Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 6:28 am by ba3 — Category: News
The following article discusses the growing trend around OpenStreetMap data:
The rise of OpenStreetMap: A quest to conquer Google’s mapping empire
As the article points out:
In recent times, OSM has hit the headlines on a number of occasions, often when a well-known tech-brand adopts the open-source mapping platform instead of Google. Foursquare ditched Google Maps back in 2012 for the OpenStreetMap-powered MapBox, Craigslist uses it for apartment searches, while the mighty Apple has turned to OpenStreetMap data too, even though it took a while for the attribution to be added.
One of the key reasons more companies have started using OpenStreetMap over Google Maps in recent times comes down to two simple things: price and quality.
There are at least two other reasons: Control over your maps, and Performance. When you use Google Maps, you give control of your base maps over to Google, and your layers over the base are severely limited by the performance of Google Maps.
The solution to these problems is OpenStreetMap data used in combination with the BA3 Altus Product Line - a comprehensive set of products and services that deploys your OSM mapping requirements on any platform. The product line includes:
The BA3 Altus Mapping Engine
The Altus Mapping Engine is a high-performance, high-capability, high-reliability engine for rendering mapping assets on any platform. It is derived from a single code base that is identical on all platforms. Developers learn one engine and use the same concepts/capabilities on all platforms. Companies using the Altus Mapping Engine gain complete control over their base maps and map layers and improve developer productivity. Platforms supported:
- iOS
- Android
- Windows 8
- OSX
- Web
Learn more about the Mapping Engine’s capabilities.
Altus Server
Efficient, consolidated server pipeline processing for all map data sources. Data is refined to a unified format that can be streamed or downloaded to devices. Data assets produced by Altus Server are identical on all Mapping Engine platforms. If the company desires it, all developers across the company can access all mapping assets instantly and include them in their applications. Or mapping assets can be siloed on a department-by-department basis, with each department managing its own assets and server pipelines. There is one server component for each map data type:
- Altus server for raster files – Processes geoTiffs, geoPDFs, aerial photos, FAA charts, etc.for display in the Altus Mapping Engine
- Altus server for terrain – Processes terrain data for creation of terrain base layers
- Altus Server for markers – Processes static marker layers up to one million markers
- Altus server for vectors – Processes vector layers produced by Mapshop
- Altus server for weather – Processes various forms of weather data
Learn more about the Mapping Engine’s capabilities.
Altus Mapshop
The Altus Mapshop product allows developers and cartographers to select vector sources and style them for display in the Altus Mapping Engine. Vector maps have advantages that include compact storage compared to raster tiles, dynamic styling on device and high performance display. Vector map styling and deployment from sources such as OpenStreetMap and Esri shape files, as well as custom vector sources imported into the Mapshop database, are supported. Mapshop is a stand-alone product.
Altus Services
BA3 offers professional services to assist clients in the deployment of the Altus product line:
- Training. On-site training is available for any of the Altus components.
- Research and development. If a client wishes to create a new type of visualization, handle a new data type or mapping asset, or modify an Altus product for internal reasons, the work falls into the realm of Research and Development.
- Developer support. Question answering, problem resolution and custom coding to accelerate developers.
- Design services. BA3 can help enterprise clients optimize the appearance and usability of their mapping applications.
- Server integration services. BA3 provides assistance designed to optimize server processing of mapping assets and improve work flow and deployment cycles inside the enterprise.
- General Consulting and Professional Services.
If you and your company would like to replace Google Maps with a faster, more flexible, better performing and more controllable product line that runs on every platform, contact BA3 today.
