Very interesting and good looking! Only a small comment: using images under Creative Commons licensing is not as simple as grabbing the image and using it as you please. Both your top [1] and bottom [2] images are licensed with the BY clause, meaning you must give appropriate credit.
This is a bit off-topic, but I'm surprised that the NASA image is listed as CC-BY. I was under the impression that NASA imagery was public domain by default.
Their website [1] says "NASA content [...] generally are not copyrighted." It then goes on to say that "NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material." IANAL, but I would assume that if the data is not copyrighted, then there's no need to attribute the source, making that "should" pretty toothless.
Note the "generally" there. Further down it says explicitly "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". In their Flickr page they have selected the CC BY-NC 2.0 license so this works, I think, as a notice of copyright that at the same time grants you a license to use the image (provided you follow the terms of said license).
It's easy to imagine that NASA has more limited rights to reproduce and redistribute images produced by their partners though, and they have lots of partners.
I recognized the JAXA ship of the bottom image and it amused me for a bit that they chose a pic of a cargo ship instead of an imaging satellite.
Then it was a matter of reverse image search, usually public space images are CC-BY so I figured I should mention that so they don't get into trouble for something easily fixable.
I just gave this a twirl and already dislike it. I can't even use it unless I sign up. So now I have to give you something before you've demonstrated any value to me.
Also, why is "category" required? Is a global namespace of map names the smartest thing to do? How often do you think people will create a map called "SF" or "Golden Gate Park"? There will be name collision all the time.
Wow - I wish I had known about this a week ago. I spent a few hours building an Austin "travel guide" for friends and family, but the best thing I could think of to use was a Google Doc + a Google Map. I even thought about starting to build a web app like what you've built. I'm definitely going to port my scrappy little Google Doc into Map Me soon.
A couple of comments:
- Tags are really useful, but they are too hidden in the UI. I don't know that most regular users would know to go to the "Filter" menu and then click "Tags".
- The biggest issue I have so far - in the Classic view, I can't see a way to get my descriptions to show up except at the individual pin level. It would be very useful if they could display in the list, like in the Story view.
Hey this looks cool. I see it's a beta, but some ideas that would be really useful to me and maybe others. MapBox (particularly the desktop version) can create custom stylesheets and do high quality image exports. I like those features if I don't plan to leave the map on the web (e.g. print, email). It would be good also to view the square area covered inside a polygon and be able to edit one once it's placed.
Hi! Would a PDF export be good for your print / email case?
About square area, do you mean to calculate the area in square kilometres and display it for polygons?
You should be able to edit a polygon once it's placed, just click the "move" icon in the top right corner of the sidebar.
1) Yeah, definitely. I suppose one could screenshot, but having a little more fine-tuning as far as dimensions, image size, etc is far more useful.
2) For sure, much like the border distance.
3) Ah, I didn't see the edit icon. Very cool.
Hi! Yes, definitely possible! Actually, if you go to the basemaps tab in the right side, you can find some specialised basemaps, for example Thunderforest / Transport has a great visual style for train and metro lines.
Now, talking about integrating it into MapHub rendered maps, it's definitely possible. I am using the open source osm2vectortiles [1] project, and the older, open source MapBox tm2 styles [2] to render the tiles, so changes can even be contributed by the community!
I've long left Google maps and moved onto Mapbox for all my mapping needs in side-projects. Can someone please point out how MapHub is better / different from Mapbox?
Hi, I made MapHub. So MapBox I believe is targeting developers to create custom map solutions, not simple users who would like to share a list of favourite hiking trails, make a guide for their neighbourhood or just insert an embed on a website. The point of using MapBox I think is more if you have loads of data, or if you are looking for a custom map solution, like Strava or Foursquare uses them in their mobile app.
More than anything else, can you please add a distance calculator for the track tool? They had this in Google Maps classic but the new one removed it. I used Google Maps to plan the runs for my running team and the inability to estimate the distance is a huge problem. Google Maps has it as two separate tools now. So now I have to draw each leg of a running route twice: once to estimate where the mile is and another to actually save the route.
What kind of distance tool would you use for your running team? We have one built in, where once finishing a track you can save it's length on the right side. It's only in metric units at the moment.
Would you like to have points on each kilometer / mile along the route?
It would be great if it would keep updating the distance as I drag the track along. Basically my use case is like this: I need to plan a route from starting point and it has to go for X number of miles. To satisfy that requirement I have to figure out which way to turn or which streets to take and how much farther I have to draw the route.
It would be great if there is a number under the cursor that tells me how long my current track is as I move the cursor and add waypoints and maybe another number to tell me the distance between the last way point and the cursor. Does that make sense?
Neat project. I haven't signed up and tried it out yet, but I see that this allows you to upload map data on top of OpenStreetMap stuff and share it. Depending on how the data is mixed in, the OpenStreetMap ODBL might require users to share their data back with the OSM project. Are you aware of this? Do you notify your users of this as well?
The ODBL is kind of like copyleft license for databases (gross oversimplification)
Hi. When someone uploads a GPX or KML file, we have no knowledge about where is that data coming from, so we cannot display a notice either. Same as if someone would upload a GeoJSON to GitHub, GitHub would have no idea about where was that GeoJSON sourced from.
I believe users should take care about giving proper credits in the map descriptions, and if not the author should be notified about it (which we'll be addressing with an issues like feature in the future).
