make personal images into Google Map-styled images with customized markers and even embed them into blogs or your own web pages. This is made possible by MapLib. MapLib was also featured on Google Maps Mania.

There are four main components of MapLib:

1.) The Home Page Displays an Intro, Recent Maps, Popular Maps, Random Maps, and has a Donation link.
2.) All Maps has a list of all the maps created using MapLib at about 6 thumbnails per page. I believe that there are roughly 1,000 maps total added since November 1. Fortunately, there is a search built into the site so that you can filter maps based on entered keywords.
3.) My Maps is where you create maps and displays the maps that you have created.
4.) Community is a page created to provide general announcements about MapLib or for users to request features and report bugs.

To create a personalized map using MapLib, it takes two simple steps:

I registered and began to test it out. After you register, you’ll receive an e-mail from xiaoyisheng [[[at]]] gmail.com under the name Pacino to confirm your registration. After that, you can begin creating your map by clicking on My Maps after and then clicking on “Create a Map”:

After you click on Create a Map, you are expected to fill out the required information and upload an image:

You will also notice that there are several limitations for these images such as being a certain file type and being within 500×500 and 6000×6000 pixel sizes. To test it out, I used a large-sized map of Springfield USA, the hometown of The Simpsons that I found on MapofSpringfield.com.

MapLib is definitely a fun website to use and I’m sure that bloggers and other website owners could become really creative with it. I believe I had seen some maps from the games, Counter-Strike and WarCraft on there as well. If you happen to create any that you would like to show off, definitely let me know through a comment or an e-mail and I’ll make sure to add them below: