boydsmaps.com 10th anniversary

Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,502
2,765
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
How time flies...

Screen Shot 2022-12-31 at 10.08.36 AM.png


https://forums.njpinebarrens.com/th...pines-beta-available.5103/page-10#post-107613

Lots of links in that thread no longer work, although direct links to the old LIDAR map will open the new LIDAR map now. Also note that the launch of boydsmaps.com appears on page 10 of a long thread that goes back to 2008 when I introduced my first map of the pines. I actually registered the boydsmaps.com domain on December 27, 2010 but did not put a server online until December 26, 2012.

Here's a little more site history, or "how I spent the last 10 years" :)

January 2015: First map of the pines that combined aerial imagery with LIDAR terrain. Again, most of the links in this old thread will no longer work, but that map was an early two-dimensional version of the current 3d aerials of the pines.


February 2018: boydsmaps.com re-launches as a Wordpress site with downloadable maps for smartphones and Garmin devices. The original LIDAR map from boydsmaps.com was moved here to NJPB Maps. The downloadable maps depended on a program called Mobile Atlas Creator which got so buggy and complicated over time that I gave up and discontinued them all in 2021.

April 2019: online.boydsmaps.com launched and Ben created the boydsmaps forum (again, lots of bad links in this thread)


January 2020: lidar.boydsmaps.com launched, offering 3d LIDAR views of selected areas in the Pines. This site was short-lived but pointed the way to full integration of seamless 3d maps in 2022.


January 2021: mobile.boydsmaps.com launches as my first site designed specifically for use on smartphones.

November 2021: online.boydsmaps.com and mobile.boydsmaps.com are phased out and replaced with the current boydsmaps.com, which is compatible with all devices.


January 2022: Seamless 3d LIDAR-based maps are introduced, using the Mapbox API.

January 2023 and beyond: The new 24k legacy and 62k historic topo maps have now expanded to cover more than 16 states - about 770,000 square miles. Compare that to my old maps of the Pines that only covered about 7,000 square miles at most. The Midatlantic LIDAR 3d map covers 174,000 square miles, compared to the original 2013 LIDAR map with a coverage of about 3,000 square miles. There was about 80gb of map data on the site in 2020, it has grown to 1 terabyte today. The current plan is to expand to 2 terabytes of maps in the new year. So, my time will be primarily devoted to further expansion of the 24k Legacy and 62k Historic Topo to more states and expansion of the Midatlantic LIDAR map to a larger region as well.

Happy New Year everyone!!! :dance:
 
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smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,518
1,046
Atco, NJ
Happy New Year! And congrats on the 10 years. To say I appreciate your maps is a massive understatement. With each revision I appreciate them even more too. Thanks for all you do.
 
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SuperChooch

Explorer
Aug 26, 2011
391
428
47
A little late to the New Years party, but just want to add my thanks for all that you do, Boyd. It is awesome!!
 
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Boyd

Administrator
Staff member
Site Administrator
Jul 31, 2004
9,502
2,765
Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
The party's just getting started at boydsmaps.com :dance: Server lease has been renewed and paid through March, 2024. Disk space has doubled to 2 terabytes. It was getting tight before, but lots of room to grow now. Finishing up the new site I've mentioned and hope to have it online in about a week, have decided to call it Boyds Map of the Pines XT (for eXTreme) :D . More on this soon.

xt.jpg


BTW, tech support was reconfiguring the server with the new disk this evening. If you noticed any problems, that was probably it. I thought they would give me a heads up, but they just went ahead and did it.
 
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