[HN Gopher] Why are maps so hard to make?
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Why are maps so hard to make?
Author : danso
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-06-01 20:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.readmargins.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.readmargins.com)
| simoneau wrote:
| How much of that $15M went into the sweet domain name, felt.com?
| hinting wrote:
| only $12m of it!
| hinting wrote:
| the last $3m went to the @felt twitter handle
| [deleted]
| everybodyknows wrote:
| $74,750. ~0.5%
|
| https://namebio.com/felt.com
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| _reads blog post_
|
| Yeah, I'll give it a shot.
|
| _clicks link to felt.com_
|
| _clicks link that says "Try Felt free"_
|
| _prompted to "Sign up for Felt"_
|
| Oh, no thanks.
| hinting wrote:
| if you scroll down, there's a bunch of example maps you can
| check out!
|
| an account is only needed to create new maps
| alx__ wrote:
| This link worked fine for me: https://felt.com/map/Cross-USA-
| Road-Trip-kiQ9CRDdlS02s8w65Ko...
| [deleted]
| deepsun wrote:
| > Mind you, making a website in the 90s was not for the faint of
| heart. Even the simplest tasks required an alphabet soup of
| technologies one had to master.
|
| And they say nowadays you have to learn so much tech to make a
| website...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dv35z wrote:
| Map gurus - I was thinking of printing a black and white map of
| my neighborhood on my wall, and then putting pins, annotations
| etc in it.
|
| I found it difficult to find a good tool which could accept a
| Google Map location, and export a PDF with street names, but not
| so much details. I ended up taking a screen shot of google Maps,
| then vectorizing it, the manually changing to B&W, updating
| details etc. Anyone found good tool / workflow for this
| dvdkon wrote:
| I use QGIS, usually importing an OSM-based vector map (look for
| the MapTiler plugin) and tweaking the layer appearance does it
| for me. I'm not 100% on board with how QGIS' print layout tool
| works, but I think that's just because I have a different model
| in mind. It's more print oriented, so it should hopefully work
| for you.
| cwal37 wrote:
| I would have done it all in GIS software (QGIS most likely)
| myself using shapefiles from the County/State/Town, but I
| suppose that depends on your preexisting knowledge of GIS
| software and access to high quality data. I
|
| In order to look good, it would probably also require some
| substantial design work in the symbology of the layers you're
| using.
|
| EDIT: Another commenter suggests OSM, and yeah, that would be
| way easier than starting with shapefiles for various features.
| jabyess wrote:
| mapbox studio will let you custom design layers, but i haven't
| gotten very far into it so i can't speak to the level of
| control you get.
| okok3857 wrote:
| The Stamen toner map may work well for you:
| http://maps.stamen.com/#toner/14/37.8024/-122.2645 Also
| checkout their watercolor rendering... probably my favorite
| basemap that I never get to use.
|
| If you do use QGIS, you can get the Quick Map Services plugin
| that will connect you with these Stamen basemaps as well (and
| tons of other basemaps, a must-have plugin).
| anticristi wrote:
| I'm about to organise a family road trip and I can see how this
| tool can make that so much more informative and fun. I currently
| rely on an Google Sheet and Google Maps List, which is a bit
| tiring.
|
| I'd like to see the following features:
|
| - Ability to search for GPS coordinates.
|
| - Ability to search for plus codes (I hate them, but Google
| forces them onto me.)
|
| - Display route duration: This is good for judging if a segment
| is too long and needs to be spliced in two.
|
| - Somehow searching for places in Europe is lacking compared to
| Google Maps.
| hinting wrote:
| glad to hear it!
|
| searching for lat/lng, route duration, and better search are in
| the works
|
| what's the deal with plus codes? i've heard about them a couple
| times but don't have a good sense of where/how they are used
| anticristi wrote:
| Plus codes are pretty much like GPS coordinates, but made by
| Google: https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/
|
| For some reason Google Maps throws plus codes at you, but
| requires you to dig deeper to find GPS coordinates.
| phabricator wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code
|
| > i've heard about them a couple times
|
| Did you do much competitive analysis?
| ghaff wrote:
| I started planning out a someday road trip. I found
| mymaps.google.com at least a good starting point as I want to
| (in the US) do something that is vaguely circular--i.e. avoids
| excessive backtracks and spurs. It let me choose a bunch of
| locations and assign various colors as I tuned the route.
| anticristi wrote:
| Seems to do the trick. Thanks for the tip!
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm sure I'll end up using other planning and tracking
| tools, including paper state maps and a laminated US map I
| bought. But I found this really helpful as a first cut at
| "What's an interesting big swing I can do that optimizes
| for places I haven't been but want to see and that involves
| a minimum of out-of-the-way driving." I basically put a
| bunch of color-coded places on the map and then started
| recoloring them if they didn't really fit my objectives.
|
| My intent is certainly not to overplan. But having a
| "strategic" first cut seems useful.
| hinting wrote:
| hi everyone, ceo here! and former YC W15 founder.
|
| let me know your questions, and i will answer them!
| everybodyknows wrote:
| What are the major pieces of the underlying software stack?
| hinting wrote:
| - elixir for real-time updates - react.js and protomaps.js
| for front-end app - python for a variety of geospatial
| service
| okok3857 wrote:
| Very cool you are using protomaps.js! I recently found
| their blog and really like the ideas in there:
| https://protomaps.com/blog
| nittanymount wrote:
| seems it is based on mapbox, someone posted a map link
| there...
