We’re thrilled to announce a major upgrade to the Social Map tool – one that takes the tool above and beyond the industry standard for spatial engagement tools, right into uncharted territory.

The new Social Map boasts fast-loading vector-based maps with the ability to personalise your map through 10 new base maps, support for map layers, customisable categories and icons, and even the ability to view maps in 3D!

Along with a swathe of other new features and functionality, you’ll be ready to better engage your citizens and have them actively participate in shaping the places they live, work and play.

We can’t wait to see how HiVE customers will use the new Social Map to facilitate new and creative engagements, empowering users to pinpoint their ideas, thoughts and stories in new and exciting ways.

HiVE users won’t need to do anything to receive the update. You will automatically be upgraded to the new Social Map. If you’re not a current user, feel free to get in touch for a demo.

The User Interface (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. A 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 view and toggle markers by category, turn on and off map layers, and switch between selected basemaps.

Many people struggle to understand top-down, plan-view maps. The new Social Map allows users to to explore the scene in 3D, providing them with a better understanding of their context.

Simply use the interface control to adjust the map, or hold the ‘control’ or ‘command’ key on your keyboard and hold the mouse button to move around.

Support for 3D mapping layers is on its way, but in the meantime you can add 3D shapes and buildings by importing base maps from a third party service like Mapbox or a custom Web Mapping Service (WMS).

One of the best things about the new Social Map is the impressive extent to which you can tailor each map to the particular personality of your project.

You can now customise your map markers 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.

We’ve also introduced a new range of base maps to choose from. Base maps can be used to make your map stylish or provide additional context and information to users. There are now 10 different base maps to choose from:

• General Purpose
• Standard Street
• Community Sourced
• Standard Satellite
• Detailed Satellite
• Standard Hybrid
• Detailed Hybrid
• Light
• Dark
• High Contrast

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), or even turning them off completely if using an image overlay that is not geo-referenced.

The extent of the map can also now be locked to prevent users from panning too far outside of the study area.

Mapping layers can now be added to the Social Map by uploading .shp and .geojson files. These layers can be toggled on and off by the user through the new layers panel, and layers can be styled by adjusting a range of properties.

Legend items can also be added and styled for each layer allowing you flexibility to present information to your users.

The powerful new masking layer feature will allow you to highlight a particular study area or location on the map. This can be done by uploading spatial data to the map to highlight its location, and then styling its fill, stroke and opacity.

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.

The Masking Layer can also be used to ensure contributions are restricted to a certain geographical area, so you know longer need to worry about people dropping pins halfway around the world.

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.

Marker clustering can be enabled in the settings and is automatically turned on when a certain number of pins are added to the map.

Users can now navigate from marker to marker, using arrow buttons on the contribution. Currently, this will bring the person to the previously dated contribution left on the map.

A new customisable Information Panel can be used to provide more context and background to your users. You can now add supporting text to explain the activity and even have this panel appear when the map is first loaded.

If you are using categories, you now have the ability to automatically display the category information (marker styles, titles and descriptions) within the Information Panel.

We have also integrated a second Instruction Panel that can be used to provide detailed instructions to users on how to use the map and participate in the activity. These instructions are automatically linked from the Information Panel and can be customised.

Users can now view the map in full screen mode. This means the map can be embedded in a smaller content area, but also viewed to its maximum potential. This is a great feature for exploring the results in closer detail or using the tool out in the field.

To help users better locate themselves on the map, an address search feature is now provided. Additionally, if geolocation services are enabled in the browser, users will be able to automatically detect their location on the map by pressing the ‘locate’ button.

Please note, that we do not currently record any geolocation events.

The new Social map uses vector-based information. That means maps load quickly and zip along with you as you zoom and scroll. No more long waits for individual image tiles to awkwardly load.

Inbuilt social network sharing allows users to easily share the page on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.