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Google Maps Platform

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Re: Google Maps Platform

#251

Post by EQmapbox »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #230
EQmapbox wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep mapbox/driving-traffic profile of the Directions API factors in current and historic traffic conditions - https://www.mapbox.com/api-documentation/#directions . As my name suggests, I work for Mapbox :)

Neat! 60 requests per minute is not very many. Sadly I’m not sure any service will be able to do what I want at an affordable rate. :(

I'd love to make this work, Forrest - drop my name in a note to help@mapbox.com and let's see if we can get you setup with the Isochrone plugin (https://blog.mapbox.com/add-isochrones-to-your-next-applicat...) which sits on top of the Mapbox Matrix API. https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/visualizing-commute-times-3... is awesome!

Re: Google Maps Platform

#253

Post by zylepe »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #172

There's (justifiably) a lot of love for Mapbox in this thread as an alternative, but as remarked, their pricing isn't particularly cheap (why should it be, they sell on the quality of the product). So the other option is to self-host tools using OpenStreetMap data. Some pointers: * Raster tiled maps: the canonical instructions are at switch2osm.org; put it on commodity hardware such as Hetzner/OVH. * Vector maps: a l…

I recently did an evaluation of Valhalla, ORSM, and Graphhopper for routing based on openstreetmap data.

Valhalla was nice in that it could preprocess and serve results with only a few GB of RAM, but it could only handle OSRM was super fast, especially for very short routes (>1k rps on a single core) but it requires 300+GB of RAM to preprocess the world and 64GB of RAM to serve direction requests which gets a bit too expensive for me.

Graphhopper was nearly as fast as OSRM for short routes, but just as fast for longer routes. It can preprocess the world with only 64GB of RAM, and can serve direction requests happily on machine with only 16GB of RAM.

I ended up going with Graphhopper, but still may need to shut down my site...

Re: Google Maps Platform

#254

Post by elyobo »

Larger size (and higher resolution) static images are currently only available to paid up "premium" map subscribers; presumably this functionality will now become available to everyone, as we'll all have to be paid users (even if you don't end up paying anything because of the $200 in credit). Is there any confirmation of this anywhere? Larger sizes make switching to static maps more viable for us (one reason we switched _to_ the dynamic maps for some use cases in the first place).

Re: Google Maps Platform

#255

Post by gdejans »

jakecopp wrote: post #100
NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

Mapbox's maps look great, though I wish they had a generic product like Google Maps that I could use. Does any such general navigation app using Mapbox exist? Basically a vector OpenStreetMap with good search and routing.

For good search and routing, you need a high-quality map data designed to deliver professional find, routing and navigation services. I recommend you take a look at developer.tomtommaps.com

Re: Google Maps Platform

#256

Post by jstandard »

jaakl wrote: post #240
jstandard wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking into Mapbox lately. What types of things do you find they're strong vs. weak at?

Main/only weak thing of Mapbox is that they are not free and unlimited for mobile apps, Google seems to remain that.

Where do you see Google is free and unlimited for mobile apps?

Re: Google Maps Platform

#257

Post by elyobo »

IanCal wrote: post #236
elyobo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a project which runs a variety of sites for our network - currently ~900 different domains. Restricting keys by domain name is not really practical for us.

A list of 900 isn't really a huge problem, is it? Do they share anything common (many x.mycompany.com)? You can use wildcards.

Many do, but not all, and even then just wildcarding the common bits would leave it pretty much wide open. Maybe if they allowed regular expressions then it could be targeted reasonably closely, or if there was an API I could use to generate the keys then I could provision specific credentials for each site...

Re: Google Maps Platform

#258

Post by elyobo »

elyobo wrote: post #232

It seems like sticking a CDN in front of the static map API could be used to reduce costs quite a bit there as well, especially if you forced it to cache more aggressively than the cache control headers returned by Google indicate. Has anyone tried this?

Technically possible, but sadly prohibited by their T&Cs[1]. It's a bit annoying, if they wanted to charge per impression they should charge by impression rather than having per-api-call pricing but forcing you to call the API repeatedly for the same thing.

[1] https://developers.google.com/maps/terms see section 10.5.d

Re: Google Maps Platform

#259

Post by tmcw »

mynewtb wrote: post #159
tmcw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply is expensive, and running a 'maps offering' is more of a data-collection and data-maintenance challenge than a logistical challenge. Of course AWS probably will offer such a service eventually, simply to complete their Gotta Catch Them All product strategy, but for now they've seemed to focus on things where their value is in software and infrastructure, not in having a 500 person staff of people with the back…

> To the inevitable takes on this, no, it's not just a matter of downloading OpenStreetMap or any other data source. With services like openmaptiles.com, why not?

This is the nth time answering this, but, well: Updates. Doing them efficiently. Vandalism detection. Geocoding and directions. Devops: this is not a trivial computing challenge. The list goes on.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#260

Post by aligoes »

nomad543 wrote: post #198

So I signed up to Mapbox, I wonder how the free tier works. I didn't enter any billing details, so what will happen if I reach the 50,000 calls within a month, will it stop working or will I be invoiced later for the calls over 50,000?

(I work at Mapbox)

We'll keep your maps on and send you a note letting you know you're over the limit. At the end of your billing cycle we'll invoice you for anything you use beyond the limit and, once the invoice is out, you'll have a ten day grace period to add your card.

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