MapSherpa

The launch of MapSherpa this week marks a new approach that combines high-quality online map data of Canada, easy-to-use map creation tools , and templates designed to produce printed maps. The business model recognizes the continued interest in printed maps, particularly for outdoor recreation, and provides tools and data to create a portable customized map-store quality map from your desktop.

Canada has a topographic map series similar to the United States that received strong public support when the government planned to stop production in 2006. The public objected to the government’s plan to only make the map data available, with outcry that the general public lacks the necessary tools to create maps from the data. The government has since rescinded that plan and provides various suppliers with high-resolution vector files for printing in regional centers.

The MapSherpa product benefits from the government topographic map data as a base layer, but builds upon that with NAVTEQ road data that provides road classification, labels on all roads and street names. MapSherpa also adds shaded relief mapping.

“We’re taking the best of the GIS universe and hiding it from the user, but allowing the user to interact in a way that doesn’t require a high level of expertise,” stated Dave McIlhagga, president and CEO of DM Solutions Group, the makers of MapSherpa. “In my view, this is where the power of GIS comes to the masses. It’s not by putting GIS in someone’s hands, it’s giving people easy and simple to use tools that they’re used to on the Web, but with the power of GIS behind it.”

Cartographic Difference

While there are other on-demand map offerings of different geographies that are similar, notably National Geographic’s Map Machine kiosk, the MapSherpa product provides more base map flexibility to pick the exact area that users want, in a resolution that isn’t dependent on a static scale, and with the ability to add custom details to personalize the map.

MapSherpa places an emphasis on cartography and presentation that’s different than the online mapping sites that are more focused on the online experience.

“If you go into Google you can plot points and draw a line, but when you render that map, you’ll get labels obscured and other things that should not happen cartographically,” said McIlhagga. “You end up with a ‘cartoony’ map rather than a high-quality map. What we’re doing is giving our users the  power to style, create and add their content, but we’re fusing that with the GIS world to make sure that label collision algorithms are in place, so that a high-quality rendering can result.”

Outdoor Market

Canada is a country where the great outdoors is a large part of life. When working on the business plan, the group took great stock in a study that more than 2 million adult Canadians take one trip a year with an overnight stay that is dedicated to an outdoor activity. That works out to roughly 7% of the population, and a considerable market size.

The belief that the product would meet a pent-up demand was reinforced by a meeting with Mountain-Equipment Co-Op, Canada’s largest outdoor retailer. MEC understands that getting a high quality map for outdoor activities is a difficult task, and they signed on as a sponsor to help promote the service with an offer for a discount to their 2 million members.

MapSherpa is also working closely with World of Maps in Ottawa, a large map retailer that is just blocks from their office. World of Maps is responsible for printing poster-size versions of paper and laminated maps, and they will also be offering the MapSherpa service via an in-store kiosk.

Open Source Platform

DM Solutions Group is well known for their consulting services with open source GIS software, their contribution to its development, and their involvement in the creation of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. All the technology that underlies MapSherpa is built using Map Server, Open Layers and other open source elements. The site also utilizes Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a web hosting platform.

While MapSherpa is a significant effort, it does not replace the consulting services that the company is well known for. In a retool of the business plan a year and a half ago, DM Solutions Group realized that they were a consulting company that was also fundamentally a software company. In order to capitalize on their software creation expertise, they decided that they wanted to create and own their own software to help diversify the business. The intent is also for the MapSherpa product to serve as a marketing and awareness tool to show people what can be done with open source mapping software.

“As a result of going forward with this, we should be able to give back more open source tools than we ever have,” said McIlhagga. “This allows us to focus more on software development than on-time delivery of solutions to customers. As part of our own service, we don’t have to find a customer to fund it. It’s a real change for us, but more of a sustainable model going forward.”

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