For the casual map fan, Mapzen’s new suite of animated global maps are sweet, delicious eye-candy. And for the developer or map-maker, they hint at cartographic possibilities hardly available until now.
Tangram is a map-making engine that allows users to create multi-dimensional, animated maps for free. It combines Mapzen’s new vector tile service, which chops up OpenStreetMap data into easily processed chunks, and WebGL, a fancy graphics renderer, to allow “real-time map design, display, and interactivity,” according to the Mapzen website. Peter Richardson, a Tangram developer, expands in an email:
