July 2021 Summaries

Mapbox Tiling Service (MTS) has enhanced its functionality by increasing the default tile size limit from 500KB to 1250KB, allowing users to tile 2.5 to 5 times more features than before and providing a better experience for visualizing large datasets. This update helps ensure a fast and seamless map viewing experience by setting specific tile size limits for each layer, thereby preventing excessively large tiles and offering warnings when limits are exceeded. MTS now allows customizable layer size limits up to 2500KB, which can be configured with a simple recipe, and offers a capped_tiles field to identify areas where features are dropped due to size limits. Examples such as the New York Times Precinct Map and Department of Energy's EV charging stations illustrate how configurable tile size limits can accommodate dense data, ensuring comprehensive data availability at a country level.

Mapbox Horizon, now in Beta and distributed with the Navigation SDK V2, provides predictive roadway information for drivers, such as speed limits, congestion, and custom data sets like parking availability, accessible up to 10km ahead, even without turn-by-turn navigation. It combines two components: Graph Accessor, which treats maps as a graph of roads considering rules like turn restrictions and assigns "addresses" to points of interest; and Most Probable Path, which predicts the likely route a driver will take based on traffic rules and past behaviors. This integration allows Horizon to act as a "vacuum cleaner," gathering relevant road data to enhance Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for safety, comfort, and efficiency by anticipating road conditions such as congestion or road slope changes. Originally intended for automotive customers, it aims to democratize predictive navigation technology previously reserved for high-end vehicles, with companies like NCS in Singapore already leveraging its capabilities. Horizon is available for iOS and Android via the Navigation SDK V2, with automakers invited to explore its potential through demos and free accounts.

Mapbox Studio has introduced two new data visualization components, Symbols and Heatmap, allowing users to enhance their maps with custom styles efficiently. The Symbols component facilitates the quick visualization of data using icons and labels without needing advanced knowledge of Mapbox GL JS expressions, and includes up to seven geometric Maki icons, which can be customized in Studio. The Heatmap component enables users to create density visualizations easily, offering smart styling based on feature density and adjustable settings such as cluster radius and opacity. Users can now reorder data visualizations to improve map clarity, with a practical example provided by Senior Map Designer Kelsey Taylor, who created a style visualizing tropical cyclones from 2020, available for users to replicate in their Studio accounts.

Mapbox has enhanced its places data to improve location coverage across more than 40 European countries, benefiting developers by offering more precise location insights and geotagging capabilities. The updated data includes substantial improvements in city, locality, and neighborhood layers, with significant additions in countries like the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Highlights include a newly updated UK locality layer with over 25,000 new towns and villages, 53,000 new settlements in Spain, and 70,000 new Italian locations. These updates are part of Mapbox's continuous investment in data quality, utilizing their Boundaries data product and are now available in the Search API and SDK. The updates aim to capture colloquially recognized localities, offering precise geocoding for developers, and have expanded neighborhood coverage in countries such as the UK, Netherlands, and France, focusing on metropolitan areas. Additionally, over 25,000 new postcodes have been added across Europe, including full coverage in several countries, to enhance both forward and reverse geocoding services.

The San Francisco Chronicle has developed an innovative system using Mapbox GL JS to provide real-time, interactive earthquake visualizations for California residents. This tool displays crucial information such as quake strength, distance from the epicenter, and fault lines as events unfold, enabling residents to make informed safety decisions. By systematically collecting and processing data from four U.S. Geological Survey feeds every minute, the Chronicle's DevHub team ensures that updates are automatically published when seismic activity surpasses set thresholds. The visualizations utilize color-coded intensity contours and Mapbox's flyTo function to enhance user experience, aligning with the high-quality standards expected by the Chronicle's subscribers.

StubHub has revamped its interactive seat mapping system using the Mapbox Tiling Service (MTS) and Mobile Maps SDK, which allows for seamless georeferenced stadium seating selections across web and mobile platforms while eliminating previous technical challenges. This transformation ensures consistency in seating data across all devices by processing it only once, thereby facilitating the expansion to more venues without infrastructure concerns. By adopting Mapbox SDKs, StubHub has reduced maintenance efforts, improved performance, and paved the way for creating innovative maps, including potential 3D features and points of interest, thus enhancing the user experience and operational efficiency.

Mapbox Movement offers a detailed and privacy-forward dataset of vehicle activity, gathered from millions of mobile devices worldwide, which can be used for various analyses including transportation planning and city development. In examining the Detroit metro area, the data reveals a notable shift in traffic patterns between 2019 and 2021, with freeway traffic declining during the pandemic and local street activity increasing, possibly indicating a rise in local travel. The data's accuracy is validated by comparison with Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) statistics, showing a high level of agreement for the majority of road segments. Additionally, Mapbox Movement data provides more detailed insights into traffic patterns by time of day and road type, offering a nuanced understanding of vehicle activity changes over time. A specific analysis of Woodward Avenue in Detroit highlights changes in traffic volume distribution throughout the day, with a shift from traditional rush hour peaks to more evenly distributed traffic, likely influenced by changes in commuting and retail activity.

Call for Code, initiated by IBM, is a global initiative aimed at addressing societal challenges through open-source technology, engaging over 400,000 developers worldwide since 2018. The initiative features a Global Challenge, where developers use free access to weather data APIs from The Weather Company, an IBM business, to create innovative solutions, such as outdoor and navigation apps that utilize weather information to enhance user experience. Winning solutions are incubated and deployed in communities to maximize impact. The Weather Company offers extensive data products, including APIs for current conditions and radar overlays, which developers can integrate into applications to provide users with detailed weather insights. As part of the competition, developers are encouraged to create applications that mitigate climate change effects, with the challenge remaining open for submissions until July 31st.