The GIS old guard gave a collective shudder this morning, as Google inched one step closer towards traditional GIS capabilities: introducing Google Map Maker.  While some folks hardly looked up from their koolaid, i decided to set mine down and kick the tires a bit. As someone who’s run the gauntlet of clunky feature editing solutions via the web (yes ArcIMS fondly remembering our early days together), I have to say that the user experience is pretty seamless. MapMaker editing isn’t all that complex, but what it does deliver comes wrapped in a very usable UI.

MapMaker extends the MyMaps concept in a couple ways by allowing you to create and edit features within the base cartography. Searching for existing features you can see a bunch of identified segments and/or intersections within the field of view.

After selecting a network feature you can update a bunch of attributes associated with it, or you can apply some feature rules to it. These navigation rules for street features are typically being able to specify things like one way streets or mark no u-turns. You can also add street signs to intersections, or updated addresses. Nothing all that special so far right…

If you want to extend a network feature such as a road, you can drag a point and drop it to create a new segment. I’ve gotta say, is pretty easy and seamless.

When you select a polygon (vegetation, water, landcover, etc..) you can directly edit its vertices, either moving them or deleting them as needed. If you want to create a new feature (point, line, or polygon) you have to select from a domain list of feature types, which includes everything from Lakes to Libraries.

For the time being, the editable features are limited to the following locations:


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