[R-sig-Geo] google insight map to shapefile

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Michael Denslow
<michael.denslow at gmail.com> wrote:

> I probably should have thought a bit more before I replied since I
> have not done this before. I was just trying to think of a way that I
> might do it. I do not know how to directly download that file from
> Google.
>

 A few minutes work with the 'firebug' debugger in Firefox has lead me
to the XML file of that map data. A little bit of manipulation could
easily get it into R as an sp object and hence you could use it as a
base for your data once you've matched up some numeric codes for the
areas.

However, I'm not sure whether the google terms of reference would
allow you to do anything with the data.

  I'm also a bit unsure what the coordinate system is here - it
doesn't seem to overlay nicely with a US shapefile that should be in
WGS84 coords.

Barry