Croatian maps go global
GIS Cloud from Zagreb, one of the first Croatian start-up companies founded in 2008, which offers to businesses what Google Maps offers to private users, has announced that it had developed the fastest software for digital mapping in the world. GIS Cloud has also launched a global competition “The Fastest Map Engine Challenge”. The company has posted a video which shows how in just 31 seconds it managed to create a digital map of the American city of Fort Collins, with 86,100 addresses, 10,600 lines and 69,700 polygons, which uses as a base a digital satellite map from Microsoft’s Bing Maps, reports Poslovni.hr on February 25, 2016.
Dino Ravnić, the co-founder and general manager of GIS Cloud, a company which has 70,000 users and whose software is running 450,000 digital maps, says that they want to develop for companies want Google Maps, Foursquare and similar location services have done for private users.
“A faster map engine means faster and better user experience, and the complexity of GIS technology and bad cartographic performance are the reasons why location apps have not significantly spread through the business world. That is why we have developed our own map engine”, says Ravnić.
He adds that, while comparing their product with similar services, they have come to the conclusion that GIS Cloud is 3 to 40 times faster in creating new maps than other engines. Ravnić did not discuss his competitors, but a short internet search shows that similar projects are being developed by Mapbox, CartoDB and ESRI. In Croatia, GIS Cloud is used by the City of Zagreb, Hrvatske Vode, City of Crikvenica, Croatian Firefighting Union and Liburnijske Vode.
The company has customers from more than 40 countries. In addition to Ravnić, the other co-founder of GIS Cloud is Marko Šantić. Their company is the first Croatian start-up which has received seed investment from Europe’s biggest business incubator Seedcamp.
