Announcing Leaflet: a Modern Open Source JavaScript Library for Interactive Maps

Announcing Leaflet: a Modern Open Source JavaScript Library for Interactive Maps

Web Maps API — our JavaScript library for putting CloudMade maps online — has been a hugely popular tool that has enabled web developers to create unique map experiences like these.  Web Maps API v2 has served our users very well, being praised for its performance and ease of use. But there’s a problem: it wasn’t designed with mobile devices in mind. Last years there was an overwhelming progress in what mobile browsers are capable of thanks to technologies like HTML5. What if online maps could work as smoothly as native apps on mobile?

There’s one more thing to consider: CloudMade developer community has a lot of talented people in it that could help with the development of the library, but so far Web Maps API was not a part of our open source efforts.

Today we’re announcing the first public release of Leaflet — a new open source JavaScript library for interactive maps for both mobile and desktop browsers, developed by CloudMade to form the core of its next generation Web Maps API.

Leaflet is built from the ground up to work efficiently and smoothly on both platforms. It’s very fast, lightweight while still having a strong browser support, and really easy to use. It also has a clean, simple and readable OOP-based code, and it’s hosted on the world’s best open source collaboration platform — GitHub, so contributing is a snap.

It’s still in the beta stage of development, so it lacks a couple of features and has some rough edges, but it’s moving fast — try it and give us some feedback, either by tweeting to @LeafletJS or reporting bugs and discussing features on the issues page.

Find out more on the Leaflet official website.

May 13th, 2011 - Posted by in developers, geodata, maps, tools | | 0 Comments

App Gallery Update: featuring new cool apps and presenting more categories

App Gallery Update: featuring new cool apps and presenting more categories

Another update of our App Gallery brings some new  examples of impressive CloudMade-powered apps and shows how location continues to enhance user experiences for web and mobile services. The range of applications presented in our app gallery is becoming really wide, and it now includes such categories as Navigation, Travel, Business, Reference, Healthcare and Fitness, Utilities, Entertainment and Productivity. Here you can see some newly added apps that we’ve found especially interesting.

Fahrtenbuch is a must-have app for anyone who needs to track mileage for tax deduction or reimbursement. This app is the #1 choice “driver’s log” in Germany, and it is the first one to have full iCal integration. CloudMade Geocoding and Routing services have been used in it.

Choosing a restaurant or a bar for the evening? Drinktown will help you to make that choice by telling you about all the food and drink specials near you. The website is updated daily by tens of thousands of members, and it is very easy to use since it allows you to sort data by day of the week, special type or just browse the beautifully styled map to find nearby deals.

With the Next Time iPhone app using reminders has become extremely efficient, since it now takes into account your location. You can create a list of locations and set reminders for those. Next Time will run in the background to alert you of your reminders the next time you’re at the location. The app is using CloudMade Geocoding and Map Tiles.

TrackMyJourney-Mobile is a multi-function recreational navigation and mapping application for Java/J2ME and BlackBerry phones. It receives its location coordinates by communicating via Bluetooth with a separate GPS receiver, or via the phones internal GPS if supported. The data is then sent to TrackMyJourney website where you can then share your location and recorded tracks with your friends. The app uses CloudMade Geocoding, Map Tiles, Routing, StyleEditor and Web Maps API.

French cycling fans might get interested in Geovelo – a cycling route planner that uses OpenStreetMap data and takes into account not only distance, but also safety. Geovelo maps created with CloudMade Style Editor perfectly complement the impressive design of the website.

You can see more location based apps that use CloudMade services in our App Gallery. If you are interested in trying out those free tools and APIs  yourself, sign up to our Developer Zone.  And maybe your outstanding app will be among thoses featured in our App Gallery soon!

November 17th, 2010 - Posted by in Featured Apps, Uncategorized, cloudmade, iPhone, news, style editor, tools | | 0 Comments

More examples of CloudMade-powered apps, more great ways to use location

More examples of CloudMade-powered apps, more great ways to use location

Our app gallery is growing fast, and with every new addition it’s clear that combining  CloudMade’s tools and services with great ideas and skills from developers results in some extremely powerful, compelling products. Take a look at some of  the latest updates to our gallery below:

Galileo Offline Maps is a mobile app that can be used on a daily basis or while traveling. This app allows users to import maps from a computer to an iPhone or iPad and then view them in offline mode. Being able to choose from five attractive CloudMade map styles makes the use of the app a real pleasure. CloudMade tools used to create this app include Geocoding, Routing and Style Editor.

