Resolve to build with Mapbox

Brynne Morris
Thu, 05 Jan 2017 05:00:00 -0500

2016 was a big year at Mapbox. We grew fast, breaking 200 team members in December. On the product side, we introduced tons of new products and features and continued work on our core infrastructure to provide the best mapping platform around. In March we rolled out offline maps, in June we announced Mapbox Drive, in September we kicked off Mapbox Cities, and in December we announced Mapbox.cn.

Looking ahead, we want you to be a part of making 2017 even more exciting!

While it’s difficult to choose just a few examples of what you can build with Mapbox, here are a some of our favorites from the last year. Take a look, get inspired, then get started for yourself!

Add 3D visualizations to your map

Lauren announced extrusions for Mapbox GL JS! Now you can add custom 3D visualizations to your maps. This is about more than 3D buildings - with extrusions, visualize 3D elevation profiles, indoor floor plans, and so much more. Be sure to try out this feature for yourself!

Bring your maps to life with Runtime Styling on mobile

Paul introduced Runtime Styling for our mobile SDKs, a feature for dynamically changing the look and feel of your map in real time. With Runtime Styling you can create even more relevant experiences for your users. Lighten or darken your app’s map based on the time of day, personalize icons and the colors of parks based on your users’ activity, switch languages on the fly, or bump the size of labels based on user preferences. Add Runtime Styling to your maps to see how we’ve exposed the design powers of Mapbox Studio directly to mobile developers.

Developers can now bring the entire world into their game

In October, Camilla announced the Mapbox Unity SDK. Now available in beta, this new SDK gives developers access to Mapbox from within Unity, bringing the full spectrum of Mapbox API’s to location-based games, VR, and AR. All of this is available across platforms: mobile, game consoles, and web browsers.

Three million square kilometers of new imagery in Mapbox Satellite

In April, we pushed three million square kilometers of new imagery into Mapbox Satellite. Now, all Mapbox users can take advantage of a massive refresh that updates high-priority urban areas worldwide and improves coverage in hundreds of other spots. Read our blog post to see a few examples of this fresh 30 cm imagery – the highest resolution satellite imagery available in the market.

What are you waiting for?

Are you ready to commit to 2017 being the year you build with Mapbox? With so many different ways to build, design, and use our maps, we want to make it easy for you to get started. So check out our helpful tutorials below:

Getting started with Mapbox Studio

Create a style with Mapbox Studio

Publish your style with Mapbox GL JS