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Visualizing the impact of weather on traffic

February 24, 2014, 9:00 pm
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We’ve been looking into the impact that weather has on travel times using historical data from TrafficCast, specifically winter storms, like the one that hit the Atlanta area last month.

The day started off smoothly, with only a few commute-hour hiccups. By the middle of the day, many roads, particularly to the northwest of the city, had ground to a halt. The dots are reports of collisions or other traffic incidents, and a line that is twice as thick as the others means a road that takes twice as long to travel along as it normally does under good conditions.

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Camille Teicheira joins Mapbox

February 25, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Developer Camille Teicheira joins the Mapbox team in San Francisco! Camille is a recent graduate of Hackbright Academy, an expert in photoplethysmography, and an organizer and teacher at Maptime SF meetups. She’ll be jumping in on both building new Mapbox products and ensuring that the ones you love are faster and more stable than ever.

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Talking drones, vector tiles, and map design at OpenStreetMap conference

February 25, 2014, 9:00 pm
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The State of the Map US schedule is out, and our team has some sweet sessions:

Tom presenting at last year’s State of the Map US in San Francisco.

State of the Map US takes place April 12 and 13 in Washington, DC. Learn more about the conference and get registered over on stateofthemap.us.

We’re stoked to catch up at the conference, listen to exciting new talks, put our heads together in informal Birds of a Feather sessions, and chat over beers at night. Looking forward to seeing you in DC!

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Space Station Earth

February 26, 2014, 9:00 pm
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I’m a big fan of science fiction and computer games, so I couldn’t resist making a space themed map this month. I crammed it full of bright lights and chrome like some of my favorite post-apocalyptic worlds: the Matrix, Battlestar Galactica, and Starcraft.

Link to the fullscreen map

My favorite part about making this map was adding oversized markers for stores, parks, and other points of interest to simulate city lights. I lowered the contrast for landmasses and buildings to highlight the lights and the galaxy ‘ocean’.

I took advantage of TileMill’s extensive text customization to change the names of all major cities into space colonies. I also removed all of the water labels, since they distracted from the illusion of floating in space.

To add depth to the map I made custom textures for all road, building, and ocean edges. I used Lost and Taken’s free textures to build pseudo-3D edges and steel plates. And just for fun, if you look for our Mapbox DC office you’ll find a spaceship :)

I also made fake grid lines by outlining forests and other land types that are normally left hidden.

Paris is probably my favorite city to look at while designing maps. I love all of the large round plazas and intricate buildings all over the city.

I had a lot of fun making this and playing with textures. Explore the fullscreen map and let us know what you think about the finished map!

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Girls love maps

February 27, 2014, 9:00 pm
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One of the most exciting things about the Code for America fellowship has been the ability to flex our skills and share the things we love. This past Monday, my fellow fellow Livien and I had the privilege of speaking with a group of Girl Scouts here in Lexington about technology, maps, and design. Our list of possible activities was long, but we decided the best way to get a group of fourth- and fifth-graders engaged would be to get them actually making maps. The creativity was inspiring! It was so exciting to see the scouts making choices about what information to display and what colors to use on their maps – the same choices professionals are making every day.

Considering the push right now to increase the number of geoladies in the tech scene, it was thrilling to push a younger generation of girls into learning about maps and geospatial data. Spatial is special! Hooray maps!

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Launching Mapbox Enterprise

March 3, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Mapbox Enterprise provides high volume plans for massive traffic, big storage, and dedicated support. Basically it’s everything we do at Mapbox already, just tailored to your custom enterprise needs.

Massive traffic: Our cloud service effortlessly scales to billions of views to fit your traffic requirements, all while providing you a standard price across all apps and sites for the entire year. Our SLA guarantees uptime to ensure fast delivery anywhere in the world and total resilience against massive traffic spikes.

Big storage: Upload hundreds of custom maps to power all your apps and site across the entire enterprise. No matter how much data you need to store with us we can provide it.

Dedicated support: From cartography to design to integration, you can have direct access to the expert Mapbox team. Our dedicated technical support for enterprise provides 24/7 monitoring and troubleshooting. Giving enterprises direct access to our team to address any issues, from API and SDK integration help down to helping you pick hot colors for you map.

