ProjectX Blog

The Wellington Inner City Bypass, in all its (ahem) glory, is now properly represented on ZoomIn and Smaps. We’re working on our regular update of all the map tiles for New Zealand, but we figured that a major change to the State Highway system, that also reorganised the one-way system in an urban area, was worth getting right straight away.

We thought we’d taken much longer than we would have liked to get this done, but since changes to the one-way network on the surrounding roads kept on happening right until a couple of weeks ago, we thought it was best to get all the changes done in one go. As it turns out, it looks like we’re the first major mapping system to show the bypass: Google, Multimap, Microsoft and Yellow Maps all still have the old configuration. I can understand why it’s taking them a while: it turns out that we had to do a lot of manual editing of the streets data, and our local knowledge came in handy.

While Karo Drive is now visible on the maps, we haven’t updated our addresses database yet, so you can’t search for it. That shouldn’t be a great hardship, since at the moment there seem to be no actual addresses on Karo Drive (Martha’s Pantry is the only business there, and its address is on Cuba St), and the relocated heritage buildings there and on the adjacent Tonks Grove will remain empty for a year or more. Some would argue that Karo Drive doesn’t deserve to be listed as a “place”, since it’s a means of getting between places rather than somewhere to be, but I couldn’t possibly comment! In any case, we’ll be including Karo Drive and Tonks Grove along with all the other street changes nationwide in our next database update.

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We have just released new maps for ZoomIn. The maps show the land or cadastral boundaries of each property at last three zoom levels.

Following up from a recent DominionPost article on Wellington’s worst buildings, the Architectural Centre has been coming up with a list of Wellington’s best buildings, and that should be published in the cming week. I thought I’d try to get in first by writing up my own top ten list, and I’ve been counting them down on WellUrban.

ZoomIn has come in very handy for this, since not only can I link to the address of each building, but I can upload photos and write descriptions for each one. In fact, ZoomIn could be a great platform for creating a “building database” for historians or architecture buffs. Wikipedia allows you to write articles about buildings, but unless the building is deemed noteworthy enough, you’d risk deletion. If you consider that the quirky little building down the road is noteworthy to you, because you are a fan of the architect, or you used to work or live there, go ahead and say so on ZoomIn: it’s your choice.

Some of the buildings already had ZoomIn places create for them, but not all, so I had to create few places. There are several ways to do this, such as adding a description and photos directly on the page for that address (e.g. http://zoomin.co.nz/nz/wellington/wellington+central/victoria+street/81/. But when writing about a building, I prefer to create a place at that address to capture building details. The practical reason for that is that there may be several buildings at one address, or different buildings at different times; but from a philosophical perspective I like to maintain a distinction between a building, which is a physical edifice, and an address, which is an abstract construct.

Here is the resulting group map:

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Observant readers will note that there are only nine places: that’s because I’ll announce my #1 favourite tomorrow. If you’re reading this after that, there will be ten buildings listed, because this map is live, not just a static image. I’ll also create a group for the Architecture Centre’s “official” list, though I imagine ther’ll be a few overlaps.

Don’t agree? Join the group and post to the discussion, or just comment on the building pages themselves. If you have some extra information, edit the description to add it. Upload your own photos, drawings or architectural plans. Even better, create your own group and start your own discussions. Where are the ten best buildings in Auckland, New Plymouth or Timaru? The ten best parks, sculptures or pubs? That’s exactly what ZoomIn’s community features were built for.

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We want to make ZoomIn better by making sure our content is up to date, appropriate for the community. We added a tool to flag any content that incorrect, objectionable or violation of copyright.

So if you see any place descriptions, photos or comments that need some attention, flag them and we’ll take care of it.

We value your feedback, any improvements or suggestions are appreciated.

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We want to make ZoomIn better by making sure our content is up to date, appropriate for the community. We added a tool to flag any content that incorrect, objectionable or violation of copyright.

So next time you find any place description, picture or comment that’s not quite right, flag it and we’ll look much sure that its fixed.

We value your feedback, any improvements or suggestions are appreciated.

We’ve release a new version of the API, the safari bugs have been resolved. Let us know if you’re having any problems.

We’re happy to introduce some great new features added to the ZoomIn Mapping System (ZMS) API:

Minimap

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The mini map can be added to any ZMS map to give the users a quick overview of the area displayed on the map. It shows you more of the region and lets you navigate quickly around large areas. Find out how to use the mini-map.

Built-in projection translation

The API now contains functionality to translate between coordinates in WSG84 and NZTM projections. This is a great feature as it means that you don’t have to convert your coordinate data. We’ll do it for you. Find out more about Glatlong.

Text window

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This innovative feature lets you annotate maps with text notes. Think of it as leaving PostIt notes on the map. Look at the examples) and the API reference to find out how too take advantage of this feature.

Scroll wheel support

Now you can use the scroll wheel on your mouse to quickly zoom in and out of the map. You can control whether you want this capability on your map or not. Find out how to implement the scroll wheel..

Wellington is, right now, as the temperature charts on the Greater Wellington Regional Council website show. Now, if only they would publish the data as numerical RSS feeds rather than static GIF images, it would be great mashup fodder. Hmm, I feel a project coming on…

Anyway, one ZoomIn user has decided to do something about the heat: he’s created a ZoomIn Group of swimming holes in the Wellington region. At the moment, there’s only one place in the group, but that’s what the community features of ZoomIn are all about: if you’ve got your own favourite swimming places, go ahead and add them to the group.

Update: there are now 5 places, and counting…

We’ve just added over 5700 Auckland bus stops to ZoomIn. Now you can search for bus stops in and around Auckland eg. Mount Albert, Mission Bay or Henderson.

A big thanks to Auckland Regional Transport Authority and Maxx team for helping us get this content online.

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We’ve been talking to a lot of our users and we realise that we let a bugs and glitches slip into the system. Due to one thing or another they haven’t been fixed and as a result ZoomIn is not as good as it should be. We’ve decided that enough is enough, so we started an internal project to fix the broken windows.

To start with we are making a list, when its finished we’ll post it on the blog and keep you updated as we make progress.
So we want you to tell us what is broken, annoying, or frustrating on ZoomIn.

To kick things off, here’s the start of our list:

• Search – Inconsistent results when trying to find a street number in a long street eg. Great South Road
• Search – Auto-suggest does not find all results
• Aerial Photography – Bring back aerial photography !
• Email: Fix email map to a friend
• URLs: Make sure that all the ZoomIn url’s are friendly and don’t have %20 etc
• Place Page: Stop munging place names

Finally, thanks for your patience. We’re working on fixing our problems, let us know what you want us to fix and we’ll add it the list.