I promise not every post here will be about the subway.
The building outlines are cool, though I’m struggling at first glance to come up with a reason why I’d need that information. The UI designers who integrated the building data did a good job of keeping the building outlines subtle but noticeable. They don’t appear until you hit a certain zoom threshold, which makes sense both technologically and aesthetically. Most importantly, the building outlines don’t compete with the street outlines, which are the most important data on the map.
The subway stops are a cool addition. I use the onNYturf mashup frequently for the same information:
The two maps are very similar but I think I’ll continue to use the onNYturf mashup version for a couple of reasons.
Google Maps’ version lacks one important feature: I have to connect the dots to figure out if a certain line takes me where I want to go. onNYturf’s map does this for me (at the cost of obscuring some street names, which I almost always don’t care about). It also doesn’t indicate which entrances are actually a part of a single station (and thus a free transfer). The onNYturf map uses the MTA standard black line to indicate the Canal Street stop connects the NQRW, JMZ, and 6 lines. While this convention might be a little clumsy for the first-time rider, it works fine for anyone familiar with the MTA. The Google map doesn’t provide this information at all, giving the impression that there are three stations where there is only one.
Anyway, subway map design nerdery aside, it’s cool to see Google Maps incorporate some of the very useful features first developed by mashup authors.
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Personally, I think the building outlines are useful for two things:
1) Getting a better fix on where you’re going. So if you are going to 123 Fake St, you can see how many buildings you have to pass on that block to get to it. Yeah, you can get that from the satellite view, but the outlines make it faster and easier to parse the divisions between buildings.
2) Gleaned familiarity – looking at the map you might become a bit more familiar with the place you’re going to. So if you noticed that there are five houses on one side of Fake St and a big warehouse on the other, you’ll quickly be able to figure out if you’ve reached your destination when you actually get there. This is my favorite part, its like a contextual reference point between the map and the real world – conextual info that you wish you had when the direct references fail you
Posted 13 Feb 2007 at 3:54 pm ¶That’s a check-plus response right there.
I’ll have to look at less dense areas with the map later and see how the experience differs with the building lines. NYC is probably not the best example, what with all the buildings looking the same.
Related question: how’d they do it? Using real estate plot data? The find edges filter in Photoshop? Summer interns?
Posted 13 Feb 2007 at 6:16 pm ¶My guess is that it’s from the Google Earth data they have. I haven’t paid attention to NYC, but the area that contains building outlines in San Francisco is roughly equal to the number of buildings they have mapped in 3D on Google Earth. If it’s not that, then I’m going to go ahead and assume this summer’s future interns from SI will be busy drawing those lines in while synthesizing 504 readings.
Also, here’s the live map for SF, they have a Google Maps based mashup here (beta of course)
The crappy thing about this is that the live data (while nice) mucks up the browser and slows it down, so this isn’t useful for just seeing there the routes/stops are for several lines. It only seems useful when you know your route and you want to see where the train is.
Posted 14 Feb 2007 at 11:19 am ¶It only seems useful when you know your route and you want to see where the train is.
Even if it’s only useful in that instance, it would still support a lot of everyday riders, right?
Posted 14 Feb 2007 at 11:47 am ¶I didn’t mean to discount that use-case, it just doesn’t what for what I need now. Once I move there, I’m sure I’ll appreciate the real time info.
Posted 14 Feb 2007 at 1:19 pm ¶Post a Comment