“CloudMade provides plenty of stylish and good-looking map styles which please even the most fastidious users.” – Evgen Bodunov, galileo-app.com

Travelers who own Macs should be really excited about Knapsack 2 app. This new version of Outer Level’s personal travel planner, built with our Geocoding and Web Maps Studio, adds interactive maps with street level detail and world-wide search. Knapsack allows you to lay out your travel plans, destinations, activities, and can be even used as a trip journal.

“Our customers wanted a searchable world map with street level detail and CloudMade was the perfect solution.” – Jon Trainer, Knapsack

iGMap proves that products created with CloudMade tools are not only really cool, but can also meet the most diverse needs. iGMap iPhone app is a virtual GPS designed for use with the desktop flight simulators. It provides a wireless hand-held moving map display to aid navigation, especially useful on VFR flights, while saving valuable screen real-estate on the desktop, and uses iOS devices to display the current position of the aircraft. The app was built with CloudMade’s StyleEditor and Web Maps API.

“CloudMade services allow a small company to deliver cutting edge mapping solutions while targeting a niche market – without the prohibitive cost.” – Fermin Fernandez, FSWidgets

Thanks to developers of Map My Tracks, outdoor sports and fitness enthusiasts have their own social network now. With this website they can easily track, review & share outdoor activities with friends & family. Map My Tracks provides a comprehensive range of tools to help better understand how your training session went and keep a central log of all your outdoor activities.

“The flexibility of CloudMade’s API mean that we can always deliver the maps we want.” – Nick Tatt, Map My Tracks

If you like Map My Tracks and plan to use it, you should really consider complementing it with this OutFront app. Not only will this app allow you to measure speed, pace, calories burned, duration, elevation gain/loss and much more for each activity you do, but it will also give you an an easy way to share information about your outdoor activities live on Map My  Tracks, Facebook or Twitter. CloudMade Map Tiles, Static Maps and iPhone SDK were used to create this app.

“Using CloudMade’s iPhone SDK made it super easy to add maps to our iPhone app. That, and reliability make CloudMade our first choice map provider.” - Nick Tatt, Map My Tracks

Cycling fans will enjoy using Bike Hub, also  called a ’satnav for cyclists’. It displays clever short-cuts and bicycle-friendly routes on OpenCycleMap, cutting journey times for many users. The feature I really like is ‘bike shop finder – a simple button that can call up UK bike shops within a six mile radius of an iPhone.  Map Tiles and iPhone SDK are CloudMade tools used in this app.

“Cloudmade API provides the slippy maps within the app and helps to fast-track the development of all the map interactions that users have.” – Carlton Reid, BikeHub.co.uk

Want to see more CloudMade-powered apps?  Check out our Application Gallery.

Inspired by these cool examples and feel that you could create something great yourself? Sign up to our developer zone and try out our free tools and services.

November 2nd, 2010 - Posted by in Featured Apps, api, cloudmade, developers, iPhone, style editor, tools | | 0 Comments

New geocoding engine delivers results up to 24 times faster

While no one was watching, we deployed the latest version of our geocoding engine. The key objective for this release has been performance and stability, and I am sure it is immediately noticeable. Benchmarking based on actual user queries have shown that it is up to 24 times faster than the previous implementation for certain classes of requests. Even for simple, one-word queries, it is up to three times faster.

Along with the new engine, we are introducing new Geocoding API V2. In an effort to simplify usage, we have reduced the number of methods from eleven to only one, without sacrificing a single bit of its flexibility. Take a look here to read about the new (easy) query syntax. The old API? It, too, uses the new engine to deliver faster results, but we do encourage everyone to switch to the new API as soon as you have a chance to.

In the meantime, we are already working on the next release. The main focus will be relevancy and better parsing of freeform queries. Stay tuned!

October 8th, 2009 - Posted by in api, cloudmade, iPhone, tools | | 2 Comments

Your Future is Customized – State of the Map Presentation from CloudMade

In July this year, 250 of the leading lights in community mapping and geo application development gathered in Amsterdam for the annual OpenStreetMap Foundation conference The State of the Map. Video and audio recordings form the three day conference are being processed one by one by a dedicated team of volunteers who recently published the video of Nick Black’s talk: “Your Future is Customized”.

