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I found a free web service that’s easy to integrate with AppSheet for generating map images based on an address.
https://staticmapmaker.com/google/
You have to create a Google Maps API key first. They give you a link to the correct page in your Google Cloud Console.
Then all I had to do was add a virtual column (type=Image), and swap out the address text to use a field reference. Make sure you wrap the address with ENCODEURL().
Now each record has an image of the [address] location, allowing the address to be used as the Header background in Detail View!
WARNING ABOUT API BILLING
I recommend enabling a ‘budget’ for the project in Google Cloud, so you can set alerts when the bill hits a certain amount.
Keep in mind that you’re not storing an image file, you’re re-calling the API for each [address] every time the app is synced (unless a sync setting is caching it).
Other Thoughts
This was just an experiment to see if I could generate the image. I haven’t used it in production yet and would be interested to hear from others who have integrated a maps API.
