Positioning MKMapView to show multiple annotations at once

Question

I've got several annotations I want to add to my MKMapView (it could 0-n items, where n is generally around 5). I can add the annotations fine, but I want to resize the map to fit all annotations onscreen at once, and I'm not sure how to do this.

I've been looking at -regionThatFits: but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I'll post some code to show what I've got so far. I think this should be a generally straightforward task but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with MapKit so far.

- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation{

location = newLocation.coordinate;
//One location is obtained.. just zoom to that location

MKCoordinateRegion region;
region.center = location;

//Set Zoom level using Span
MKCoordinateSpan span;
span.latitudeDelta = 0.015;
span.longitudeDelta = 0.015;
region.span = span;
// Set the region here... but I want this to be a dynamic size
// Obviously this should be set after I've added my annotations
[mapView setRegion:region animated:YES];

// Test data, using these as annotations for now
NSArray *arr = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"one", @"two", @"three", @"four", nil];
float ex = 0.01;
for (NSString *s in arr) {
    JBAnnotation *placemark = [[JBAnnotation alloc] initWithLat:(location.latitude + ex) lon:location.longitude];
    [mapView addAnnotation:placemark];
    ex = ex + 0.005;
}
    // What do I do here?
    [mapView setRegion:[mapView regionThatFits:region] animated:YES];
}

Notice, this all happens as I receive a location update... I don't know if that's an appropriate place to do this. If not, where would be a better place? -viewDidLoad?

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1

As of iOS7 you can use showAnnotations:animated:

[mapView showAnnotations:annotations animated:YES];

Solution 2

The link posted by Jim is now dead, but i was able to find the code (which I had bookmarked somewhere). Hope this helps.

- (void)zoomToFitMapAnnotations:(MKMapView *)mapView { 
    if ([mapView.annotations count] == 0) return; 

    CLLocationCoordinate2D topLeftCoord; 
    topLeftCoord.latitude = -90; 
    topLeftCoord.longitude = 180; 

    CLLocationCoordinate2D bottomRightCoord; 
    bottomRightCoord.latitude = 90; 
    bottomRightCoord.longitude = -180; 

    for(id<MKAnnotation> annotation in mapView.annotations) { 
        topLeftCoord.longitude = fmin(topLeftCoord.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude); 
        topLeftCoord.latitude = fmax(topLeftCoord.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude); 
        bottomRightCoord.longitude = fmax(bottomRightCoord.longitude, annotation.coordinate.longitude); 
        bottomRightCoord.latitude = fmin(bottomRightCoord.latitude, annotation.coordinate.latitude); 
    } 

    MKCoordinateRegion region; 
    region.center.latitude = topLeftCoord.latitude - (topLeftCoord.latitude - bottomRightCoord.latitude) * 0.5; 
    region.center.longitude = topLeftCoord.longitude + (bottomRightCoord.longitude - topLeftCoord.longitude) * 0.5;      

    // Add a little extra space on the sides
    region.span.latitudeDelta = fabs(topLeftCoord.latitude - bottomRightCoord.latitude) * 1.1;
    region.span.longitudeDelta = fabs(bottomRightCoord.longitude - topLeftCoord.longitude) * 1.1; 

    region = [mapView regionThatFits:region]; 
    [mapView setRegion:region animated:YES]; 
}

Solution 3

Why so complicated?

MKCoordinateRegion coordinateRegionForCoordinates(CLLocationCoordinate2D *coords, NSUInteger coordCount) {
    MKMapRect r = MKMapRectNull;
    for (NSUInteger i=0; i < coordCount; ++i) {
        MKMapPoint p = MKMapPointForCoordinate(coords[i]);
        r = MKMapRectUnion(r, MKMapRectMake(p.x, p.y, 0, 0));
    }
    return MKCoordinateRegionForMapRect(r);
}

Solution 4

I have done something similiar to this to zoom out (or in) to an area that included a point annotation and the current location. You could expand this by looping through your annotations.

The basic steps are:

• Calculate the min lat/long
  
• Calculate the max lat/long
  
• Create CLLocation objects for these two points
  
• Calculate distance between points
  
• Create region using center point between points and distance converted to degrees
  
• Pass region into MapView to adjust
  
• Use adjusted region to set MapView region
  

    -(IBAction)zoomOut:(id)sender {

        CLLocationCoordinate2D southWest = _newLocation.coordinate;
        CLLocationCoordinate2D northEast = southWest;

        southWest.latitude = MIN(southWest.latitude, _annotation.coordinate.latitude);
        southWest.longitude = MIN(southWest.longitude, _annotation.coordinate.longitude);

        northEast.latitude = MAX(northEast.latitude, _annotation.coordinate.latitude);
        northEast.longitude = MAX(northEast.longitude, _annotation.coordinate.longitude);

        CLLocation *locSouthWest = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:southWest.latitude longitude:southWest.longitude];
        CLLocation *locNorthEast = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:northEast.latitude longitude:northEast.longitude];

        // This is a diag distance (if you wanted tighter you could do NE-NW or NE-SE)
        CLLocationDistance meters = [locSouthWest getDistanceFrom:locNorthEast];

        MKCoordinateRegion region;
        region.center.latitude = (southWest.latitude + northEast.latitude) / 2.0;
        region.center.longitude = (southWest.longitude + northEast.longitude) / 2.0;
        region.span.latitudeDelta = meters / 111319.5;
        region.span.longitudeDelta = 0.0;

        _savedRegion = [_mapView regionThatFits:region];
        [_mapView setRegion:_savedRegion animated:YES];

        [locSouthWest release];
        [locNorthEast release];
    }

Solution 5

I have a different answer. I was going to do implement the zoom-to-fit algorithm myself, but i figured that Apple must have a way to do what we wanted without so much work. Using the API doco quickly showed that I could use MKPolygon to do what was needed:

/* this simply adds a single pin and zooms in on it nicely */
- (void) zoomToAnnotation:(MapAnnotation*)annotation {
    MKCoordinateSpan span = {0.027, 0.027};
    MKCoordinateRegion region = {[annotation coordinate], span};
    [mapView setRegion:region animated:YES];
}

/* This returns a rectangle bounding all of the pins within the supplied
   array */
- (MKMapRect) getMapRectUsingAnnotations:(NSArray*)theAnnotations {
    MKMapPoint points[[theAnnotations count]];

    for (int i = 0; i < [theAnnotations count]; i++) {
        MapAnnotation *annotation = [theAnnotations objectAtIndex:i];
        points[i] = MKMapPointForCoordinate(annotation.coordinate);
    }

    MKPolygon *poly = [MKPolygon polygonWithPoints:points count:[theAnnotations count]];

    return [poly boundingMapRect];
}

/* this adds the provided annotation to the mapview object, zooming 
   as appropriate */
- (void) addMapAnnotationToMapView:(MapAnnotation*)annotation {
    if ([annotations count] == 1) {
        // If there is only one annotation then zoom into it.
        [self zoomToAnnotation:annotation];
    } else {
        // If there are several, then the default behaviour is to show all of them
        //
        MKCoordinateRegion region = MKCoordinateRegionForMapRect([self getMapRectUsingAnnotations:annotations]);

        if (region.span.latitudeDelta < 0.027) {
            region.span.latitudeDelta = 0.027;
        }

        if (region.span.longitudeDelta < 0.027) {
            region.span.longitudeDelta = 0.027;
        }
        [mapView setRegion:region];
    }

    [mapView addAnnotation:annotation];
    [mapView selectAnnotation:annotation animated:YES];
}

Hope this helps.

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