[HN Gopher] Why are maps so hard to make? ___________________________________________________________________ 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] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-03 23:00 UTC)