Maps are a great way to bring projects to life, illustrating concepts in a visual, spatial way and collecting data based on locations. The recent upgrades to our mapping suite means The HiVE now offers unrivaled opportunities to ground your projects in the real world and both communicate and collect meaningful data in a highly visual and engaging way.

We’ve made a lot of technical advances to our Social Map and Web Map tools recently, so we thought we’d take a look at all of them and talk about how we’ve grown these tools into the most comprehensive spatial engagement toolkit around.

Both tools boast fast-loading maps with the ability to personalise maps through selectable base maps, support for custom drawable or uploadable map layers and masks, customisable categories and icons on Social Map, and even the ability to view maps in 3D. Let’s take a look at how the world’s most flexible spatial engagement toolset has grown and improved in the last year.

Vector-based maps

Social Map and Web Map now utilise vector-based maps. This means base maps load and scale fast, without the slow, clunky loading times associated with most tile-based maps.

Base maps

Both mapping tools allow you to select between 10 different base maps. Base maps can be used to make your map stylish or provide additional context and information to users.

Multiple base maps can be selected for each map, and users can select the map they want to use. You can also leverage your own base maps by bringing them in through a custom Web Mapping Service (WMS). This allows you to bring 3D models in via custom maps or open source maps that are freely available online.

Custom markers

You can now customise your map markers in Social Map, choosing from a rich colour palette and the ability to add custom marker icons. You can now select from a library of over 5000 great-looking icons to make your map pop.

Layers and masking

Layers can be added to the Social Map and Web Map, including masking layers to define the boundaries of a project.

Layers can be uploaded as shapefiles or GeoJSON files, or they can be drawn using line, polygon and marker tools, with customisable colour, shading, line weight and dash arrays, or custom icons for markers. Layers can be used to inform as well, with pop-up text and images, so you can make the most of them to communicate spatial information. Layers can be toggled on and off by visitors to get a more focussed view.

Mask shapes can also be ‘inverted’ which produces a cut-out effect. This allows you to shade out areas outside of the study area and can be used to create dramatic visual effects.

In Social Map, comments can be locked to the boundaries of the masking layer, so you can keep the conversation on track and confined to the defined boundary area.

Marker clustering

Social Maps that are loaded with contributions can now include marker clustering to keep the map looking clean, illustrate hotspots and trends, and manage performance issues. Marker clusters neatly group map markers into a single shape that indicates how many markers fall within each cluster. Clicking on the cluster automatically zooms the map in and shows individual map markers.

New User Interface

The User Interface (UI) is crucial to creating a positive user experience and encouraging participation. As a result, the UI has been completely redesigned with a fresh and contemporary look. New panels subtly animate in from different locations to create a pleasant and stimulating user experience.

At the top of the map, the main call to action has been redesigned to provide a clearer indication of the activity title, description and activity status. The Social Map’s new contribution counter shows how many pieces of feedback have been received to date and encourages people to take part.

On the left-hand side of the map, users can now access a list of map controls that will allow them to view and toggle markers by category, turn on and off map layers, and switch between selected base maps.

In summary

We’ve already been inspired by how our user community is using maps to take their engagement projects to the next level and we intend to continue to innovate in this area to ensure our customers have access to the most up-to-date, cutting edge mapping tools and features.

If you are looking to use mapping to take your engagements up a notch, get in touch with us for a demo or a chat about how we can help.

See the Social Map in action

See the Web Map in action