Custom routes/paths/roads on Google Maps
If your campus is not very big, you may want to consider defining all the polyline routes by hand for each permutation, such that if you have 4 buildings A, B, C and D, you would need to define 6 routes:
A:B, A:C, A:D, B:C, B:D, C:D
Then simply build some basic JavaScript logic, that when you chose building A as starting point and building C as destination, you hide all polylines and show the A:C line only. You can also use Google's polyline methods to get the length in meters of each route, if this is required.
This is a short table of how many routes you would have to define, according to the number of buildings you have:
+-------------+--------+
| Buildings | Routes |
|-------------+--------+
| 5 | 10 |
| 10 | 45 |
| 15 | 105 |
| 20 | 190 |
| 25 | 300 |
+-------------+--------+
As you can see, it really gets out of control as the number of buildings goes up, so I would say that this option is only feasible to a certain point. At least you are lucky since the order of the permutations is not important, assuming that people can walk each route in both directions.
Interesting Note: I noticed that the Ottawa demo you supplied is not making any AJAX calls when requesting for directions. Therefore there is a good chance that they are doing the same as suggested above.
UPDATE:
Here is working demo using the v3 Maps API, which I hope can help you getting started:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/>
<title>Google Maps Campus</title>
<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"
type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="map" style="width: 550px; height: 400px"></div>
<div>Start:
<select id="start">
<option>Building 1</option>
<option>Building 2</option>
<option>Building 3</option>
</select>
</div>
<div>End:
<select id="end">
<option>Building 1</option>
<option>Building 2</option>
<option>Building 3</option>
</select>
</div>
<input type="button" onclick="drawDirections();" value="GO" />
<script type="text/javascript">
var mapOptions = {
mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.TERRAIN,
center: new google.maps.LatLng(47.690, -122.310),
zoom: 12
};
var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map"),
mapOptions);
// Predefine all the paths
var paths = [];
paths['1_to_2'] = new google.maps.Polyline({
path: [
new google.maps.LatLng(47.656, -122.360),
new google.maps.LatLng(47.656, -122.343),
new google.maps.LatLng(47.690, -122.310)
], strokeColor: '#FF0000'
});
paths['1_to_3'] = new google.maps.Polyline({
path: [
new google.maps.LatLng(47.656, -122.360),
new google.maps.LatLng(47.656, -122.343),
new google.maps.LatLng(47.690, -122.270)
], strokeColor: '#FF0000'
});
paths['2_to_3'] = new google.maps.Polyline({
path: [
new google.maps.LatLng(47.690, -122.310),
new google.maps.LatLng(47.690, -122.270)
], strokeColor: '#FF0000'
});
function drawDirections() {
var start = 1 + document.getElementById('start').selectedIndex;
var end = 1 + document.getElementById('end').selectedIndex;
var i;
if (start === end) {
alert('Please choose different buildings');
}
else {
// Hide all polylines
for (i in paths) {
paths[i].setOptions({ map: null });
}
// Show the route
if (typeof paths['' + start + '_to_' + end] !== 'undefined') {
paths['' + start + '_to_' + end].setOptions({ map: map });
}
else if (typeof paths['' + end + '_to_' + start] !== 'undefined') {
paths['' + end + '_to_' + start].setOptions({ map: map });
}
}
}
</script>
</body>
</html>
Screenshot:
