Can Flash Maps Be Replaced?

by KUMIKO YAMAZAKI on March 19, 2010 • apple flash • COMMENT

Earlier today, I had the pleasure of visiting Alex Tait, VP of International Mapping Associates. We discussed the current state of the mapping industry and where it’s headed, and it pains me greatly to admit this as an Apple fangirl, but Flash mapping is still very much alive and well (boooo!)

Flash maps are especially popular for educational purposes as it can provide all the interface, animation and interactivity as well as its accompanying audio/video….. but is NOT supported by the iPhone or iPad. There’s no question Flash is the complete package and I wonder if this can ever be replaced by HTML5 and CSS3? Or by overlaying information through Google Maps or Bing or the MapQuest API? I ask this because I will soon be an iPad owner and I’d love to see how people will be pushing HTML5 and attempting to replace Flash with their maps.

Here are just a few examples of animation that’s already being done with HTML5/CSS3 and can potentially be used for mapping (use an updated Firefox, Safari, or Chrome browser to view):

1. HTML5 Canvas Experiment – This one gathers tweets relating to HTML5, displays them using processing.js for its particle rendering, and all the while taking advantage of the audio tag. Can the particles be georeferenced to a coordinate?

html5_canvas_exp

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2. CSS3 Gallery Example – A cluster of images are shown and when the cursor hovers over one, the selected image will be enlarged. Potentially similar to a KML popup.

css3_gallery

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3. Pure CSS3 AT-AT Walker (Chrome or Safari required) – This is an AMAZING example of animation that almost certainly looks like Flash but is not. Good news for those wanting to show various route and polygon animations.

css3_atat

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4. Canvas Slippy Map – A slippy map is a map that allows you to dynamically pan by grabbing and sliding the map over. This example looks a bit like a bare-bones OpenLayers interface but is done using the HTML5 canvas and is pulling data from OpenStreetMap.

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I’m betting some fantastic maps can be built using HTML5/CSS3 and can one day be an alternative to Flash, if not replace it altogether. This will take some time however, and an even longer time for it to become the standard for all web applications. So in the meantime, make sure you know some Flash!