The talk asks why most current users of geodata experience maps through one of two ways: in car sat navs, or online mapping portals and looks towards a future of app stores, specialized map data and geo applications that match the exact needs of consumers.

Enable your applications with CloudMade – Nick Black (CloudMade) from State of the Map 2009 on Vimeo.

Follow along with the slides from the presentation:

August 28th, 2009 - Posted by in api, cloudmade, developers, geodata, openstreetmap, products, tools | | 1 Comments

CloudMade partners release new mobile libraries

Great news!

Our trusted partners CartoType and Nutiteq have created new mobile & desktop libraries, which you can check out here.  These new libraries support the latest CloudMade mapping services including raster and vector maps:

Raster Libraries

• Java Micro Edition J2ME (updated)
• Blackberry (new)
• Android (new)

Vector Libraries

• Windows Mobile (new)
• Symbian (new)
• Windows Desktop (new)

Nutiteq have long been a trusted CloudMade partner providing mobile libraries.  They have now added CloudMade support for two leading mobile platforms -  Blackberry and Android.  Blackberry commands a high worldwide market share for smart phones and is the leading platform for email and enterprise.  Google’s Android has set a new bar for open source mobile OSes, and we expect a number of new handsets to come to market during the remainder of this year.  Both libraries give access to a full range of CloudMade services including custom image tiles, geosearch and routing.

CartoType have been experimenting with CloudMade’s alpha Vector Server which can stream map data to any connected device where it can be rendered on the fly. Per Nick’s previous post, there are a lot of new features planned for CloudMade’s vector server – including multiple outputs formats (XML, JSON, OSM) and a fully featured API that will let you select which parts of the map data are returned to the client. CartoType have been gracious in releasing their libraries to our developer community at an early stage.

We’re excited to hear feedback from our developer community on these new libraries.  We’d like to thank CartoType and Nutiteq for their support!

July 29th, 2009 - Posted by Cragg Nilson in clients, cloudmade, developers, tools | | 1 Comments

Mapzen: An easy to use editor for OpenStreetMap

At the recent State of the Map conference we unveiled our plans for an OpenStreetMap editor: Mapzen. Mapzen is a web based map editing tool that will make it far easier for new-commers to OpenStreetMap to get started editing and creating maps. Lets take a look at some of Mapzen’s features:

In Application Tutorials

No one likes searching wikis and web pages to learn how to use a tool. With Mapzen, you learn as you map. In application tutorials teach you to map, step by step.

Graphical Menus

Many new mappers are confused by the large number of different road, track and point of interest types. Mapzen has an intuitive graphical menu, letting you pick out different features to add to the map.

Context Sensitive Menus

After choosing which object you want to add to the map, the next hurdle is knowing which attributes to add. Mapzen’s context sensitive menu prompts you to add only the attributes that are needed for a particular object.

Specialized Junction Editing

Modeling complex junctions, with one-ways and turn restrictions can be difficult, with so many tags and relations to keep track of. Mapzen gives mappers a graphical interface that makes modeling junctions quick and fun.

Find Out More

Mapzen is currently under active development. We’re going to be carrying out user testing over the summer – if you’d like to take part, please mail mapzen@cloudmade.com.

Mapzen is open source (GPLv2) – if you are a developer, you can get hold of the source from here (right click in the window).

If you have any feature requests, or would like any more information, please send us a mail.

July 22nd, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in openstreetmap, products, tools | | 15 Comments

CloudMade releases Style Editor 1.1

Great news for Style Editor users: we’ve launched an updated version of Style Editor (v1.1) that makes discovering, sharing and creating new map styles even easier!

Style Editor is CloudMade’s online cartography tool for creating customized map styles.  Application developers can use Style Editor to quickly create their own map styles that give applications a unique look & feel.  Style Editor gives you complete control over which objects are displayed on the map, and how they will appear on your map at each zoom level.  Developers use CloudMade’s Style Editor to design customized maps built for a particular use.   For example, if you were building a cycling application that helps users get from point A to point B by bicycle, you’d want to highlight the cycle paths and roads better suited for cyclists while de-emphasising main roads and motorways.

