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A new kind of map: it’s about time

blog.mapbox.com

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Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#61

Post by shurcooL »

I think this is great, but I can see it being potentially improved further if there was a temporary overlay of the physical map whenever you hover over a destination.

Basically, I feel that completely removing the physical map is okay until you've picked a target. Then, having to click on it to be able to see what the route looks like (which streets to take, etc.) is higher friction than I'd like. Instead, imagine if hovering would give you a route overlay, and as you hover your mouse over multiple places you're considering, you're already aware of the physical directions as well.

Having to click back and forth feels quite constraining.

This is simply feedback on a way I think it could be improved further, not to take away from how good it already is.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#62

Post by dionidium »

It's also kind of interesting that you can draw some pretty strong inferences about neighborhoods once all the geographic cruft is wiped away. For example, from where I'm sitting in Midtown, Manhattan's east-side retail development bias is clearly revealed by a search for "Starbucks:"

https://imgur.com/0jXYeRW

If you center on the Central West End in St. Louis, you can clearly see that development has mostly happened in the western suburbs:

https://imgur.com/yxnVkiK

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#63

Post by peatmoss »

peteretep wrote: post #38
peatmoss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were interested in trip chaining, you could still pick the direction you wanted to head.

The map doesn't guarantee that at all. Two items on the map can appear next to each other and take a very long time to get between -- perhaps they're separated by a freeway that you can't cross, for example.

That is true, though in practice it would mostly be true that destinations sharing similar travel times and similar directional vectors would typically be close to each other. If you didn't already have some general knowledge of the area, you'd probably notice the complication of a freeway when you "zoomed in" to the standard map view.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#64

Post by dgyes »

I am finding it useful in realizing that some restaurants, stores are actually closer than assumed. This visual removing roads, hills is useful. It would be helpful to be able to toggle a normal map with all points, not just the selected on.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#65

Post by andreigheorghe »

StringyBob wrote: post #60

A pet project I've wanted to do for ages is to hack up a very high-detail (factoring in every road/footpath) isochrone map centred around my home, using openstreetmap data and render the result for a printshop at e.g. 600dpi to create a high quality map/poster Any suggestions for the best (open) software to achieve this?

not exactly what you're looking for but maybe it gives you some ideas / tools https://www.mapnificent.net/london/#12/51.5005/-0.1283/900/5...

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#66

Post by jmilloy »

hnnsj wrote: post #19

How is this more useful than an ordered list of search results, exactly? Once you've picked your destination, based on travel time, you still want figure out how to get there.

Well, it's easier to see the distribution of distances. Knowing something is the 3rd closest is less useful that knowing it is actually 30 minutes away.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#67

Post by zeppelin101 »

Truly an impressive concept, but I didn't find it to be particularly accurate in Los Angeles. I searched for Mexican food near me and nearly all it could find were Chipotle locations. While I like Chipotle, this isn't quite ready for primetime. Not sure where they're pulling the restaurant data from, but it definitely isn't Google Maps, nor Yelp.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#68

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

jdminhbg wrote: post #44
dhritzkiv wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that should be accounted for in the time it takes to reach that location, and therefore its place on the map.

Imagine a long river with a bridge at the point you are currently located, but no other bridges. Two places across from the river from each other might each be an hour away, but two hours apart from each other because you have to come back to your current location to cross the river. They'd look nearby on this map because they're in close places and similar times to get to.

This is actually an extremely common case with public transportation:

There are two channels of buses going N-S in the city, and both channels meet downtown. From downtown, two locations can be about equally distant in travel time northwards, and nearby in E-W distance compared to their N-S displacement, but they're separated by a freeway and lie on different N-S channels, and so the E-W distance takes as long to commute (by foot or transit) as going downtown and back northwards would.

Re: A new kind of map: it’s about time

#69

Post by carlosedp »

zeppelin101 wrote: post #67

Truly an impressive concept, but I didn't find it to be particularly accurate in Los Angeles. I searched for Mexican food near me and nearly all it could find were Chipotle locations. While I like Chipotle, this isn't quite ready for primetime. Not sure where they're pulling the restaurant data from, but it definitely isn't Google Maps, nor Yelp.

According to the post they fetch from Foursquare API.
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