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Comment by hinting | Hacker News Reader

hi everyone, ceo here! and former YC W15 founder.

let me know your questions, and i will answer them!

As someone with formal education plus getting on for 20 years in the field I've often wondered whether the software really needs to be so damned hard to use! I like the interface and I think nobody has yet conclusively cracked the problem of providing a super simple map creation app, so I wish you luck and think it looks interesting.

I'm interested to know options for import and export of data/maps? Can data be sourced from a database? Also why should someone use Felt instead of AGOL, mapbox etc? And what support do you offer for open APIs e.g. OGC? What integration options do you offer e.g. API for scripting creation of maps - or are the maps always envisaged to be manually created?

it doesn't need to be so damn hard! we're big believers that basic mapping needs can be much much easier with great software.

today you can import KML, KMZ, GPX, JSON & GeoJSON, and export in GeoJSON. we're expanding this to more formats in the near future.

felt is best for folks who don't have deeper GIS backgrounds or programming backgrounds. it's easy to jump in and focus on your project without them!

API will be coming down the road!

Can people add their own layers, like a WMS overlay? and, relatedly, have you considered adding georeferenced historical map layers? It seems like a good platform for story-telling.

How much are you focusing on having a robust geotoolbox?

What interests me the most is being able to import data and do analysis.

If I didn’t have a full-time job I’d take my geomatics and web skills and build the QGIS for the Web (but aimed at novices).

What are the major pieces of the underlying software stack?

seems it is based on mapbox, someone posted a map link there...

- elixir for real-time updates

- react.js and protomaps.js for front-end app

- python for a variety of geospatial service

Very cool you are using protomaps.js! I recently found their blog and really like the ideas in there: https://protomaps.com/blog

hey sam! i am the author of the post (and the cofounder here at felt), alongside hinting — happy to answer of the questions also

Hey

I tried Felt and it looked good. However for me the marker / polygon moved significantly with different zoom levels which is a fairly big issue. This was in 54,-1 area (lat/lng) - I don't know if it could be as simple as different coordinate systems on markers vs mapping?

(Felt engineer here) That does sounds like a big issue! Are you able to reproduce the marker or polygon moving based on zoom levels? I tried for a bit and I wasn't able to reproduce this. How are you changing the map zoom?

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