Map this - Google Map

Allen

Map this - Google Map is broken. Only terrain showing, no other choices like sat. images.

Andy

Not broken, new. Google changed up so many things on their Maps deal with us that we switched Map providers. We'll have a blog post soon and we also have some neat maps improvement underway as well.

Allen

Andy wrote: »

Not broken, new. Google changed up so many things on their Maps deal with us that we switched Map providers. We'll have a blog post soon and we also have some neat maps improvement underway as well.

Without the satellite image it's kind of useless in a lot of cases.

Edit: actually find it very useless for pin pointing bird locations. No reference to anything shown. :pissed
http://maps.smugmug.com/?feedType=geoAlbum&Data=21980954_3Hs8R4

DeVerm

What a mess... things are falling apart, all the good things change or disappear.

Give - us - back - our - maps - incl. - satellite ! :cry

Andy

DeVerm wrote: »

What a mess... things are falling apart, all the good things change or disappear.

Give - us - back - our - maps - incl. - satellite ! :cry

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1753601&postcount=2

Allen

Andy wrote: »

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1753601&postcount=2

Ya might have missed the most important question, WILL there be satellite images?

Andy

Allen wrote: »

Ya might have missed the most important question, WILL there be satellite images?

Al, and all - please stay tuned

DeVerm

Andy wrote: »

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1753601&postcount=2

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1753608&postcount=3

Andy

Now, with Satellite view - click the icon upper right on your map.

Allen

Andy wrote: »

Now, with Satellite view - click the icon upper right on your map.

Great! Thanks. But sure is degraded from what we were use to. :cry

Any chance of hybrid view? Aerial and roads? Zooming in aerial all labels/roads are lost.
Also it does not zoom in as much as GoogleEarth did. About 2-3 zooms short.

DeVerm

Andy wrote: »

Now, with Satellite view - click the icon upper right on your map.

I appreciate the effort Andy, but with the path you're on, it's never gonna be good IMHO. Here's an example, this is the view of a gallery using Google imagery:


Now the exact same view on SmugMug:


Pretty horrible, right? The worst thing is that the resolution is so low that this Smugmug view is zoomed in as far as it will go (becomes greyed out one click further zoomed in), while the Google view zooms in until I see the sheep grazing on the hills of this vulcano where I am now.

Please increase your prices and pay Google from the extra income

Andy

Thanks for the feedback, Al and Nick, we really appreciate it

wizzy

Well, did a few fotoshoots last weeks and one with geotagging, and I was very dissapointed with the map-provider. Good the see that it's not only europe that has poor sattelite resolution / color / zoom, but that it's a global thing. And that's not good. Well, hope this will be sorted out somehow. Nick's post says it all.
SmugMug is a great site, with high standards, but this map thing is well below any standard. Better not to offer it, then offering this.

letrout

Even worse if you want to zoom in.

Smugmug at max resolution:


Google at max resolution:


That may not be broken to you, but it doesn't work for me.

Adriano61

Definitely a big downgrading in the quality and this is not in line with your history of continuous improvement….
I would suggest to keep up with the Google map's changes or to find a new, better, provider!!

Thank you.

Andy

Adriano61 wrote: »

Definitely a big downgrading in the quality and this is not in line to your history of continuous improvement….
I would suggest to keep up with the Google map's changes or to find a new, better, provider!!

Thank you.

Thanks for the feedback - we wish that Google didn't make it so hard for us to continue to use them

letrout

You need to stop blaming this on Google. Adobe is able to work just fine with Google Maps in LR, so this is a solvable problem. Even Flickr's maps are better.

This isn't a Google problem. It's a SmugMug problem.

Andy

letrout wrote: »

This isn't a Google problem. It's a SmugMug problem.

Well, you don't have all the details, do you

letrout

Perhaps not, but that's only because you aren't sharing them. Considering that, it seems a little unfair for you to dismiss me because I'm ignorant. But said details are only of academic interest as compared the the end result anyway. I see what can be done with mapping tagged photos, and I see what I get out of SmugMug. SmugMug simply falls short on this feature as compared to others.

danilohegg

I'm afraid I have to agree, the new maps in Smugmug are disappointing. We should be able to show markers on google maps, with a choice of sat images with or without labels, simple maps, and TERRAIN. Also, why the 150 markers limit on the Around the World map. This map should be able to display all of our geotagged images, as we zoom in to a specific location.