| okok3857 wrote:
| Can people add their own layers, like a WMS overlay? and,
| relatedly, have you considered adding georeferenced historical
| map layers? It seems like a good platform for story-telling.
| an9n wrote:
| As someone with formal education plus getting on for 20 years
| in the field I've often wondered whether the software really
| needs to be so damned hard to use! I like the interface and I
| think nobody has yet conclusively cracked the problem of
| providing a super simple map creation app, so I wish you luck
| and think it looks interesting.
|
| I'm interested to know options for import and export of
| data/maps? Can data be sourced from a database? Also why should
| someone use Felt instead of AGOL, mapbox etc? And what support
| do you offer for open APIs e.g. OGC? What integration options
| do you offer e.g. API for scripting creation of maps - or are
| the maps always envisaged to be manually created?
| hinting wrote:
| it doesn't need to be so damn hard! we're big believers that
| basic mapping needs can be much much easier with great
| software.
|
| today you can import KML, KMZ, GPX, JSON & GeoJSON, and
| export in GeoJSON. we're expanding this to more formats in
| the near future.
|
| felt is best for folks who don't have deeper GIS backgrounds
| or programming backgrounds. it's easy to jump in and focus on
| your project without them!
|
| API will be coming down the road!
| cancan wrote:
| hey sam! i am the author of the post (and the cofounder here at
| felt), alongside hinting -- happy to answer of the questions
| also
| tomarr wrote:
| Hey
|
| I tried Felt and it looked good. However for me the marker /
| polygon moved significantly with different zoom levels which
| is a fairly big issue. This was in 54,-1 area (lat/lng) - I
| don't know if it could be as simple as different coordinate
| systems on markers vs mapping?
| bostonvaulter2 wrote:
| (Felt engineer here) That does sounds like a big issue! Are
| you able to reproduce the marker or polygon moving based on
| zoom levels? I tried for a bit and I wasn't able to
| reproduce this. How are you changing the map zoom?
| tomarr wrote:
| Emailed
| frzen wrote:
| Would be cool to have it like geolayers 3 meets Google earth
| studio, with added collaborative map editing and be able to
| export nice animations
|
| I'm sure there are a lot of people who could be making
| interesting map videos / news / explainers who don't already have
| geolayers3, and who don't want to pay a mapbox sub on top of
| Adobe CC. Or people who have the After effects skills could
| benefit from other experts updating their maps content while they
| work on the animation.
|
| I make map animations from time to time at work for news and I
| spend a decent amount of time wrestling with overpass turbo to
| export features to overlay in Google earth studio as a kml.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Esri, the leader in corporate/enterprise/government map-making
| (GIS), recently launched its first direct-to-consumer product,
| StoryMaps. It fits a slightly different use case from Felt - it
| is oriented to storytelling - but in some ways it is solving a
| similar problem.
|
| https://storymaps.com/
|
| For people willing to sign up for a personal use subscription
| (too difficult and not marketed to consumers, unfortunately),
| ArcGIS Online makes it easy to make really powerful maps, far
| beyond what Felt offers, for those interested. Newer things like
| blending modes are making the design aspect of map making a lot
| more accessible.
|
| Video for those interested in what "more powerful than Felt"
| looks like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0XI-J8XUNeU
|
| And for developers, you can try out the samples to see what the
| tech can do and the code to do it. The flow renderer is one of
| the newer flashier features:
| https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/...
| This shows how its done in code, but the public API underpins the
| Web Map Viewer, which exposes a UI for most of it.
| cancan wrote:
| Would it be worth mentioning here that you work for Esri?
|
| disclaimer: i'm the co-founder at felt.
| tech_tuna wrote:
| Everything is hard. Names and naming things. Currency. Time.
| Passwords. Authentication. Error handling. Concurrency.
|
| Every. Thing.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| This looks good. I will check it out this afternoon. I can see
| several use cases for it.
|
| The best ever mapping software for personal use was Microsoft's
| Streets and Trips. buy a license and use it forever. Too bad they
| killed it off so you no longer can get updated roads and maps.
|
| It had every feature that one could need to facilitate
| navigation. I keep an old laptop with WinXP around so I can do
| trip planning even today. It made the whole method of defining
| individual legs of a trip simple so that one could adjust things
| on the fly if you made it to one destination and discovered a lot
| of other interesting things to do or see. You could brainstorm
| different side trips in a few minutes. You could even print point
| to point maps.
|
| I love that software. I really love any software that I can buy
| for one price and use forever. I am not a SaaS fan though that is
| where everyone is going. Sad.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| It's astonishing that there were things which existed decades
| ago with only inferior substitutes today. Ms Streets and Trips
| had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to; and
| same of course goes for Encarta. It seems a no brainer
| something like that shoild exist for tablets - but it doesn't.
| The myriad data and graphs you could overlay and chart on maps
| was wonderful.
| koenigdavidmj wrote:
| Furkot.com should get you a lot of what you want here, except
| obviously not offline.
| guessbest wrote:
| I used to use the Delorme 2007-9 maps application with a
| windows xp tablet pc (2005) and it compared favorably to MS
| Streets.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Delorme-Street-Atlas-2008-Version/dp/...
|
| I still have the tablet pc, but don't have a usb gps that works
| with it unfortunately.
| phabricator wrote:
| This is an advertisement, I was hoping it would be about
| cartography. I don't mind plugging your product at the end but
| "Why are maps so hard to make?" is never answered.
|
| > creating and collaborating a map today is not much easier than
| it was in the 90s
|
| Yes, yes it is. It is MUCH easier. This product looks nice but
| there's no insight here.
| [deleted]
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