Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The State of Mapping APIs, 5 Years On

Posted by timothy on from the where-are-you-now dept.

macslocum writes "Map APIs took off in 2005, and during the ensuing years the whole notion of maps has changed. Where once they were slick add-ons, map functionality is now a necessary — and expected — tool. In this piece, Adam DuVander looks at the current state of mapping and he explains how mobile devices, third-party services and ease of use are shaping the map development world."

9 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Google the first? Not really... by RobertM1968 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Google had the first mapping API and continues to keep its lead by adding useful new features. "

    I suspect the government and the various contractors and outside programmers who worked with them or with their data had the first mapping API. It was used for the TigerLINE data that all the rest of this data is originally based off of. It wasnt some internal govt only project, but something anyone could either download (free) or purchase and use. There are a variety of such tools (various with their own APIs), numerous ancient (Win95/98 era) which far predates Google's tools and APIs.

    --
    StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
    1. Re:Google the first? Not really... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Obligatory: I work at ESRI and find it hilarious that we're not mentioned in that article apart from the related video.

      http://www.esri.com/software/mapping_for_everyone/api/index.html

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esri

    2. Re:Google the first? Not really... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, ESRI is the leading force in the cartographic industry. But outside of the industry 99% of people have never heard of ArcMap or anything else you make. They might see it in the end result if the local government uses your JavaScript/Flash/Silverlight API to cook up something, but Google's the big name in the room as they put something user-friendly on the web before you guys. Yeah, you still had the professional-grade software suite back then, but only the professionals used it then and only they use it now.

      By the way, the dev summit back in March was fun (nice weather out there), though I wish I had thought to ask a few more questions/go to specific seminars then. Turns out I missed everything related to a project that came up two months later. Yeah, all of the videos are online but they still miss most of the Q&A afterwards.

    3. Re:Google the first? Not really... by humblecoder · · Score: 3, Informative

      Seems like the article focuses on the interface layer (hence the name "The State of Mapping API's). However, I think the hard work is the collection of the underlying map data. One of the more interesting projects is the OpenStreetMap project where map data is crowdsourced.

      --

      ------

      www.moneybythenumbers.com

    4. Re:Google the first? Not really... by garcia · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have mod points and I considered moderating your post but I couldn't decide to mark it down or up (it could easily work both ways) so I decided to respond instead:

      Yes, ESRI shapefiles are prevalent in the public sector and the software is expensive and difficult to use. Thankfully you can now easily convert SHP files into KML and display a lot of the work done in the public sector for use everywhere else.

      I have a small archive of stuff I have converted from SHP to KML in Minnesota available here which are used mainly for geocachers wanting to know what areas are off-limits but as you can see there are MN county boundaries in there as well. Why the county boundaries? Because the company I worked at prior to my current place for employment (a publicly funded educational institution) couldn't afford actual GIS software so I had to use what was freely available to do our analysis of marketing ROI.

      So, yeah, ESRI sucks and they need to die but at least there are options now available which are affordable (read: "free") for the general public to get involved and do their own work with what has been made available from their tax dollars being hard at work.

    5. Re:Google the first? Not really... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Clueless users (or organizations with massive legacy problems) who still use shapefiles, a data format defined almost 20 years ago, still use DBF table structures. Esri has been trying to kill off shapefiles for quite a while now, but they're still heavily used as a data interchange format and simply by users who don't know any better.

  2. Re:The old Guard from my perspective by cosm · · Score: 2, Informative

    Meant to post ESRI Web Mapping API link.

    --
    'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
  3. Re:The old Guard from my perspective by karavelov · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a module for PostgreSQL called PostGIS with quite impressive feature set... It's there for a while, it is actively developed and have support from PostgreSQL core hackers.

  4. UMN Mapserver by tuxicle · · Score: 2, Informative

    No mention of the University of Minnesota Mapserver program. It can render GIS data with antialiasing, auto-placing labels, etc. With some work on a configuration file, you can have it produce images that are nearly identical to Google Maps, but can be arbitrarily scaled (ie, not based on tilesets). Support for WMS makes images from Mapserver available to external programs via a simple HTTP-based RPC. You can also query for features using WFS. I use it to generate maps for use with a weather radar display.