Smugmug is a GREAT service, I just love it. This is just one point that could be improved. Keep up with the good work!

danilohegg

Now I was wondering: through the Smugmug RSS feeds, I've been able to create a google map with links to my photographs.
I've been able to overcome the 150 placemarks limitation, and I'm able to embed this map in my biography. Not the ideal place for it, but better than the Smugmaps at this point in time.
If I'm able to do all of this simply by exporting Smugmug RSS feeds, why can Smugmug not automate this? Also, is there another way for me to embed my custom-made map, other than in my biography? Would really like to be able to separate the two!

Below is the link to the google map I've created by exporting RSS feeds. The one I've linked to my home page is even better, in that it uses New Zealand topographic maps overlaid onto Google Maps.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=https:%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fmaps%2Fms%3Fauthuser%3D0%26vps%3D10%26ie%3DUTF8%26hl%3Den%26oe%3DUTF8%26msa%3D0%26output%3Dkml%26msid%3D205582318296631628947.0004bec6e5a758084dbed&hl=en&ll=-44.276671,170.211182&spn=4.06693,10.821533&sll=37.996163,-95.712891&sspn=35.550855,86.572266&t=p&z=7

Andy wrote: »

Well, you don't have all the details, do you

S

DJKennedy

I have to agree with the others, the new map service Smugmug is using is pretty much useless. I live in a small city of 8500 people - with the aerial view using the new smugmug service is so lousy, you cant even see streets from my city let alone the exact point Ive tagged - you arent sharing the reasons as to why you had to change so I have to assume it was a money thing but still - the provider you are using isnt cutting it - period.

I dont often get disappointed with SM, but in this case, im deeply disappointed. I mean completely and utterly disappointed to the point that now I wish I didnt spend the several hundred dollars for the Canon GPS unit.

The mapping provider you are using now is pretty much useless. How about being up front with us. WILL this be upgraded and if so when? If it wont be or cant be upgraded, can/will SM search for another alternative?

And a message for danilohegg: could you possibly create a page walking others through what you've done? or link us to where you found the info needed? :P

DJKennedy

I played around with the maps this morning just as for a test. In my area, yeah you cant zoom in enough to even see that my city has streets but zooming in on a larger city (Vancouver BC), you can zoom in almost enough to see a gnat on a dogs behind (ok almost).

So what are the chances of your map providers getting more detailed (zoomable) maps for smaller areas instead of just the large cities (like the rest of the country lol)?

DJKennedy

No one wants to touch this one eh? disappointing...

DJKennedy

April 28th was the last time anyone from SM/Dgrin commented on this which imo is quite disappointing.

Would it kill ya to throw us a bone on any possible updates?? *ANYONE* ?

Baldy

DJKennedy wrote: »

April 28th was the last time anyone from SM/Dgrin commented on this which imo is quite disappointing.

Would it kill ya to throw us a bone on any possible updates?? *ANYONE* ?

Hey DJ,

I'm so sorry this has happened with maps. We re-opened the issue with Google this week thinking surely we can work this out, but they are requiring us to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn their maps back on. I haven't been able to understand why, when someone has a custom domain and wants to use Google Maps, it isn't between that user and Google since we are just the webhost like Wordpress or GoDaddy when people use map widgets on those sites. But their stance is it's our feature and therefore we need to pay for usage even if Google is able to run ads on them.

The thing is we'd like to improve the user experience but that would drive more adoption and their fees would really skyrocket beyond the seriously big numbers they're talking today.

Right now we have all hands on deck working on something big that touches all of our customers and we just can't justify pouring so much money into maps. I wish I had a better answer for you.

Allen

At least fix the current one you're using and get rid of that horrible symbol in the upper right corner and
put the words Aerial and Normal/Map there. No one visiting my site has a clue the toggle is there.

DJKennedy

Baldy:

thanks for getting back to me on this.

I always assumed money had something to do with it, and I dont blame SM one bit for not wanting to pay that sort of cash for the map this feature.

My problem with the mapping feature you are using now is that the resolution is totally useless. Its fine Im sure if you live, or at least taken the photos in the US where you might get awesome resolution (due to the mapping company being US and the mapping information easily obtainable to them would be my guess) but up here in the North the mapping you are now using is useless - you cant zoom in enough to the point where you can actually see where the photo was taken.

