import a google static map directly in fpdf - dictionary

Question

I wanted to place a google static map in a pdffile generated by using the fpdf extension.
and used code to make a tempfile first. Using this code. However I run into an error ('can't open image file').
// define the mapurl
$fullURL = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=Amsterdam&z=14&size=100x100&sensor=false';
// create a tempfile
$tempF = tmpfile();
fwrite($tempF, file_get_contents($fullURL));
//Rewind to the start of file
rewind($tempF);
// place the image in the pdf.
if (!empty($tempF)) {
$this->Image($tempF,$start_x, $this->GetY(),0,100);
}
fclose($tempF); // remove the tempfile

Answer 1

Note: OP's own answer extracted from the question.
Then I found out it can be done much easier... I don't need to use a tempfile. If I put the url in the image variable and give a format the thing works in two lines.. I don't use the height and width parameters in fpdf because they stretch the image into a unreadable form.
$fullURL = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=". \
$row-Google_coor."&zoom=10&size=2200x200\
&markers=color:blue%7Clabel:D%7C".$row->Google_coor;
$this->Image($fullURL,$start_x, $this->GetY(),0,0,"PNG");
Saddly when using this function sometimes the program returns an error. The image could not be found. But when I put the url string in the browser the image shows up fine. Hopefully this is also a minor fallback.
Lets see if I find a solution on the google apis site https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/staticmaps/?csw=1

Answer 2

For what it is worth I had this problem as well, I found that my server had an outgoing connections manager, this would automatically block the request, I had to add the ip, once this was done it worked fine.

Answer 3

I had a problem similiar to the OP's. I was getting an error when using FPDF and trying to get the static map image from Google Maps and into my PDF. I was getting "FPDF error: Missing or incorrect image file". What I did is to register in the Google Developer Console and get an API Key, just like they say in the documentation
Hope this helps.

Answer 4

You can download the image and use it with fpdf
$url ="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=Brooklyn+Bridge,New+York,NY&zoom=13&size=600x300&maptype=roadmap&markers=color:blue%7Clabel:S%7C40.702147,-74.015794&markers=color:green%7Clabel:G%7C40.711614,-74.012318&markers=color:red%7Clabel:C%7C40.718217,-73.998284&key=".$googleApiKey;
$img = __DIR__.'/img/map.png';
file_put_contents($img, file_get_contents($url));
$pdf->Image($img,null,null,170);
Hope that this will be helpful