I'm not a lawyer so don't take any of this as fact.
Its not an attribution issue. Its more that if the data is mixed into the database in a certain way, that data must also be made available under terms similar to the ODBl. So if I have the locations of the best Thai restaurants in a city, and I add this data to OpenStreetMap data, refine it based on the existing OSM data and present it, I must make my restaurant data available under the terms of the ODBl.
If you are just overlaying data on top of image tiles generated from OSM data I think you are okay, but once you mix the data it becomes weird. For example if the OSM data has a few of those restaurants in it, and you modify your data set to remove them so there's no duplicates, I think thats a case where you must share your data back with the OSM project. You can check out the OSM (non-dev) mailing lists for more discussion on this.
Hi. I think I understand your issue now. So, most importantly, any data what a user creates / uploads to MapHub is totally independent from the "big" OSM database. Think about it as two totally separate datasets, we will never mix them!
Nice. I love the choice of basemaps, including the lovely Thunderforest ones which you don't see many places!
I liked the download as KML - it loaded up okay in Google Earth. Would be good to have map state in the URL bar, e.g. map position and probably basemap selected for sharing which I would imagine is in your list.
Thanks! Yes, position is definitely on our list, as well as to linking to individual points. Can you explain how would you use the basemap in the URL bar? If you select a basemap on your own map, it'd be saved so there is no need to overwrite it in the URL.
Ahh yes it is saved, but since it's possible for any user to change the basemap of any map in their own session (but not save it) they may want to have that choice persist if they then share it further. It's a possibility I guess. You could use a short code to show base=T1 for example
Is there a way to query OSM tags directly to build maps? For example, I do a bunch of mountain bike trail mapping, and due to judicious tagging I can pretty easily select all the assets I'd like in a map with a series of queries.
Can I select ways using a query and have them become something I wish to call out?
No, it won't, unless you manually update it. I am working on making an API for developers, where you can create/update map data programmatically, so you will be able to do it in a cron job for example.
(I think there is a fair chance you are aware of it, posting for other readers too)
uMap mentioned elsewhere on this page has support for some formats output directly by Overpass API, which powers Overpass Turbo. Overpass Turbo has javascript for converting those formats to KML and GPX. So in uMap, you can generate a layer by pasting in the query, no need to push it through kml or gpx.
This is really nice! Is there a chance to get elevation profiles for GPX tracks? Or an elevation profile for a manually drawn track? this would be super helpful for hiking planning.
It would great if I could use this site without first having to make an account. Jsbin and jsfiddle support anonymous usage quite well, and because of that are incredibly useful.
Hi, jsbin/jsfiddle/gist like sharing is one feature we are discussing, but it is quite a delicate issue and not without risks, so we still haven't decided about it yet.
Hi, sorry to hear that. At the moment, we are using Mapzen Search [1] for geocoding, and unfortunately it has issues like this. They are working actively on fixing it, and we are also looking into implementing our own hybrid approach which would combine multiple search providers.
I'm sorry to hear that this bug is still present. I've tried to diagnose it so many times, but it only happens randomly and only when running through CloudFlare. I believe that at the core of the issues is that some requests arrive twice, thus the system is trying to register the same user twice.
Sorry, it's a different error, I've just found out, your password should be at least 8 characters in length, is it possible that you are trying a shorter one?
It's working greatly.
I stress-tested it with a few of my custom geo reference data for administrative or socio-demographic statistics.
Feel free to reach me by mail if you want to test it further (FR-IRIS)
Hi. KML import is fully supported, we especially tested KML exported from Google Earth and Google My Maps. Just click the Import button in the sidebar and select your file.
just some feedback: I got stuck in the tutorial at "Give a title to your map." - it just sits there and won't go away (no next button). yes, I gave it a title.
I'm sorry that you are experiencing this bug. There should be a done button appearing once you enter any character. What browser / device are you using? Are you in the tutorial?
It's nice that this isn't Google, and it's a good product, but it's still a non-Free product.
I'm still looking for a FaiF version of something like this - does anybody know of one? Seems like a slap in the face to all of the OSM developers to use an entirely Free stack with a proprietary veneer on it.
OpenStreetMap folks just care about the data, I doubt anyone would begrudge someone making a proprietary service using open data - it's the data that's important, after all. The OSM Project is not looking to replace Google My Maps, or to have such a service on the main osm.org website.
Now, what you are looking for is probably something along the lines of uMap http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UMap which has something like a WTFPL license https://github.com/umap-project/umap/ and which is something I point people to. It's lacking the design flair of this product but it's probably a bit more feature rich.
Hi, I made MapHub. There is nothing I have against open sourcing parts or the full MapHub product, but it's a very delicate decision, so I'd like to wait and think more about it.
Would a GitLab like business model make it more attractive for you?
Contrary to what the parent comment suggested, there's no problem with using OSM data for a proprietary service, but the home page says "An open platform", which I think is very misleading. Your platform is built on open data, but apparently it is not at all "open" itself.
Exactly! I'm still happy to use a hosted version of the service, but I want to be able to improve it if I need to, or run my own service if yours die, etc.
You may want to check if you need `contributors` to the OSM part of the Thunderforest ones as well. Not sure if the requirements are different there or not.
[1] https://www.planet.com/gallery/orange-river/
[2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/21604970430