In my (smallish) city, you cant even tell what neighbourhood a photo was taken let alone which street so for me its totally useless. Best you can do is see that yes, it was taken in the city *somewhere*. I havent checked since i replied to this thread last but I have to assume nothing has changed as far as the resolution is concerned but will check again after i send this.

As much as Torontonians think that they are in the center of the universe - not all Canadians live there and although the last time i checked you could zoom in pretty darn good in that city - most other places its useless.

Im *no* good at coding and even though it might be simple for one to set up their own mapping feature using Google maps, i have no idea how to do so and hate to try setting it up due to fear of totally screwing things up.

I purchased a Canon GPS unit to tag my photos - the unit isnt cheap - it costs much more up here than down in the US but if you cant zoom into a map, the gps unit is almost useless.

Thanks though for getting back to me and explaining Googles stance on the subject (even though I kinda figured that was the case).

Maybe someone could create a walk through to allow us to add the feature without paying the fees they expect SM to use? That would be awesome. I just dont have a clue on how to do that stuff.

Derek J Kennedy

EDIT: yeah the areal view is utterly useless as far as im concerned. the map view not so bad but its the areal view that im missing when compared to the google maps. And I agree with changing the icon :P

Baldy

DJKennedy wrote: »

Baldy:

thanks for getting back to me on this.

I always assumed money had something to do with it, and I dont blame SM one bit for not wanting to pay that sort of cash for the map this feature.

My problem with the mapping feature you are using now is that the resolution is totally useless. Its fine Im sure if you live, or at least taken the photos in the US where you might get awesome resolution (due to the mapping company being US and the mapping information easily obtainable to them would be my guess) but up here in the North the mapping you are now using is useless - you cant zoom in enough to the point where you can actually see where the photo was taken.

In my (smallish) city, you cant even tell what neighbourhood a photo was taken let alone which street so for me its totally useless. Best you can do is see that yes, it was taken in the city *somewhere*. I havent checked since i replied to this thread last but I have to assume nothing has changed as far as the resolution is concerned but will check again after i send this.

As much as Torontonians think that they are in the center of the universe - not all Canadians live there and although the last time i checked you could zoom in pretty darn good in that city - most other places its useless.

Im *no* good at coding and even though it might be simple for one to set up their own mapping feature using Google maps, i have no idea how to do so and hate to try setting it up due to fear of totally screwing things up.

I purchased a Canon GPS unit to tag my photos - the unit isnt cheap - it costs much more up here than down in the US but if you cant zoom into a map, the gps unit is almost useless.

Thanks though for getting back to me and explaining Googles stance on the subject (even though I kinda figured that was the case).

Maybe someone could create a walk through to allow us to add the feature without paying the fees they expect SM to use? That would be awesome. I just dont have a clue on how to do that stuff.

Derek J Kennedy

EDIT: yeah the areal view is utterly useless as far as im concerned. the map view not so bad but its the areal view that im missing when compared to the google maps. And I agree with changing the icon :P

yeah, this is a disappointing issue. We actually had one of our best guys on this for quite a while last year until we ran into another dead-end for reasons I'll spare you on, and I got frustrated and moved him to the shopping cart where we could solve issues for more customers (millions of customers use that, thousands use maps).

Having said that, anyone know much about this map vendor? http://mapbox.com/ Foursquare uses them, among others, and I'd love to know what you think.

DJKennedy

Baldy wrote: »

yeah, this is a disappointing issue. We actually had one of our best guys on this for quite a while last year until we ran into another dead-end for reasons I'll spare you on, and I got frustrated and moved him to the shopping cart where we could solve issues for more customers (millions of customers use that, thousands use maps).

Having said that, anyone know much about this map vendor? http://mapbox.com/ Foursquare uses them, among others, and I'd love to know what you think.

I also use another site that starts with a F and ends in likr that uses maps by Nokia?? Other than the really disappointing size of the maps - you can zoom in just like the google maps. Just a thought.

I'll check out mapbox. thanks for that.

I understand wanting to please the millions vs thousands, cant fault you there. Even though I dont use shopping cart lol.

Derek

Baldy

Nice pointer, Derek. What do you think of them? I've been reading through their forums and it seems like they're mainly getting flamed, but some people like them.