Cross Hatched Lego Maps

Mapzen has launched a free Vector Tile Service to complement their Tangram WebGL map renderer. The combination of vector tiles and Tangram allows Mapzen to render map tiles in real-time in the browser.

This means that the map tiles can be very dynamic. Check out some of the example maps on the Tangram page. The Day / Night Map shows how colors and building footprints can be updated in real-time in the browser. The Tron Map shows how you can apply animation to the map tiles (in this case to create the effect of moving vehicles on roads and streets).

My favorite style in the example is this Cross Hatch map. I'm also rather fond of the Lego Style, made out of colored plastic brick textures. When panning around on these maps notice how the perspective on the 3d buildings change depending on your point of view.