Style Editor now has a style gallery for discovering new map styles

The most important improvements in Style Editor 1.1 is the addition of the style gallery.  Style gallery will allow you to quickly discover public map styles created by CloudMade and our community.  Style Editor also allows for private styles available only to the author, which you can view by pressing the My Styles tab on the Style Editor toolbar.  By default the map styles are sorted by popularity.  You may also chose to look for CloudMade styles which were created by professional cartographers including some by Stamen Design by clicking on the CloudMade tab.  Or you can browse the featured styles (Featured tab) which showcase a mix of CloudMade and community styles that our cartographers deem fantanstic!

The Style Editor tool bar allows for quick discovery of public maps styles for editing or direct use

Another cool new feature in style gallery is the ability to sort map styles based on color.  To the top of the Style Editor toolbar is a Color Filter control.  This control will filter map styles in the gallery based on where you drag the Color Filter bar.  The default setting on the far left shows all colors.  By dragging the Color Bar towards the right, you can select only the map styles with a particular shade of yellow, for example.  In this way you can find map styles that suit the look and feel of your website or application.  Don’t forget to reset the Color Bar back to the far left when your done so that you can see all the styles again.

Each map style in the style gallery shows the style name, author and style ID.  The style ID comes in handy when coding with CloudMade’s API libraries.  You can quickly change the Style ID and see a completely different map in your app!  The search bar in the far right of the tool bar allows for style searches based on style name, author or style ID.

The last new feature we wanted to talk about is the Style RSS feed.  You can now subscribe to all new style updates via RSS.  This is a super easy way to get all the latest updates to Style Gallery via RSS.  You can subscribe here.

Style Editor is open to the public and available to use as a free service here.   So go ahead and start creating your own new map styles and publish them to Style Gallery so the world can see and use them!

Style Editor Team @CloudMade

Creating new map styles is simple with CloudMade's Style Editor

July 16th, 2009 - Posted by Cragg Nilson in cartography, cloudmade, developers, maps, openstreetmap, style editor, tips, tools | | 1 Comments

iPhone Developer VIP Party – June 10th 9.30pm San Francisco

Tonight CloudMade is excited to sponsor the iPhone Developer VIP Party at Swig bar in San Francisco.  Doors open at 9.30 and we expect a full house!

CloudMade has been active at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference this week, engaging with iPhone developers who are creating the next great mapping and location-aware applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.   Tonight we’re looking forward to talking with many of you one-on-one to discuss your vision on the future of location-aware apps.  We also want to find out what features you’d like to see on the iPhone, web and other mobile platforms.  Over a Maptini, of course!

Starting with our rich, crowd-sourced maps, CloudMade gives iPhone developers an easier way to build more immersive mapping applications than Apple’s MapKit.   Developers will find our suite of iPhone supported Libraries gives you easy access to CloudMade services while supporting a number of unique features like vector data and MapSafe location management service.  CloudMade’s non-restrictive licensing even allows for advanced services such as routing, geocoding or tracking functionality – without having to call a lawyer or break the bank.

So if you’re a developer looking for better ways to incorporate maps and location into your app, sign up for a API key at CloudMade’s Developer Zone and get started today.  Adding customized CloudMade maps will delight your users and make your app stand-out from the crowd!

For mapping success on the iPhone and iPod Touch, just add:

• Crowd-Sourced Maps
• CloudMade Geo APIs
• Your Cool Application

June 10th, 2009 - Posted by Cragg Nilson in Uncategorized, api, cloudmade, developers, events, maps, openstreetmap, tools | | 1 Comments

Three New Style Editor Basemaps

Nick blogged previously regarding three of our signature map styles – “Pale Dawn“, “Midnight Commander” and “Fresh” – that we launched along with our Developer Programme last month. Today we’re pleased to announce that all three styles are now available for customization in our Style Editor.

Our Style Editor lets you tweak, change and configure the cartography of our maps to suit your needs. Perhaps you, as I do, love the Pale Dawn style as originally created by Stamen Design, but want to see if it looks better with a bit more emphasis on parks and public transport? So I fired up the Style Editor, and a few clicks later had this attempt – “Fair Sunrise”:

We’re always interested in what creative things you can make with our tools, so if you’ve made a style that you’re proud of please share a link in our comments. I’ll let you decide for yourself whether you think “Fair Sunrise” is an improvement!

March 26th, 2009 - Posted by Andy Allan in api, cloudmade, developers, products, tools | | 2 Comments