8 ms·

Sketchy Maps with Geometry Smoothing

97 points by xbryanx 14y ago

Terretta 14y ago
I thought this was going to be the Bing napkin sketch style for directions: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_map_automatic_napkin_sketching_of_maps.html http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_ma... Love the end result of the bezier curves shown on the map of the Caribbean, but really thought the napkin sketch feature was fantastic for directions.
- Retric 14y ago
  I prefer the traditional style maps because if you deviate from the expected route you still have a map of the area. For example a GPS device will give sometimes give you a ridiculous number of turn by turn directions in a row. Go 100 feet merge right, go 200 feet merge left, go 50 feet and take a right, go 300 feet and make a left.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  As one of the comments at your link shows, this was originally developed at Stanford: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/
zevyoura 14y ago
Very reminiscent of the work Stamen is doing; I'm a big fan of both. Here's Stamen's watercolor map: http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#12/37.7706/-122.3782 http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#12/37.7706/-122.3782
- cocoflunchy 14y ago
  Wow! This is absolutely beautiful.
- th0ma5 14y ago
  Gorgeous, but painfully slow to render. The price we pay!
untog 14y ago
There's something very pleasing about dedicating so much technical attention to something that is so artful. I love seeing map styles like this- not sure where I'd use one myself, but I sure want to...
debacle 14y ago
This is so beautiful.
_delirium 14y ago
Tangentially related, I like this really simple experiment with map simplification from a few years ago: http://adamsmith.as/blurry_maps/ http://adamsmith.as/blurry_maps/ Obviously not nearly as involved as this, but a nice example of what a really simple transform can do aesthetically: It just median-filters Google Maps, which has the effect of removing text, simplifying boundaries, and producing large flat color areas.
martian 14y ago
I love that slippy maps are a commodity such that people can making art and craft them in new and wonderful ways. There's already a nice collection of other twists on the slippy-map-as-art thing here. One more is Stamen's Pretty Maps, which does the heavy lifting in SVG and combines Flickr shapefiles in very interesting way: http://prettymaps.stamen.com/ http://prettymaps.stamen.com/

97 points by xbryanx 14y ago

I thought this was going to be the Bing napkin sketch style for directions: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_map_automatic_napkin_sketching_of_maps.html http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/06/bing_destination_ma... Love the end result of the bezier curves shown on the map of the Caribbean, but really thought the napkin sketch feature was fantastic for directions.

Retric 14y ago
I prefer the traditional style maps because if you deviate from the expected route you still have a map of the area. For example a GPS device will give sometimes give you a ridiculous number of turn by turn directions in a row. Go 100 feet merge right, go 200 feet merge left, go 50 feet and take a right, go 300 feet and make a left.
ZeroGravitas 14y ago
As one of the comments at your link shows, this was originally developed at Stanford: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/

zevyoura 14y ago

Very reminiscent of the work Stamen is doing; I'm a big fan of both. Here's Stamen's watercolor map: http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#12/37.7706/-122.3782 http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#12/37.7706/-122.3782

cocoflunchy 14y ago
Wow! This is absolutely beautiful.
th0ma5 14y ago
Gorgeous, but painfully slow to render. The price we pay!

untog 14y ago

There's something very pleasing about dedicating so much technical attention to something that is so artful. I love seeing map styles like this- not sure where I'd use one myself, but I sure want to...

debacle 14y ago

This is so beautiful.

_delirium 14y ago

Tangentially related, I like this really simple experiment with map simplification from a few years ago: http://adamsmith.as/blurry_maps/ http://adamsmith.as/blurry_maps/ Obviously not nearly as involved as this, but a nice example of what a really simple transform can do aesthetically: It just median-filters Google Maps, which has the effect of removing text, simplifying boundaries, and producing large flat color areas.

martian 14y ago

I love that slippy maps are a commodity such that people can making art and craft them in new and wonderful ways. There's already a nice collection of other twists on the slippy-map-as-art thing here. One more is Stamen's Pretty Maps, which does the heavy lifting in SVG and combines Flickr shapefiles in very interesting way: http://prettymaps.stamen.com/ http://prettymaps.stamen.com/