5 ms·
Microsoft MapPoint. This was a phenomenal piece of mapping software and had features I haven’t been able to find in any of the online map replacements. When g
by ioman 8y ago
Microsoft MapPoint. This was a phenomenal piece of mapping software and had features I haven’t been able to find in any of the online map replacements.
When getting directions, you could designate a number of areas on the map as “avoid area”.
You could map all sorts of census data. Want to colorize the map based on crime rate divided by median home price? No problem.
You could import lots of data from a spreadsheet and do useful things with it. I used this when looking for my first house. I scraped the data from realtor.com and made maps where the icon changed on the number of bedrooms and the color changed based on the price.
You could make drivetime zones. Want to see how far you can drive in 30 minutes from your office? No problem.
You can probably do a lot of this with ArcGIS, but I don’t know since its way out of my price range.
I keep hoping that Microsoft will bring some of this to Bing Maps. I would pay to use these features again and adding them to Azure would definitely differentiate them from Google Maps.
- andrewmcwatters 8y ago> When getting directions, you could designate a number of areas on the map as “avoid area”. It's noteworthy, because I've only seen this feature in Rolls-Royce navigation in recent times.
- zentiggr 8y agoOSMAnd and Navigator on Android allow you to "disable" road sections. Not an area feature, but for things like the I-74 Bridge project where construction blockages change sometimes almost weekly, it's a big help to toggle individual blocks/intersections individually.
- gpvos 8y agoNot very discoverable, this is the first I read about it.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y agoIt does seem somewhat paranoid. Might be useful to exclude certain routes with an easy interface, but tremendously harmful by seemingly legitimizing the myth of “no-go” areas that has recently become a favorite talking point of the alt-right in my (perfectly safe) country.
- Hrundi 8y agoNot only this is not recent, it has nothing to do with politics or ideology, at all. No-go zones have been used all over the world for decades.
- 13of40 8y agoNot all over the world. I'm in Seattle and I'd probably have to drive to Chicago or Tijuana to find a place I wouldn't feel safe driving through.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hackerman12345 8y agoIf you find people staying safe to be tremendously harmful to your politics it might be time to reconsider your viewpoints.
- timthorn 8y agoThe ability to avoid an area is a useful and apolitical capability. I often want my satnav to exclude driving through cities as it's more relaxing and often faster to drive around, and when there are roadworks or large scale events it is really helpful to be able to exclude them.
- natalyarostova 8y agoI work with many foreign women who have no idea the safe and dangerous areas of our city. You might consider from their point of view the value of such a service, rather than worrying about more meta-tribal political battles. Some areas of my city have higher harassment and crime rates, as a man this is less concerning for me, but it's something many women need to take much more seriously.
- detaro 8y agoFairly sure my parents old TomTom navigation thing had that option too.
- hackerman12345 8y agoWon't happen. Apps with those features get accused of being racist. https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-for-walking-but-is-it-racist https://www.npr.org/2012/01/25/145337346/this-app-was-made-f...
- untog 8y agoThe OP appears to be talking about just mapping demographic datasets, plenty of software does that today and isn't accused of being racist. The issue you linked to seems different. I agree that the headline is hysterical, but the patent mentions, among other sensible ideas, that it would plot paths factoring in demographic data. Which is just plain weird when you already have crime data available.
- imaginenore 8y agoIt's not weird if the demographics is correlated with crime (which it definitely is). It gives you more data.
- mg794613 8y agoPlease keep the whole "we are being surpressed" bs out of HN.
- Myrmornis 8y agoWell we're definitely being suppressed by you it would seem!
- dawnerd 8y agoSome modern luxury cars have this feature built in. And what’s racist about avoiding dangerous areas?
- nxc18 8y agoEsri offers an ArcGIS for personal use program. $100/year gets you ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and a bunch of the apps. I've never used MapPoint so I don't know how it compares - I expect the ArcGIS stuff is more powerful but less usable (for your particular needs) than a more focused solution. Note: Esri calls isochrones (30 minute drive time) 'service areas' and you have to search for it under 'network analysis'.
- opencl 8y agoQGIS is free/open source and can do a lot of this type of stuff too. More like ArcGIS than MapPoint.
- oldmancoyote 8y agoThanks for the intro to QGIS.
- gh02t 8y agoI actually like QGIS more than ArcGIS. It's not without some rough edges, but I found it way easier to use than ArcGIS (which is a bit of a UI disaster, IMO).
- EvanAnderson 8y agoI miss MapPoint too. I used it as a component of a silly web scraper I built to plan routes for visiting yard sales many summers ago. (My wife and I were really into yard sales at the time.) It would scrape down the local newspapers' classified ads, do some processing on the text, and output an optimal route ending back at home taking into account the varied starting times for the sales. It was easy to get MapPoint to do cool stuff.
- bootlooped 8y agoI would resurrect Microsoft Streets and Trips. I have never used it, but my father still does, and swears it is better than any online mapping software. Part of the reason I would like to resurrect it is that then I would no longer have to figure out how to install his ancient CD copy of it on whatever netbook he buys every 2-3 years.
- dvtrn 8y agoSome of the fondest memories I have from childhood involved Microsoft Streets and Tips. Father was a military man, so we were always traveling either for moves, or for some other reason related to his career. He delegated to me the task of putting together his route using Streets and Tips, a great introduction to navigation, mapping and spatial reasoning. Been a cartography geek (not to mention massive road geek) ever since.
- rovr138 8y agoTake the time and create an iso of that and throw it on GDrive/OneDrive/Dropbox. Will be a lot easier in the future.
- lucb1e 8y agoIsochrone is the word you're looking for, for the distance time feature. Openrouteservice can do that, based on osm data (of course; what other source could they use really).