how does an interactive driving directions road map work

I am wanting to put up on my site an interactive driving direction road map for my users.

Here is what I have in mind. The user enters his address and then a page is returned that gives them the driving directions to my location, ala "MapQuest" or "Yahoo Maps" but from my site not through them.

Can anyone assist, or just steer me in the right direction

Wow.. not to dissuade you or anything, because you probably COULD do it if you wanted to... but that would be ungodly hard for anyone to do if it wasn't specifically their business..

Mapquest started out as a cartographic service company back in 1960-something. They've had a LONG time to build up A LOT of cartographic info and database it. Without that being specifically your business, you'd have a tough time doing the research yourself, or, you'd have to spend an awful lot of $$$ to buy the data. You'd need a pretty big database of map information and figure out how to programmatically link all the roads together to get from point A to B. The logistics of gathering that data and then maintaining it would be really tough. You know, MapQuest does offer their service for people's sites.

It's done pretty much the same way you create map. Oh and yeah, top-secret-best-kept technology of calculation shortest trip and avoiding traffic. Plus half-a-thousand employees working 8 hours a day every day for nearly half a century. So yeah you should be able to do this in couple days or so. That or use mapquest direct -> http://mqdirect.mapquest.co.uk/

If your location is always the same then it simplifies things. You can always say take x junction of x highway then left after 400yds etc..

Getting people to x junction is more complicated. What you could do is build a basic highway plan of the country, then assume basic knowledge of the user will get him/her to the nearest highway.

If your location changes then it's more difficult.

Build an image map of a large area. Each image in the map you would link to a close up view, or a close up image map. Then link the images in those maps.

One big image close up, then use imagmagik to cut the relevent section out!

If you've done some research on cartography/ai (specifically path algorithms -- djikstra and the like)/ know about vector/bitmapped images/ know about satellite imaging/ digitizing of analog records/ data structures etc etc... you'll know this is no mean feat.

a few years back, i tried to do a proj a bit similar to this for ghana since there weren't any electronic maps for the country around.. unfortunately, i lost all my code when i lost my laptop and it's carry case (lesson learnt: don't carry all your eggs in one basket).

but you'll quickly learn once u start some research in the area that you are far better off relying on the giants who have their systems up and running already.

you simply can't builld the database needed in a couple of years.. it takes tons and tons of research... unless you have a place in mind where you could steal the research and db accrued...no? didn't think so...LOL

so my best bet is... until map.yahoo or mapquest or the likes start offering that as a service where you can query their database and return results straight to your web (and that probably would happen or has happened, i don't know...just speculating) u shd just go ahead with the research for the purpose of knowing what the bare bones of the systems look like without the way-too-lofty goal of setting up one yourself (unless of course it's for some small area you live in or s'thing)

regards,
e okyere

referred urls:
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Any way you could use php to submit the form data the same way their form does and then use regex to find the image and or rip the directions out of the php code and display on your site?

I'm interested in what was the solution to the problem. I want to do somehting similiar but would like to pull out everything except the image of the map and post only that on my site.

$$$$$$$ ?