Place Photos (New)

Select platform: Android iOS Web Service

European Economic Area (EEA) developers

You can use the Places SDK for iOS (New) to request place photos to display in your application. Photos returned by the photos service come from a variety of sources, including business owners and user-contributed photos.

Photos are bitmap images represented by a UIImage object. A bitmap image has a maximum size of 4800 by 4800 pixels.

Request an image

You can request up to 10 photos for a place:

Call [GMSPlacesClient lookUpPhotosForPlaceID] , passing a place ID and a GMSPlacePhotoMetadataResultCallback callback. This request calls the GMSPlacePhotoMetadataResultCallback callback with a GMSPlacePhotoMetadataList object.
From the GMSPlacePhotoMetadataList object in the callback, the results array property contains the photos, where each photo is represented by a GMSPlacePhotoMetadata object.
Use the GMSPlacePhotoMetadata object to create a GMSFetchPhotoRequest , including the maximum size of the requested image.
For each GMSPlacePhotoMetadata object in the array, call [GMSPlacesClient fetchPhotoWithRequest:callback:] passing the GMSFetchPhotoRequest object. This methods calls the GMSFetchPhotoResultCallback callback with a usable bitmap image as a UIImage.

Another way to request photos for a place is to make a Place Details (New) request, including GMSPlacePropertyPhotos in the field list. The advantage to making a Place Details call is that the response GMSPlace object can contain the photos and any other data fields that you want for the place.

Sample code

The following example method takes a place ID and gets the first photo in the returned list. You can use this method as a template for the method you will create in your own app.

Places Swift SDK

 // First fetch place details 
 // A hotel in Saigon with an attribution. 
 let 
  
 placeID 
  
 = 
  
 "ChIJV4k8_9UodTERU5KXbkYpSYs" 
 let 
  
 fetchPlaceRequest 
  
 = 
  
 FetchPlaceRequest 
 ( 
  
 placeID 
 : 
  
 placeID 
 , 
  
 placeProperties 
 : 
  
 [ 
  
 . 
  
 name 
 , 
  
 . 
 website 
  
 ] 
 ) 
 var 
  
 fetchedPlace 
 : 
  
 Place 
 switch 
  
 await 
  
 placesClient 
 . 
 fetchPlace 
 ( 
 with 
 : 
  
 fetchPlaceRequest 
 ) 
  
 { 
 case 
  
 . 
 success 
 ( 
 let 
  
 place 
 ): 
  
 fetchedPlace 
  
 = 
  
 place 
 case 
  
 . 
 failure 
 ( 
 let 
  
 placesError 
 ): 
  
 // Handle error 
 } 
 // Use the place details to fetch a photo's image. 
 guard 
  
 let 
  
 photo 
  
 = 
  
 fetchedPlace 
 . 
 photos 
 ?. 
 first 
  
 else 
  
 { 
  
 // Handle place without photos. 
 } 
 let 
  
 fetchPhotoRequest 
  
 = 
  
 FetchPhotoRequest 
 ( 
 photo 
 : 
  
 photo 
 , 
  
 maxSize 
 : 
  
 CGSizeMake 
 ( 
 4800 
 , 
  
 4800 
 )) 
 switch 
  
 await 
  
 placesClient 
 . 
 fetchPhoto 
 ( 
 with 
 : 
  
 fetchPhotoRequest 
 ) 
  
 { 
 case 
  
 . 
 success 
 ( 
 let 
  
 uiImage 
 ): 
  
 // Handle image. 
 case 
  
 . 
 failure 
 ( 
 let 
  
 placesError 
 ): 
  
 // Handle error 
 }

Swift

 // A hotel in Saigon with an attribution. 
 let 
  
 placeID 
  
 = 
  
 "ChIJV4k8_9UodTERU5KXbkYpSYs" 
 // Request list of photos for a place 
 placesClient 
 . 
 lookUpPhotos 
 ( 
 forPlaceID 
 : 
  
 placeID 
 ) 
  
