I so want to try out MapBox’s offerings. They provide geospatial datasets as Amazon EBS volumes that you can mount on EC2, an awesome way to source free data for access in your applications. They currently have snapshots of the OpenStreetMap Planet database, US Census TIGER/line data, and NASA’s CGIAR Worldwide DEM.
Even though mapping toolkits like Mapnik, Tilecache, and OpenLayers are getting extremely good, tools like what MapBox provides make it easier to jump into providing your own custom maps and data for mapping apps, instead of relying on Google or Yahoo to handle everything for you. Nothing’s wrong with using those commercial APIs for basemaps, but for certain applications, it makes lots of sense to have more control over your cartographic style.
GeoPlanet Explorer, a tool for browsing the Yahoo! geolocation hierarchical database, GeoPlanet.
The tool queries Yahoo’s GeoPlanet API for a WOEID of a “place,” which is Yahoo’s clever method of uniquely identifying any “location of interest” in the world, with something more loose yet more descriptive than just a lat/long. Passing a WOEID to the API returns lists of locations spatially-related to your search, like parent/child/sibling places and historical “ancestor” records.
The developer used YQL, YUI, and Yahoo Maps to put it all together. Check out the source code on Github for the full experience.
After a couple of map related posts, I found this video of the new stuff Microsoft’s doing with Bing Maps. It looks like the Live Labs guys have even integrated Photosynth photos into the Streetside interface. really dig the seamless display of constellations when you pan up to the sky.
The Maps team is on a roll lately. They just opened up Google Maps Labs today, unlocking new features I’ve been wondering about for a long time (drag ‘n zoom!).
There are a couple new “power user” features that’ll be useful to me, like the lat/long display tooltip, aerial oblique imagery, and the lat/long marker drop feature.
A NYT visualization of most-queued films by US zip code. A cool example of what can be done with 100% free data. The queue data is accessible through Netflix’s API and zip code boundaries from the US Census.
Google has released a fancy new online drawing tool for digitizing in 3D buildings for Google Earth.
You pick from a preset group of locations and it loads in oblique aerial photos (so you can see the shapes of the buildings and pull their 2D footprints into three dimensions.
Cartagen is a framework for adding rich styles to map data, to produce better cartographics.
You utilize the GSS (geographic style sheet) spec to style map elements from OpenStreetMap data.
Brady Forrest on the iPhone’s new features for GIS developers.
“North Korea Uncovered” is a project by a Ph.D. student from George Mason University named Curtis Melvin. The objective is to map as many “unknown” points of interest in the super-secretive DPRK as possible, from data gathered on his trips to the country as well as information from other “local spies.” All sorts of infrastructure and military data is mapped, including mines, dams, missile facilities, military bases, prisons, and burial mounds. It’s a huge and fascinating dataset.
Download the Google Earth point data layer here.
(gadling)
A satellite image of Amsterdam Island making waves in the passing clouds.
Taken by NASA’s Terra satellite in 2005.
(via)
Google Sky is the newest Ajax map viewer from Google (following Google Maps, Google Moon, and Google Mars).
Rock on, Google. Us GIS peeps are lovin’ the products. My Maps makes my life easier every day.
Google is producing a map showing results from the New Hampshire primary with their “My Maps” feature. They’ve already done one for the Iowa Caucus.
