RTB uses Google’s Maps Static and Maps Elevation APIs to retrieve the images and height data required to form real-life landscapes. The data is free, but to prevent overloading their system, Google has limitations on data usage. The volume of data required by RTB requires that you create a Google account and obtain an API Key.
Obtaining a Google API Key
RTB can uses Google’s Maps Static and Maps Elevation APIs to retrieve the images and height data required to form real-life landscapes. As of 2018 Google requires that you have a Google account with billing enabled (may require credit card), but they currently provide $200/month for free which amounts to about 80 projects per month using 4096x4096 images.
Watch the following video, but be aware that Google change their interface faster than you can realise that this sentence has no fullstop so things might look a little different
The basic fundamentals remain the same; you will need to:
- Set up a free Google account and Activate billing.
- Create a Google Project.
- Enable the Maps Static and Maps Elevation APIs.
- Add credentials and obtain an API key, this is what RTB requires.
1. Create Google Account
You can use your existing Google account (if you have one) or follow Google’s instructions to create a new account.
Click Payment & Subscriptions to enable Google Billing - this step may require a credit card.
2. Create a Google Project
Google requires a Project be created first (each Project could have a different API Key) before you create the API Key. From your Dashboard, click the Create Project button to create a new Project and give it a name (eg. “MyAPI”). The name is not used by RTB, so it can be named anything you like.
3. Create an API Key
An API key uniquely identifies you to Google when RTB makes requests for information; Google calls this a Public API access key.
- From your Dashboard, make sure your project is selected, then click on the Credentials menu.
- Click the + CREATE CREDENTIALS button and select the API Key option.
- A few seconds will pass as a new Key is generated and displayed. Copy the Key to the Clipboard; you will paste this into RTB later.
- Click Restrict Key.
- Save the Key, we will need to restrict it later after activating the APIs.
- Race Track Builder needs this key in order to get height and image data from Google.
- Don't try using the one in the video - that would be very silly. You need to get your own.
- That's the API key done, now we need to let Google know what functions we will access.
4. Activate the APIs
After Obtaining a Key you will need to activate the Maps Static and Maps Elevation APIs. These are the Google APIs that are access by RTB.
- From the Dashboard, click + Enable APIs.
- Search for Maps Static API and click on it.
- Click the Enable button to activate the API
- Repeat the process and enable the Maps Elevation API.
- After both APIs have been enabled, your Dashboard will look something like the image below.
Don’t worry if you have additional APIs enabled, Google does this by default. Be sure to copy the API Key created in Step 3 into RTB’s settings. You’re now ready to import Google data into RTB.
The last step is to restrict the Credentials to these two APIs.
- From the Dashboard, click Credentials.
- Edit the API Key.
- Under API Restrictions, select Restrict Key.
- Tick the two APIs.
The Restrictions section should look like this.
5. Running Race Track Builder
Lastly we paste the API Key into RTB.
- Open Race Track Builder create a new Project.
- Select Google APIs for the Image and Height plugins.
- Paste the API Key value into RTB for both plugins then click OK.
For more information on how Google works …
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/elevation/
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial#api_key