United Maps is about better maps

United Maps provides vectorized and fully navigable map data to enhance mapping applications with additional zoom levels. The quality and resolution goes far beyond rooftop level and adds relevant detail that leverages usecases for connected devices.

The demo data is two 10x10 kms data sets - one from Munich, the other from Immenstadt, a small rural town in the bavarian region „Oberallgäu“ near the alps.

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PWD: please contact Andreas Wiedmann

Experimental status, for demo purposes only.

The showcase is not about pretty formatting or cartographic sophistication, it is generated almost automatically – colors, design and labelling are a working draft. You’ll probably notice building boundaries sometimes being overlapped by streets or waterbodies run over streets – please ignore, all this is solved but not yet displayed. Almost everything might be parametrized into stylesheets.

Interface

United Maps vs Google Maps

Play around with the zoom-slider on the left. You may zoom in up to housenumber level set to actual locations rather conventional street centerlines.

Watch out for public transport and stops. The (still ugly) red circles are POIs - we collected them quick'n'dirty.

Imagine the wealth of situatively relevant information that could be layered with data mining tools applied.

Pedestrian Navigation Example

Now let’s play around with pedestrian navigation.

Click "Routing" and follow the numbered instructions on the overlay:

from here to:

Let's assume you're at the japanese teahouse behind "Haus der Kunst" and you want to walk to the Hofbräuhaus.

Reasonable distance, nice weather.

Click on »New route« to set your starting point, click again for destination.

Following the green line, we walk through the park and pass through the bavarian kings' "Hofgarten", cross "Maximilianstraße" and finally arrive at the Hofbräuhaus.

Time for a beer.

Now try the same in any other mapping service.

It won't work as maps are currently made for vehicle use cases rather than pedestrians. Hence, routing is oriented at streets that cars can drive. Pedestrians can do other things and walk cross parks, between buildings and take shorter ways sometimes.

Crossing "von der Tann Straße" is a good example:
there is a pedestrian tunnel below this major inner city traverse - unknown to conventional maps (the demo shows the green path going over the street, this is cosmetic bug to be corrected).

See the building boundaries and even paths across puplic parcs.

Pedestrian navigation example: Immenstadt, Oberallgäu

The second example is a bit more tricky. Mapping cities is easy, mapping rural areas needs other qualifications.

Let's assume, we're up to some hiking in Immenstadt, a small town at the Bavarian Alps. We just arrived by train and want to do some serious mountaineering:
up to the Gerenstein and a rest at "Ingolstädter Haus".

The vectorized net of pathways and hikes will cover the steepest slopes, hikes and touristic POIs and waypoints even in rural areas.

Numbered hikes and paths are all neatly mapped.

Play around!

Now see, what Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps look like: