Brady Forrest from O’Reilly Radar reviews the new Yahoo! Product, Map Mixer:

Yahoo! has launched Map Mixer, a cool new mapping site that allows users to upload and share their own maps… They’ve also added a nice community layer on top that makes sharing, rating, and commenting easy… The upload process on Map Mixer is simple…[but] Map Mixer does seem to be missing a lot of core geo features. There is a search function, but sadly it seems to be text-only. I am able to get several maps when I search for SF. When I tried searching with geo-data like a zipcode (94107) or lat/long I was unable to find anything. Also none of the maps are syndicated in KML or GeoRSS (like Flickr has done).

I tried it out this afternoon. While it is elegant, beautiful, and intuitive, it is indeed missing some core geo features just as Brady said. Just yesterday, I was working with a similar and IMO superior application, MetaCarta Labs’ Map Rectifier.

For example, here is a comparison of the interface for tie-point selection (Map Mixer on top and Map Rectifier on the bottom). MapMixer doesn’t have a zoom control for the “Uploaded Map” (oversight?) and it only allows two points. Two points means only scale and rotation are being used to rectify and the input image is assumed to be the same projection as Yahoo!’s. No warping or curvature corrections are being applied (similar to Google Earth’s ground overlay feature).

Map Rectifier let’s you (or anyone else) select multiple tie points (allowing linear, quadratic, or cubic fitting). It gives residuals for the tie-points points and gives the footprint of the rectified image in a preview. Download options include GeoTIFF, JPEG2000, and an OGC:WMS service for the rectified image.

I recognize the trade-off in User Interface design between functionality and intuitiveness and I’m sure that Yahoo! knows their demographic and made the right choice. But for your run-of-the-mill geohacker, Map Rectifier is way cooler.