 { 
  
 ( 
 photos 
 , 
  
 error 
 ) 
  
 in 
  
 guard 
  
 let 
  
 photoMetadata 
 : 
  
 GMSPlacePhotoMetadata 
  
 = 
  
 photos 
 ?. 
 results 
 [ 
 0 
 ] 
  
 else 
  
 { 
  
 return 
  
 } 
  
 // Request individual photos in the response list 
  
 let 
  
 fetchPhotoRequest 
  
 = 
  
 GMSFetchPhotoRequest 
 ( 
 photoMetadata 
 : 
  
 photoMetadata 
 , 
  
 maxSize 
 : 
  
 CGSizeMake 
 ( 
 4800 
 , 
  
 4800 
 )) 
  
 self 
 . 
 client 
 . 
 fetchPhoto 
 ( 
 with 
 : 
  
 fetchPhotoRequest 
 , 
  
 callback 
 : 
  
 { 
  
 ( 
 photoImage 
 : 
  
 UIImage 
 ?, 
  
 error 
 : 
  
 Error 
 ?) 
  
 in 
  
 guard 
  
 let 
  
 photoImage 
 , 
  
 error 
  
 == 
  
 nil 
  
 else 
  
 { 
  
 print 
 ( 
 "Handle photo error: " 
 ) 
  
 return 
  
 } 
  
 print 
 ( 
 "Display photo Image: " 
 ) 
  
 } 
  
 ) 
 }

Objective-C

 // A hotel in Saigon with an attribution. 
 NSString 
  
 * 
 placeID 
  
 = 
  
 @"ChIJV4k8_9UodTERU5KXbkYpSYs" 
 ; 
 [ 
 placesClient 
  
 lookUpPhotosForPlaceID 
 : 
 placeID 
  
 callback 
 : 
  
 ^ 
 ( 
 GMSPlacePhotoMetadataList 
  
 * 
 list 
 , 
  
 NSError 
  
 * 
 error 
 ) 
  
 { 
  
 GMSPlacePhotoMetadata 
  
 * 
 photoMetadata 
  
 = 
  
 [ 
 list 
  
 results 
 ][ 
 0 
 ]; 
  
 // Request individual photos in the response list 
  
 GMSFetchPhotoRequest 
  
 * 
 fetchPhotoRequest 
  
 = 
  
 [[ 
 GMSFetchPhotoRequest 
  
 alloc 
 ] 
  
 initWithPhotoMetadata 
 : 
 photoMetadata 
  
 maxSize 
 : 
 CGSizeMake 
 ( 
 4800 
 , 
  
 4800 
 )]; 
  
 [ 
 placesClient 
  
 fetchPhotoWithRequest 
 : 
 fetchPhotoRequest 
  
 callback 
 : 
  
 ^ 
 ( 
 UIImage 
  
 * 
 _Nullable 
  
 photoImage 
 , 
  
 NSError 
  
 * 
 _Nullable 
  
 error 
 ) 
  
 { 
  
 if 
  
 ( 
 error 
  
 == 
  
 nil 
 ) 
  
 { 
  
 // Display photo 
  
 } 
  
 }]; 
 }];

Caching

Photos loaded using [GMSPlacesClient loadPlacePhoto:callback:] or [GMSPlacesClient loadPlacePhoto:constrainedToSize:scale:callback:] are cached both on disk and in-memory by the Foundation URL loading system in the shared NSURLCache .

To configure the caching behavior you can change the shared URL cache using [NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:] in your application delegate's application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method.

If you do not want your application to share a NSURLCache with the Places SDK for iOS you can create a new NSURLCache and use this exclusively within your app without setting it as the shared cache.

Attributions

In most cases, place photos can be used without attribution, or will have the required attribution included as part of the image. However, if the returned GMSPlacePhotoMetadata instance includes any attributions or authorAttribution , you must include these attributions in your application wherever you display the image. See the documentation on attributions .