A Summary of the Future of Mapping
A Summary of the Future of Mapping
Over the last few days we’ve launched the CloudMade Developer Programme in front of packed audiences in San Francisco and London. There was a real buzz at both events – a feeling that the tools and services we’ve been working on are going to make a real difference to developers.
There’s a lot of anticipation at CloudMade about the applications that can be built using our mapping APIs. If you’re looking for inspiration, you need a quick recap, or you couldn’t make it to the events, read on to find out more.
The OpenStreetMap Story
OpenStreetMap is a global movement of more than 90,000 volunteer mappers who are re-mapping the world. The project was started by CloudMade co-Founder Steve Coast in 2004. Like many great inventions, the idea of OpenStreetMap grew from Steve’s personal desire to have a detailed map of his local area that he could use in any way. He wanted a map he could hack on, so he started making his own map and quickly realized that a community of volunteer mappers could create a map that was far richer and far more relevant to people’s needs than maps created by traditional mapping companies.
Fast-forward to 2009 and OpenStreetMap has become an unstoppable force – with a quickly growing community of mappers who are creating the richest, most detailed, global dataset that world has ever seen.
CloudMade’s developer tools make it easy for developers to build location based applications that harness that rich, detailed, global dataset.
This video, recorded at our London launch event tells you more about OpenStreetMap’s past, present and future:
Turning frustration into action
Just as OpenStreetMap grew out of Steve’s frustrations with the lack of maps for his area, CloudMade grew out of our frustration with the tools that were available for developers building location based applications.
As we talked to more and more people who were also building location based applications, we kept hearing the same things. The frustrations boiled down to these three things that we couldn’t do with online maps:
- Customize the map for a specific application
- Create rich, interactive user experiences
- Use the same maps and mapping services on web and mobile
Beating Google Maps Fatigue
Lots of people we talked to were also getting fed up of the default Google map styles that most online applications use. We wanted to give developers more choice of map styles, so, under the direction of our Tech Lead and OpenCycleMap.org creator – Andy Allan, we set about creating three new styles.
"The Original" is ideally suited to general purpose web applications.
"Fine Line" is a great style to use on mobile devices where its bold coloring and clear labeling make it ideally suited for devices with small screens.
"Tourist" is the style to use in travel related applications like city guides, hotel lists or trip planners.
To give developers even more choice, we teamed up with Stamen Design to create these fantastic three styles:
"Fresh" is a great multipurpose web style that really draws out the richness of the map without overwhelming users.
"Pale Dawn" makes overlaid data, rather than the map itself, the feature.
"Midnight Commander" is a stunning map style that draws on themes of sci-fi and comic books to create a truly unique experience
We wanted to go even further than these six new map styles. We wanted to allow you to customize the map to make it perfectly fit your brand.
Imagine the power of a map that is customized – both in the features it shows and in the way it represents them – to your application. The Style Editor is an online tool that lets you create uniquely customized map styles.
This short video shows how you can use the Style Editor to create a map that communicates your brand and fits in perfectly with your application’s design.
You can find out more about how the Style Editor helps you create a unique map based experience over here.
Building Innovative Applications with CloudMade’s Tools
To help you get more out of map data, we’ve developed a set of core APIs that let you interact with a rich map database. Just a few weeks ago, we gave some of our Alpha testing partners access to early versions of our APIs. The applications they built range from social networks to real estate search to vehicle navigation to fleet and asset tracking.
To give you a taster of the kind of applications you can build with our APIs, here is a very quick summary.
Your Location History Online with MapMe.at
MapMe.at provides a beautifully customized experience for its users by using the Style Editor along with the Web Maps Lite Javascript library. You can find out more about MapMe.at here.
Turn-by-Turn Vehicle Navigation on a Mobile Phone
TrackMyJourney users can now receive real time turn-by-turn navigation on their mobile phones. This fantastic application uses CloudMade’s routing and custom image tile APIs to bring sat-nav style directions to mobile phones. You can find out more here.
Find the Perfect Property with Where-Can-I-Live.com
Search for your next property based on walking or cycling time and view the results on a clutter free map. Where-can-i-live.com uses CloudMade’s pedestrian and cycle routing API along with customized maps created using the Style Editor and Nestoria’s property price API to give their users a unique view of real estate.
A Flash Mapping API from Advanced Flash Components
Flash developers can access CloudMade’s powerful services in a familiar environment using Advanced Flash Components’ easy to use Flash mapping API. You can find out more details here.
Geographic Analysis Made Easy and Fun with GeoCommons
Geographic data analysis answers a lot of big questions about the world we live in. Up to now it has been the preserve of highly trained professionals using expensive and complex software. GeoCommons are changing all of that. Their easy to use online tools like Finder and Maker are bringing powerful geographic analysis to internet users everywhere.
Take a look at the screencast below to find out more about how GeoCommons used CloudMade’s Style Editor to enhance the experience of users of their leading products.
Commercial Fleet Tracking from Nutiteq
Commercial fleet tracking is big business and with GPS chips being rapidly integrated into phones and other consumer electronics, you can bet that consumer tracking is going to take off in 2009. Nutiteq are at the fore-front of this exciting market, developing a range of end-user and SDK based solutions that let you build advanced tracking and fleet management applications across J2ME, iPhone and Android devices. They’ve been quick to integrate CloudMade’s customized tiles, routing and geocoding services into their APIs, making them the ideal choice for J2ME developers who want to build rich mobile applications without re-inventing the wheel.
Get Started Today!
If this has whetted your appetite for creating awesome location based applications, head over to our Developer Zone. You’ll find code samples, step-by-step tutorials as well as more real-world examples of our APIs in action. You’ll also find libraries in many popular programming languages including Ruby, Python, Java, J2ME, Flash and iPhone Objective-C, that will help you get up and running in no time. Find out more here.
A Summary of the Future of MappingFebruary 16th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in api, clients, cloudmade, developers, openstreetmap, products, talks | | 6 Comments
on February 17th, 2009 at 8:05 am
[...] CloudMade, a geospatial services provider that utilizes the open source map data from OpenStreetMap (OSM) (our OpenStreetMap API Profile), recently released a new CloudMade Platform that includes access to various mapping tools and APIs for geo developers including Geocoding and Geosearch, Location Management,Map Tiles, Routing, and Vector tiles (alpha). CloudMade says that the combination of the rapidly growing community sourced mapping data of OSM and their new APIs are the future of mapping. [...]
on February 18th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
[...] were so impressed with our integration of their services that they asked us to speak at their recent developer launch events. We decided to take that opportunity to make a few announcements that we hope you’ll be [...]
on March 26th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
[...] blogged previously regarding three of our signature map styles – “Pale Dawn“, “Midnight [...]
on June 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
[...] minkä abstraktiotaso olisi liian matala hienojen karttojen tekemiseen. CloudMaden työkaluilla voi jonkin verran tuunata karttojen ulkoasua, mutta oikeastaan haluaisin tehdä vielä jotain selvästi rikkaampaa. Toinen vaihtoehto olisi [...]
on July 14th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
[...] month Cloudmade launched it’s Developers Programme. Sourced from OpenStreetMap data, Cloudmade provides tools and APIs that allow developers to make [...]
on July 16th, 2010 at 2:32 am
[...] stuff at the CloudMade launch the other day in Holborn. CloudMade are a commercial entity set up by OpenStreetMap founder Steve [...]