
Bing Napkin Maps - tragiclos
http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_map_automatic_napkin_sketching_of_maps.html
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jewbacca
I'm pretty stoked that Microsoft is no longer evil/complacent and is
innovating (again?). This is of course not the beginning of this turnaround,
nor even the first time Microsoft-as-Good has reached me for unabstract
personal benefit[1], but this is probably the first thing I've seen from Bing
that could make the rounds being touted as cool without my first and
overriding suspicion being "total astroturf".

Back in the days I read Slashdot, I very viscerally hated Microsoft like only
a teenage Windows-user reading Slashdot could. I switched to Macs after the
Intel changeover and I've been increasingly locked into Google since Gmail.
Completely removed from their ecosystem, when (rarely) some news of Microsoft
bubbled up to my attention, I watched with bemused indifference. Lately
though, with Apple's behaviour especially, I've borne actively good will
towards Microsoft. I'll probably never use Windows again, but I want them to
succeed. Competition is good, and it's also very gratifying to see this
affirmed.

\-----

[1] "Windows 7-style Window Resizing" is my most indispensable feature in
BetterTouchTool[1] - <http://blog.boastr.net/>

~~~
ratsbane
I had much the same train of thought when I saw this article. I've been very
harsh on Microsoft since roughly the Active-X era of the late '90s for doing
things that benefit their own dominance at the expense of the ecosystem. I
WANT them to be good citizens and good competitors. When I see something
Microsoft does that really is innovative, I'm happy. And at first glance,
that's what I thought of this napkin-map thing. And then I tried to look at a
Bing napkin map on this computer - running Ubuntu. They've done it with
Silverlight. Back to disappointment.

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rg
This is really worth a look. My experience was very positive; it took only a
few seconds to compute, and the decisions about what detail to suppress were
made very insightfully. (This was for an address in San Francisco--streets
were selected for all the approaches into the city, but very economically.)
The result would be MUCH better to give someone than a standard Big or Google
map. No bugs, no problems with silverlight. (From Bing Maps, I discovered, you
find this feature by clicking on the "Map Apps" button at the bottom of the
left column, and then choosing the app "Destination Maps".)

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buro9
I'm not a fan.

Why? Because I once walked into a pretty dangerous ghetto in Memphis thanks to
having a map leave out information (even though it was relatively to scale).

Here's the map for the Stax Museum: <http://www.soulsvilleusa.com/plan-
visit/maps-directions.asp>

And here's the Google map of the same area:
[http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#...</a><p>OK, so the
Google map is way busier and contains a lot of noise. But because of the Stax
map we chose to walk from the National Civil Rights Museum to the Stax Museum
because "the map shows it's only a few blocks over".<p>That few blocks turned
out to be a 10 block walk that involved police (who turned back once we walked
beyond a certain point), watching a gang trying to cut us off (they were
armed), being rescued by a kindly lawyer who then drove us out of there and
back to the police. Apparently walking through that neighbourhood is a death-
wish.<p>The Stax map isn't of poor scale, it's just that it's aimed at drivers
following main roads... a bit like the napkin map. The problem is, you cannot
be sure of every use of a map and it's safer to leave more info in than risk
decisions that will be made because of a lack of information.

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thefool
Thats cool, but I wasn't able to figure out how to turn on the feature within
bing maps.

Also, its frustratingly buggy, and asks for silverlight to get many of the
cool features natively available in google maps.

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siculars
Reposting a comment from srikanth:

"FYI, this is based on RouteMaps
<http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/>

I remember that MSN maps had already implemented this feature into their
application a couple of years ago."

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Groxx
As visually appealing and nigh-brilliant as that is, there's a _fatal_ flaw in
it that means I'll never touch the stuff:

It distorts the map to enhance meaningful areas. All those images are of the
same area, compare them to the normal map on the left at the top of the
article.

Brilliant and deadly. I use maps _because_ they're physically accurate, so I
can estimate times / distances between things, and find alternate paths if
needed, and know if I went too far. The distortion there is _way_ too
significant to do that sort of analysis, though.

I know I may very well be in the minority in that, but there you have it. I'd
love to see a large comparative study between "real" people. Gut-feeling is
that most would like it, though, because it seems few outside the geek world
are efficient at information filtering.

~~~
troels
If you want objective accuracy, do you then use aerial photographs, rather
than maps? The point of a map is exactly that it simplifies information, and
exaggerating or downplaying certain features is a way of doing this.

~~~
Groxx
Aerial photograph maps are _barely_ more informative than line-maps, and
they're filled with much more misinformation. Colors are not correct, I'm on
ground-level so I don't see buildings from the top, trees, cars, construction,
etc are all incorrect as well by usually over a year, buildings aren't skewed
like that (especially tall ones)...

Besides, I'd only stated I use it for distances and paths, not _color_. Where
the exaggerating / downplaying of features destroys the ability for
comparative analysis of locations with other maps, I find I have little use.

~~~
troels
But you're picking one aspect (distance) and attributing a lot of importance
to it. Depending on who you are and what you want to do, that may not be the
most important thing. For example, if you want to drive somewhere, the exact
distance may not be overly important, but the intersections with larger roads
probably is.

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gojomo
Looks cool. But not so cool I'd want to install Silverlight!

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ShabbyDoo
Semi-related, I want a feature for driving directions where I can specify that
I'm familiar with either the origin or destination. If I print out directions,
half the page is taken up with turn-by-turn instructions on how to get from my
house to the nearest interstate highway. These should go away and be replaced
with a simple "goal" instruction ("Get on I-71 North").

~~~
lmkg
Bing already has a solution for that already, which they call one-click
directions. If you search for a place, there's usually a set of options such
as "from I-5 South," "from I-5 North," "from 450 West" which give directions
starting from those respective highways. I'm a big fan.

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gojomo
Largely forgotten is an earlier offering in reduced-detail maps, MapBlast's
drafting-diagram-like 'LineDrive' directions. It's still available if you get
to MSN maps via mapblast.com:

<http://www.mapblast.com>

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j053003
The realistic-looking highway shields are a welcome addition. (They're much
better than the cartoony-looking ones seen on most online maps.)

I wonder if they were influenced by this:
[http://www.41latitude.com/post/598792787/realistic-
looking-h...](http://www.41latitude.com/post/598792787/realistic-looking-
highway-shields)

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duck
Hmmm... I posted the exact same link 12 days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1412740>

Weird that it allowed it to be created again.

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moultano
It's very very slow.

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jrockway
No coffee ring?

