Googles API
Google is every where. Recently I have used there API to convert lat and log locations into written street address, city, state. I also used Google Maps within my web site. We plotted pins where the truck locations were. So that a dispatcher could see these locations and the drivers would move in real time as long as there mobile app was running.
Clustering was definitely tricky. As it required you to have all the locations within a array before the page loaded. And since my page had trucks moving in real time the data was always changing. The picture below you can see 4 trucks in the same location are group so that its easier to tell how many trucks are really there.
Google does have a really good website as a resource. They require you to create a KEY so that they can monitor how much traffic you are using. If you are programming for a large company you may need to by a licence. https://developers.google.com/maps/
Essentially, using javascript, you need to call the map, create the object, choose some options, and plot some points. The code below calls the initialization function, then creates the map object, and puts the map on the page using CSS.
My key is blurred out so that the reader cannot use it. Get your own, its free.
Placed in different areas of the page, the website will call to the API and build us a map. In order to put plots on the map something similar to the following code is used. Where there addListener event is waiting for you to click the pin.
thanks for reading !!