About MapTechnica.com
What is MapTechnica?
MapTechnica.com is a web site that sells ready-to-use map overlay tile sets that can be used for custom Google Maps applications, and processed data files that can be used for your geographical data applications.
We also have free online mapping tools that use the products we sell.
FAQ: What is a Tile Set?
An Example Use of MapTechnica Data
Say you have a database of customer addresses, and you wanted to see these on a map showing U.S. 5-Digit ZIP Code boundaries. Drawing the map is easy, and so is showing markers representing your customers. Sites like Mapki walk you through this step-by-step.
So you say, "Well, that looks easy. Why would I need to pay you money for this?"
The short answer is that MapTechnica will save you thousands in work-hours, hardware expense and project time. Here's why...
Why Creating Custom Tile Sets Can Be So Difficult
The hard part is getting the ZIP codes to show up in the tile overlay layer. And by "hard," we mean really hard.
Do a search for terms like "Google Maps ZIP Codes" or "zip code overlays" and you'll come across sites like MapTechnica that sell these data sets. But you'll quickly find there's no quick or free solution. Why? Complexity and size.
Sure, you can get the data set for free from the U.S. Census Bureau, but this comes in the shapefile format. So first you’ll need to find an application that can open shapefiles. MapWindow GIS (Windows) is an excellent open source tool that can open shapefiles, but it doesn't output tile sets. The excellent free app, GMapCreator, can create tile sets, but it doesn't edit the shape files, and its underlying Java engine chokes on big files unless you have a monster of a workstation that can process the files.
FAQ: What is a shapefile?
The problem with creating tile set overlays for massive geographical areas like the entire U.S. ZIP Code database is that these shapefiles can be huge. For instance, the U.S. 5-Digit ZIP code shapefile is well over a gigabyte in size and requires a very, very fast machine with at least 16 gigabytes of RAM installed (32 GB or more recommended). In our experience, even then, we’ve only been able to generate tile sets from a file this large on a very high-end Mac due to technical limitations of Java running on a Windows PC.
Let's say you have such a machine laying around. Even then, it takes hours to process. Just to get to the point where GMapCreator starts spitting out tiles takes an hour-and-a-half on a quad-core XEON Mac Pro with 32GBs of RAM. It can take another 12 hours to produce a tile set.
And in the end you have to deal with all the assets. Generating tile sets for your mapping application is a lesson in patience that will push your hardware to its breaking point. At zoom level 12, we’re talking well over a million tiles to draw a tile set covering the United States. At zoom level 14, you’re dealing with almost 6 million tiles. And that’s if you optimize like we do. Most machines start to choke on dealing with that many assets.
So bottom line, you can certainly generate your own tile sets if you have tons of time, money, and patience, but set out on your venture knowing full well that this effort will push all three to their limits. You'll just need to budget a couple of weeks, a new piece of premium hardware, and plan on failing many times while you work out the kinks in your workflow. And that's just to create your first usable tile set.
Why a MapTechnica Tile Set is a Bargain at Any Price
This is a long way of saying...
