Category: Web Mapping

USGS Announces New National Geologic Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
A screenshot of the Cooperative National Geologic Map (USGS).
USGS (screenshot)

The USGS announced a new, more detailed national geologic map last week.

The new USGS map, called The Cooperative National Geologic Map, was created using more than 100 preexisting geologic maps from various sources and is the first nationwide map to provide users with access to multiple layers of geologic data for one location. This feature allows users to access the multiple data sources included in the map to look at or beneath the surface to understand the ancient history of the nation recorded in rocks. 

Of note: the USGS cites automated processes to speed up the integration of data from its various sources (e.g., state geologic surveys), resulting in a new map after only three years of development.

Exploring the History of Geospatial Software

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Ingrid Burrington is working on a PhD dissertation on the history of geospatial software and she’s posting through it. Two gems I’ve run across so far:

  • (How) do computer maps make money? “The first thing that seems important to state upfront, even though it seems obvious: the business of maps is almost entirely business-to-business, not business-to-consumer. Even if a digital map or geospatial product is consumer-facing, most of the money changing hands doesn’t happen at the level of the individual looking at a map.”
  • Notes on the history of the map tile. “Crediting the brothers Rasmussen and Google Maps with the map tile is sort of like crediting Steve Jobs and Apple for the smart phone: understandable but formally imprecise. Both are examples of a company taking technologies and user experiences that had been speculated on or experimented with and transforming them into the seemingly obvious, inevitable Way Things Are Done.”

When we talk about the history of cartography (and when I deploy the history of cartography tag) we usually think of something older than the goings-on in Silicon Valley a few decades ago: al-Idrisi and Mercator, not Dangermond or Tomlinson. But recent history is still history.

Unauthorized Waffle House Index Disaster Maps Taken Down

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Waffle House Index is an informal metric used to assess the severity of a storm in the U.S. South, because Waffle House restaurants don’t close unless Things Are Very Bad. But when Jack LaFond scraped Waffle House’s website to build a map tracking restaurant closures last fall, he got a cease-and-desist from Waffle House over trademark issues. It got resolved more-or-less amiably in the end, but the website stayed down all the same. A different map, Riley Walz’s Waffle House Index map, which I covered last fall, also appears to be offline now, for what I presume are the same reasons.

Google Maps at 20

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Google Maps launched 20 years ago today. Here’s what I posted at the time:

First impressions. This is frigging amazing, with smooth scrolling and zooming: you’re not constantly reloading pages like in MapQuest. Huge mapping surface. And drop shadows. […] I’m impressed by the detail. They’ve got my area, which is kind of a rural backwater: they’ve got the roads all named, but strangely not the towns. Oh well, data’s rarely perfect—especially when it’s just a beta launch. And for a beta this is awfully impressive.

A flurry of additional announcements followed in quick sucession: the launch of Google Earth, the Maps API that enabled people to build their own maps on top of Google’s interface. The mid-2000s were a busy time for online maps, let me tell you. I had so much to keep up with.

The development and origins of Google Maps, and Google Earth, are the subject of the latest and timely installment of James Killick’s “12 Map Happenings that Rocked Our World.” It seems that the Maps side of things was largely about providing Google search results through a map interface, and when you look at Google’s post commemorating the 20th anniversary, which highlights 20 features of Google Maps, it’s clear how expansive that idea has become.

James also makes reference to a book I somehow completely missed when it came out: Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality, an insider history by Google project manager Bill Kilday. (Harper Business, 2018). Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.

OpenStreetMap Is 20 Years Old

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

OpenStreetMap is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. It was originally created in response to restrictive Ordnance Survey licensing in the U.K., in a context that seems unrecognizable today. Founder Steve Coast writes about the anniversary (mirror link). “Allowing volunteers to edit a map in 2004 was simply anathema and bordering on unthinkable. Map data was supposed to be controlled, authorized and carefully managed by a priesthood of managers.”

Remembering MapQuest

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The tenth installment of James Killick’s “12 Map Happenings that Rocked our World” series focuses on a company James actually worked at: MapQuest, which grew very, very rapidly between its launch in 1996 (James outlines its antecedents) to its IPO and acquisition by AOL a few years later. And then:

The new management seemed to have very little interest in anything to do with MapQuest, particularly as it related to product road map and strategy. And with the layoffs and hiring freeze there weren’t enough resources to do anything substantial even if there was a good plan.

I tried to make matters clear and pleaded with the powers that be: MapQuest was a site built on map data but it didn’t make maps. In fact 98% of the map data was licensed from third parties. I knew MapQuest had to build a moat around the product otherwise someone else could swoop in, license the same data and build a better product.

And you won’t win any prizes for guessing who did.

Previously: Remember MapQuest?

