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Best Online Mapping Site?

Posted by timothy on from the interfacing-with-the-real-world dept.

bbulzibar asks: "I've been using MapQuest most of my life, but now as my mind is slowly expanding, I want to see if Yahoo! Maps is a better service for driving directions. According to one article I have read, Yahoo! is better at displaying maps, but what about calculating directions? Does anyone have any experience with differences? For example, Yahoo! and MapQuest give differing routes to go from Bloomington, IN to Madison, WI." I particularly like MapBlast's "Line Drive" direction style -- what's your favorite online mapping software?

14 of 603 comments (clear)

  1. Definitely MapQuest by sakeneko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've caught them in exactly two errors in four or five years of regular use. I'd gladly pay a monthly membership fee for them if they weren't a free service. (SHHHHH!!! Don't tell them.) ;>

    --

    Catherine

  2. Maps for walking routes? by bokelley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Something I have been looking for is a mapping site that will let me plot a route - say from 42nd and Madison to 14th and 6th - as I would walk it, not as a car would have to drive it (that is, ignore one way streets and such). Generally, because I want to find out how far I have to walk to get to a meeting or something.

    Extra credit would be if I could draw a diagonal line through a park (since I can cut through). Or if it estimated walking time the way it done driving time.

    Any ideas?

    --
    warning: epoll_wait is not implemented and will always fail
  3. Yahoo maps gives terrible directions. by stephen_pigg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From personal experience on the west coast and midwest, I can say that I will never use Yahoo maps again. The third time getting lost did it for me. Mapquest has not let me down yet.

  4. 3 Microsofts Mappoint...please do not kill me! by halo1982 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    yes this will probably get me flamed to hell...
    but i love microsoft's mappoint. it has pretty good maps and shows where theres construction on roads and the time periods the construction goes through. (i.e. there is construction for the next 20 miles on i-40 east from august 2, 2002 to october 4, 2004) and it has an easy to use interface, but i haven't tried it with anything but IE so it will probably kill mozilla or something.
    i've also used expedia.com which i have found to be horrible, and i used to use mapquest on a regular basis but that was before i found that it would get me lost when in town and then when it sent me 150 miles out of the way when going to toronto.
    wheee mappoint!

  5. Microsoft Streets and Trips by someguy456 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope I don't get modded down into oblivion, but I really like Microsoft Streets and Trips. I have the 2002 edition that came with Microsoft Works Suite. Online maps are slow (I'm on modem) and they don't feel right. I get the feeling that they are limited to certain rectangles. With S&T, I can get the feel for the whole map. I can scroll to the edges just as easy/fast as I would scroll on a web page or spreadsheet. From the routes I've gotten from around my area, I can't say either (Yahoo, MapQuest, S&T) is any better than the other. For example, they all insist on me taking highways, even if it takes longer to get there (yes, I know about scenic, shorter, faster,etc, but it didn't make much of a difference)

    --
    Robert Bindler
    A Computer Science student's views on technology.
    1. Re:Microsoft Streets and Trips by plankers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have a copy of S&T that came with Works, too (and for the other respondants, sometimes you get Works when you order PCs from Dell). :-) I started using it when MapQuest steered me into the wrong half of a medium-sized city and I had to stop and ask directions. I hate that.

      One nice thing about it is that you can take a laptop along and always be able to find your way. On trips if your navigator/passenger isn't totally brain dead you can use it to get around traffic jams, etc. in real time. It's also pretty sweet because you can highlight an area and tell S&T to avoid it when plotting the route. And it will take GPS data -- I love being able to see where I am on the map so I have some idea of where to turn.

      I just wish S&T would adjust the route dynamically as you went, if it had GPS data to use. That's one advantage of the Garmin dashboard units. If you overshoot a turn or something it will just guide you back around. It would also be cool if it spoke to you to tell you where to go.

  6. MSN! (asbestos undies on...) by frenchgates · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I love MSN best for maps because it is the only one I've found that lets me expand the map display to actually use the resolution of my monitor instead of scrolling the postage stamp map around.

    --
    Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
  7. Re:Some UK map sites by moreati · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you have a recent java installed, then map24 knocks the veritable socks off all the competition. It displays an interactive vector map, complete with smooth scrolling, zooming and mouse over feature description.

    The formatting of the route planning directions leaves a little to be desired, but that's the biggest fault I can think of. On the whole it compares favourably even to MS Autoroute - except it's free, always up to date and cross platform.

    If you don't have java it falls back to a static image.

    Regards

    Alex

  8. Another: mapsonus.com by bender647 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use http://www.mapsonus.com
    Can't say its better than the rest though.

  9. AAA takes road construction into account by vossman77 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Granted you have to be a member, but I've had the best luck with AAA TripTik. It tells you details on construction which can be very helpful especially in CT.

  10. Re:Sweet Spot by cavemanf16 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's because the mapping software can only distinguish down to the street level the approximate location of your house, I think. I do know that our software at work relies on 'Code 1' information when we mail out the stuff that we mail out, and without the full 11-digit zip code (that's right, 11 digits - the extra two digits at the very end indicate the exact location of the house, office, etc.) we have a harder time getting the stuff we mail to the correct place 100% of the time. And since we don't mail any kind of junk mail but rather sensitive info, it is VERY important that our mail goes to exactly the right place. I would think that might be quite a database hit to get it exact 100% of the time. More often than not, being on the right street is enough for a free service, if you think about it.

  11. Mapopolis on my Pilot by tbuskey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A whole county at a time is great for finding the backroads. I can zoom in and trace across towns, etc. It fits in my palm and doesn't cost much either. There are also free version with less detail.

  12. Re:Sweet Spot by bedessen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    WIth SVG maturing, I wonder when we're going to get maps that aren't these stupid images. I want a vector map that I can pan and zoom... but it should be smart enough to only download the data that it needs for any given display. And it should be smart enough to cull enough details when I zoom out that I can get a sufficient overview of the layout of a town without downloading e.g. every street name. I'd think this would eventually be easier on the back-end, as it wouldn't have to generate all those stupid images. Although, they're probably statically generated and so the back-end just fetches the corresponding grid location at the requested zoom level. But still, that sounds like a real nightmare to maintain.

    I'm guessing that we'll never really see what I described above, due to the fear of someone being able to steal all their precious cartographic data. With images, you'd have to have some pretty good algorithms if you wanted to reconstruct useful vector data. But if the whole thing is native vectors, the bad guy could conceivably steal the entire database (with some clever scripts) and setup their own business. I foresee some really stinky Adobe plug-in with horrible DRM... sigh.

  13. Another one: maptech.com by john_smith_45678 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I found www.maptech.com the other day. Looks pretty good, can be used as a web service too it appears.

    --
    John Kerry is a Joke!