And everything is in the cloud, letting you manage all your maps by signing into just one simple account, just by logging into Mapbox.com. Detailed statistics updated daily show you who’s looking at your map, what they care about and where they’re coming from.

Trusted by millions

Mapbox Enterprise powers some of the biggest brands on the web, from social media sites like Pinterest and foursquare, to big media sites like the Financial Times and USA Today, to apps like Evernote and Github. If you need a custom plan email sales@mapbox.com or hit us up on Twitter at @Mapbox.

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Pinterest Soups Up with Marker Clustering

March 2, 2014, 9:00 pm
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It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of Pinterest and their push to build a completely custom map experience. They just rolled out a small update to their website that takes advantage of the excellent Leaflet.markercluster plugin to show images of pinned places right on the map.

With a bit of customization using the iconCreateFunction, the markers pull in each pin’s image and cluster together elegantly at lower zoom levels. Get started on your own today with Mapbox.js and our growing plugins repository.

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Global Elevation Data on Satellite Imagery

March 3, 2014, 9:00 pm
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The new vector based Mapbox Terrain layer we are designing lets us style and combine datasets in ways that were previously not possible. For example, we can now integrate contour lines with elevation labels layered on top of Mapbox Satellite — and make it fast for the entire world. The elevation data reveals the third dimension on otherwise flat imagery, providing a new perspective for a hiker planning their routes, or a drone pilot maneuvering their craft. While we are still working on the design, the combination is stunning.

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ. View fullscreen map.

Franklin Glacier Volcano, BC

San Francisco, CA

K2 Mountain, China/Pakistan border

Egmont National Park, New Zealand

Alps, France/Switzerland border

We’re launching the new Mapbox Terrain vector layer in the next month. It will be possible to use this vector terrain layer with any imagery source, from our satellite imagery, to drone imagery you collect, to other satellite imagery you buy. Hit us up on twitter @Mapbox with questions or ping me directly to talk specific technical details about vector tile compositing @mateo_verde.

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GeoDC Tomorrow! Github + Mapbox + Army

March 3, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Come out to GeoDC tomorrow (Wednesday, March 5th), at Stetson’s. Beers at 7:00 pm, presentations kick off at 7:30 pm.

Lightning talk lineup:

  • Ben Balter, head of government relations @GitHub will show how geodata can be social — demoing their latest feature for visualizing changes of geodata over time, on their own custom map on github.com. Every commit or pull request on GitHub that includes geodata renders a visual representation of what was changed. This makes collaborating on open geodata even better: you can see the full history of GeoJSON files as they’re edited. Check out the piece in the Atlantic “Github’s New Feature Means Big Things for Open Data”
  • Alex Barth at Mapbox is talking about local governments leveraging open data, specifically looking at how the New York City GIS Department release of building perimeter data paved the way for OpenStreetMap and governments to collaborate directly. As NYC data is imported in OpenStreetMap the New York City’s GIS team is informed of changes made in OpenStreetMap that effect their datasets — helping them to keep their map data current.
  • Liz Lyon will talk about what it’s like to be a transparent geographer working with the Army, including personal hints on navigating USAJOBS for map-terrific positions.

We’ll be at the upstairs bar at Stetson’s near the intersection of 16th and U streets NW. We’re excited to chat over beers and look forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday!

The GeoDC group meets once a month. For updates, join the meetup group or follow @geo_dc on Twitter. For more details check out the event listing. If you have any questions ping me @jeff_hurlock

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Planes Landing in Beijing: Video from Space

March 3, 2014, 9:00 pm
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This quick shot by Skybox’s SkySat-1 shows multiple planes landing at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) airport in Beijing on December 30, 2013. You can easily see a large plane landing on the runway at right. Using the video’s timestamp and public flight logs, Bruno identified this plane as Air China Limited flight 1310, a wide-body Airbus 330 flying from Guangzhou to Beijing. Operating as a codeshare, that flight was also listed as Shenzhen Airlines 1310, United Airlines 7564, SAS 9510, Austrian 8010 and Lufthansa 7283.