Apple Maps on the Web

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Apple announced yesterday that Apple Maps is now available on the web as a public beta. Prior to this it was mostly available through its iOS, iPad and Mac apps, except that developers have been able to embed Apple’s maps on their websites through the MapKit JS API for several years now. Those embedded maps can now point to the web version, “so their users can get driving directions, see detailed place information, and more.” Limited browser and language support for the time being.

Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Indigenous Services Canada (screenshot)

The Canadian government has launched an interactive map of former Indian residential schools. “The Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map allows users to visualize the location of the 140 former residential school sites recognized in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement as well as provide information on the current status and historical context of the site. The map has a search, filter, measurement and imagery slider to help users with analysis.” The map makes use of historical aerial photography to pinpoint the locations of schools that are no longer standing; many of the sites have since been redeveloped.

The purpose of the map is grim: to determine the potential locations of additional school gravesites. Generations of Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada: many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and thousands died of disease or neglect. In the past few years, unmarked graves have been found at several residential school sites across Canada, and searches are under way at many others. This map makes available to searchers imagery that was otherwise difficult to access. (The imagery is also available as a dataset.) More at the CBC News story.

OpenStreetMap Is Dealing with Some Vandalism

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

It seems OpenStreetMap has had to deal with a wave of vandalism attacks lately. If you see some nonsense on OSM, this post on their community forum outlines what to do about it (it may have already been taken care of even if it’s still appearing, so check for that; also, don’t post screencaps, because propagating the nonsense is what the vandals want). The OSM ops team provided this update on Mastodon today: “OpenStreetMap is now stronger with improved monitoring, automatic blocking, and respectful limits on new accounts. The default osm.org map is now quicker at fixing large-scale vandalism. Offline actions are also progressing.”

Online Maps Roundup: April 2024

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Custom route creation and topographic maps are rumored to be coming to Apple Maps in the next iOS release, iOS 18. Google Maps has had custom routes since approximately forever; on Apple Maps we’ve had to choose between Apple’s generated routes without being able to edit them.

Google Maps announced updates focusing on EVs (EV charger search, nearby chargers in the in-car map, suggested charging stops, forecast energy consumption) and sustainability (lower-carbon travel options rolling out in 15 cities, estimated flight emissions). Also, Street View came to Kazakhstan last month. Meanwhile, Ben Schoon at 9to5Google says that while Google Maps on Android Auto is “a pretty solid experience,” it’s a different matter when you use Google Maps via Apple CarPlay, an experience he calls “a bit of a dumpster fire.”

Google-owned Waze announced updates last month that include roundabout assistance and notifications for the presence of emergency vehicles, speed limit changes, and things like sharp curves, speed bumps and toll booths [TechCrunch].

Vector Tiles Are Coming to OpenStreetMap

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

On the OpenStreetMap blog, an announcement that vector tiles will be coming to OSM later this year. This is a significant, if belated technical change: other map platforms moved to vector mapping years ago (Google announced the change in 2013). But there are reasons for the delay:

Vector tiles have become industry standard in interactive maps that, unlike openstreetmap.org, don’t get updated often, and where you can simply recalculate your whole database occasionally.

But the map displayed on openstreetmap.org are quite uniquely different! They get updated incrementally and constantly, a minute after you edit; it’s a critical part of the feedback loop to mappers—and how the author of this blog post got hooked in the first place. This is why we have to invest in our own vector tile software stack.

The switch to vector tiles, the post goes on to say, will enable all sorts of dynamic changes to the map: “3d maps, more efficient data mixing and matching and integration of other datasets, thematic styles, multilingual maps, different views for administrative boundaries, interactive points of interest, more accessible maps for vision-impaired users, and I’m sure many other ideas that no one has come up with yet.”

Google Maps Is Adding Generative AI

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Uh-oh. Generative AI is coming to Google Maps. Google is using large-language models to give suggestions on where to go based on its vast horde of reviews, ratings and other contributor data. “Starting in the U.S., this early access experiment launches this week to select Local Guides, who are some of the most active and passionate members of the Maps community. Their insights and valuable feedback will help us shape this feature so we can bring it to everyone over time.” Other LLMs have a tendency to push out magnificently wrong answers; it’ll be interesting to see what results Google will get with this specific set of data. (The chances of spectacularity are not zero.)

Montreal’s Interactive Construction Site Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Montreal has launched an interactive map of its many, many construction sites. Per CBC News: “Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough Mayor Émilie Thuillier says the map will help Montrealers see in real time where a construction site is, what the reason for it is and what company is responsible for it. The map also tells users when the work began and when it’s scheduled to end.” Apparently there are problems with illegal construction barriers and abandoned traffic cones: if they’re not on the map, that will be a tell.