Pixelate the World
One of the biggest trends in online mapping this year has definitely been pixelating the world. Back in January, software engineer and artist Andy Coenen released his interactive, isometric pixel-art map of New York City: Isometric NYC . Since then, other developers have jumped on the bandwagon, and we now have: Isopolis - isometric San Francisco London, drawn - isometric London earthtoPixels - isometric João Pessoa, Brasil One notable limitation shared by most of these pixelated maps is their single, fixed perspective. This is not really an oversight on the developer’s part, but rather a reflection of the sheer effort involved. To offer full 360-degree rotation, a creator would need to repeat the entire laborious pipeline - sourcing aerial map tiles, rendering them, applying pixel styling, and stitching the output into a deep-zoom map - four separate times, once for each compass direction (North, East, South, and West). Perhaps that "laborious pipeline" could be shared. ...