Skybox’s constellation of micro-satellites is putting out the world’s first commercial, high-resolution, HD video of Earth from space. Here you can see Mapbox Streets paired with this video from SkySat-1.

You can also see an aircraft landing at the end of the clip on the runway to the west, closer to Terminal 1. Again Bruno identified this aircraft: Hainan Airlines 7196 from Fuzhou to Beijing. It’s a Boeing 737-800 narrow-body jet also flying under a codeshare as American Airlines 7226.

The idea of video from space is very new but the benefit of seeing movement and direction over many frames is amazing. Seeing the aircraft headed to a specific terminal provided context to help identify it and watching cars move down a road shows directionality useful for better road classification. It’s early — but the idea of more data is really exciting. Hit us up on Twitter to talk @skyboximaging and @mapbox.

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Hello Mapbox San Francisco!

March 5, 2014, 9:00 pm
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On March 20, come celebrate the opening of Mapbox in San Francisco! RSVP here. We’ll get started at 6:30pm with a keg each of PBR & Anchor Steam, plus some local eats. We’ll go until we kick the kegs. Hope to see you there!

party graphic for sf march 20th

RSVP today!

Directions to Mapbox San Francisco:

To come to our office in San Francisco, the address is 149 9th St. We’re on 9th, directly between Howard & Mission. We’re in a huge brick building with an old-school sign that says “The Storex Building.” Once you are at the entrance just buzz the intercom for Suite 404.

screen shot 2014-02-21 at 3 38 58 pm

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Edit OpenStreetMap Directly From Your Mapbox Map

March 6, 2014, 9:00 pm
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You can now edit OpenStreetMap directly from your Mapbox Streets map with today’s roll out of improved info controls for Mapbox.js. If you’re using an OpenStreetMap-based layer like Mapbox Streets and the new Mapbox.js 1.6.2, you will find an “Improve this map” link. Clicking on it will lead you all the way to OpenStreetMap to edit the map. The control is smart: it’ll jump to exactly the same spot on OpenStreetMap as you were viewing on the Mapbox map. Any changes to OpenStreetMap will appear within minutes on Mapbox Streets. If you’re in a hurry, you can make a quick note on the map instead — so other editors can fix the issues.

Try the new info controls for yourself for instance on this map.

improve-edit

The new info control is enabled by default in Mapbox.js:

var map = L.mapbox.map('map', 'lxbarth.h7ch7921');

This shows attribution and the improve link in a collapsible element at the bottom right of the map.

1 6 2info

You can alternatively choose to present attribution and improve link in a simple line on the map:

var map = L.mapbox.map('map', 'lxbarth.h7ch7921', { infoControl: false, attributionControl: true });

1 6 2attribution

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VSCO: brand considerations and map design

March 6, 2014, 9:00 pm
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VSCO, makers of tools for creating beautiful photographs, launched a completely custom branded map to compliment their Grid search, forming an elegant, quiet backdrop behind their users' photographs.

VSCO’s key brand elements come together for a map that is truly theirs, with labels in Proxima Nova and places in their characteristic gold color:

See the focus of the map change from parks and roads to neighborhoods to countries as the map zooms out from Portland:

The VSCO map has global coverage, perfect for documenting adventures all over the world:

Map design is key for brand considerations and it’s great to see VSCO roll out a fully integrated experience. Check out the design live on their site.

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We're at SXSW, probably eating BBQ

March 7, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Hello Austin! Just landed with Garrett for a few days at SXSW. We are presenting tomorrow on “Beyond Dots on a Map: The Future of Mapping Tweets”, which is basically me showing off the awesome design of mapping 3 Billion Tweets work by Eric Fisher + the great UI by Tom MacWright.

My co-presenter, Ian Cairns from our friends @Gnip, will talk about where all this Twitter data came from, sharing hand-drawn blueprints of what the geodata in the Twitter firehose looks like, and talking about how Gnip approaches building APIs for companies to then filter this huge pile of data.

We only have 3 days...

Most importantly, we will be eating BBQ and drinking Shiner for the next 3 days. As this is Garrett’s first time to Austin, our friend Connor Montgomery at Pinterest made a board of all the BBQ joints we need to hit up.

