Pay-as-you-Go GIS Cloud Mapping Platform Map Mavin Lets You Make and Share Web Maps in Minutes

Katie Nelson, Geospatial Ninja for Apollo Mapping, spoke with GISCafe Voice about their most recent product release, Map Mavin. Apollo Mapping was formed in 2011 and resells satellite imagery from firms such as DigitalGlobe, Airbus and international imagery providers.

Launched in late 2016 (and relaunched in mid-2018), Map Mavin is Apollo Mapping’s pay-as-you go GIS cloud online mapping platform that lets users make unlimited public and password-protected web maps. Once you upload your vector and raster files to their secure Amazon cloud, you are ready to make and share your web maps in minutes – just like this  demo map with vectors and a base layer TIFF from Boulder, Colorado. This year, Apollo created Image Hunter, a comprehensive satellite imagery search engine with over 38 satellites from 13 organizations.

Who are your primary customers?

We see Map Mavin becoming integral to the widespread sharing and dissemination of GIS data, lowering the barrier of entry to people that need access to data in geographic format but are not themselves GIS experts. We believe that geography matters and everyone should have easy access to data to make important decisions and should not be excluded due to lack of funds or experience. As software becomes more exclusionary and complex, it increases the gap between those have access to the tools they need and those that don’t. Map Mavin is designed to close that gap.

It looks as though it’s not difficult for people to use your maps, so that means anyone can view the maps? Are there levels of usership involved, for those doing more complex GIS work?

Map Mavin allows GIS admins to quickly and easily export their GIS data to an online mapping system and share it with users around the world. With Map Mavin, admin users can share an unlimited number of maps and data layers with map viewers. Unlike other services, people viewing a map do not need to pay for an account.

Map Mavin lets admin users export layers directly from ArcGIS to Map Mavin with a free and easy to use ArcGIS plugin or upload data directly to their Map Mavin account. Users can stylize, edit and create new layers then incorporate their layers into maps. Sharing is a snap, all you need is an email address f or your map viewer, and then you can share a view-only map or allow users to edit your data.

Map Mavin accepts a wide variety of data formats, including shapefiles, KML/KMZs, web services , GeoJSON, and GeoTIFFs.

What are the most important features of your latest product release?

One of our most popular features is Screen Share, where users can chat and share their screen with other users in the map. Map Mavin also allows you to write custom SQL queries to search and update your data.

What kind of payment schedule is set up for Map Mavin?

A Basic account includes all these features with 5 GB of storage for $35 a month. Premium accounts are $75 a month and comes with 20 GB of storage along with access to our basemap APIs.

Give some examples of schools and government agencies that are working on projects using Map Mavin.
GIS and mapping companies can now share data with no added cost to their clients. Schools and colleges can show the power of GIS without extensive training or expensive software. NGOs and governments can map the progression of the Zika virus and come up with on-the-ground solutions.

These two examples are all deals in the works. Colorado State University Pueblo uses it for their geography class.

NCAR- National Center for Atmospheric Research is working in conjunction with numerous organizations to track Zika.

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Map Mavin provides monthly updates. Here is the latest one from company materials:

November 2018 Product Updates

“In the past month, we released Map Mavin updates that included but were not limited to the following list of fixes, additions and/or enhancements:

• A free plugin for ArcGIS that automatically exports layers to Map Mavin and creates a web map. It also saves layer colors. Download the free ArcGIS to Map Mavin plugin here!
• Attribute text searches on web maps.
• For Premium Admin users, you now have access to XYZ vector tile basemaps, web tile services in vector and raster format, and a static map/print server API.
• Color ramps added to progressions and heat map layer styles.
• Download layers in a web map.
• Features are highlighted on map click.
• Add all layers in a folder to a web map.
• Recently used colors in Admin symbology menus.
• Access layer styles through API.
• Navigation compass added to the Map Editor so you can pick tilted default views.
• Allow editing of vectors on public maps.
• Decide if a vector layer can be completely editable, or if Map Viewers can only add in new features.
• Improved the editing workflow on web maps to be more intuitive and robust.
• Tilt and compass direction can now be added to an initial web map extent view.
• Layer uploads can be canceled while they are background processing.
• Upload layers directly to a folder.
• Updated the Admin GUI, adding in a tab for the Data Catalog.
• Web map legends now support icon graphics.
• Added sample maps and data to new accounts.
• Improved on-screen handling of folders.
• Autosave your workspace in 30-second intervals (sorry Peter, this one is for you!).
• We also released a horde of software bugs back into nature!”

Tags: cloud, data, geospatial, GIS, imagery, Infrastructure, intelligence, location, mapping, maps, mobile, mobile mapping, navigation, remote sensing, satellite imagery

Categories: 3D Cities, ArcGIS, cloud, data, disaster relief, earthquakes, Esri, field GIS, geospatial, GIS, government, location based services, location intelligence, mapping, mobile, NOAA, Open Source, remote sensing, resilient cities, satellite imagery, sensors, spatial data

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