If you want to talk maps, get a peek on some of the latest stuff we are working on with routing and vector terrain, or want to just drink, hit us up on Twitter at @Mapbox or just ping me (@ericg) and Garrett (@heyitsgarrett). And if you’re just feeling the need for BBQ, you know where to find us.

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Amit Kapadia joins Mapbox

March 9, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Image scientist Amit Kapadia joins the Mapbox team in San Francisco! Amit will be jumping in as an imagery specialist, working alongside Charlie, Bruno, Sean, and myself on the Satellite team. Previously, Amit has worked in software development, image processing, and public outreach for several NASA observatories. Most recently, Amit was a Citizen Science developer for Zooniverse at the Adler Planetarium.

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Better Developer Documentation

March 9, 2014, 9:00 pm
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We shipped a new layout for our developer documentation.

docs-layout

The layout provides focused left fixed navigation and better search. Let us know what else we could add to our documentation to make Mapbox even better for developers, just ping us @mapbox on twitter.

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Satellite Imagery Directly → Mapbox

March 10, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Skybox is building direct Mapbox integration into their new BusBoy platform.

This means that any imagery ordered from Skybox can be turned into MBTiles— a super compressed tile transport package — and sent to your Mapbox.com account. From there you can annotate your imagery, overlay OpenStreetMap labels, and do cool stuff with our API— like showing timely imagery and publishing at scale. This is all possible thanks to our new read/write APIs that we are rolling out.

If you are interested in learning more about Skybox and Mapbox integration, sign up below to apply for early access.

Early Access

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Sophie Herrman joins Mapbox

March 10, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Developer Sophie Herrman joins Mapbox in Washington, D.C.! Sophie is joining me on our growing labs team, doing crazy design, building experimental apps, and applying her skills to our outside marketing.

She’s coming to Mapbox from the energy industry, where she worked on sales and marketing platforms while earning her degree in Human Geography at Buffalo State College. Her degree focuses on cultural area studies, propensity modeling, and geographies of developing countries.

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Flight MH370 Search from Space

March 12, 2014, 9:00 pm
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All major satellite companies are tasking their satellites in the search for the missing flight MH370. Here are the footprints mapped from each major satellite provider over the last 6 days (since March 9, 2014).

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APIs + heaps of satellite imagery: searching for flight MH370

March 16, 2014, 9:00 pm
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Blackbridge, with their constellation of 5 satellites, just launched the new satellite imagery interface aiding the search for flight MH370. Their new app allow users to quickly dig through the large amounts of imagery, looking for plane parts or oil slicks. The site had over 1.5 million map views this weekend, only took 5 hours to build and launch, and has received over 200 reports to investigate — not only are they clearly visible on the map, but easy to skim. Everything was built using open source tools.

Imagery UIMaking it easy to make a note on the map

The imagery was all processed with TileMill, our open source design studio. Once processed, Blackbridge loaded all the maps into their Mapbox.com Enterprise account our cloud platform with lots of storage which also automatically scales (everyone form Pinterest to foursquare to Github is on our cloud — so traffic is never a problem). The web UI that pulls the imagery from their mapbox account is simply mapbox.js. We sometimes joke that we are like a Lego company — but it really works like this, we put out pieces that all plug together to make publishing easy. Most interesting is how easy it is to make something custom like this using mapbox.js plugins.

Here are three quick API plugins used by Blackbridge that make the site work well that were all off the shelf:

Interactive map: We need to make it easy for users to quick zoom around the map to make searching fast. Everything here is just plain vanilla mapbox.js.

Clustering: All notes people make on the map are stored in a spreadsheet, and displayed instantly on the map via JSON. We use the mapbox.js clustering plugin to have the markers render and filter in real time.

URL hashing: Every point on the map can be linked to. For example you can zoom right into where something tagged a potential oil slick.

Take a look through the imagery for yourself and see what you can find. If your interested in Mapbox.js, check out our new developer section. If you have any questions about the imagery or the UI, reach out to me @bobws or email us at sales@mapbox.com.

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