Today we are excited to announce possibly the most important functionality release to date - UMapper now supports Custom Maps! That means that you can upload any image file to UMapper and convert it into an interactive map (examples below) within minutes. Watch the video below (or on YouTube) to see is how it works:
Get this video from YouTube or create your first Custom Map.
Custom maps can also be used in GeoDart games and Map Wiki’s. Similar to standard maps, custom maps can be tracked with UMapper Map Analytics, indexed by search engines and embedded pretty much anywhere on the internet.
As you can imagine, this functionality can be applied to a large number of uses. Below are several examples.
Post War Map of the World
Bring static old maps to life. Roll over countries to see descriptions.
Panorama of San Francisco
Convert your high-resolution photographs into interactive applications. Roll over the yellow tower in the middle to see how objects can be annotated.
Web Trend Map
Annotate complex charts with clickable overlays. Select the pink star above amazon to see overlay marker in action.
Hubble Telescope Photographs
Explore space photographs and search for terrestrial life.
As always, we are very curious to hear from you. Let us know if you have any comments or functionality suggestions.


October 8th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Is it possible to do a map like this - http://www.porchlightgroup.com/denver-neighborhoods.php with what you offer? with own colors, different text and links on the map etc.
I can’t seem to find anybody who knows how to get something like this done.
BTW found you on Twitter.
Thanks
Rita Burke
October 9th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Very cool application! Lots of possibilities!!
I didn’t see you yesterday, but I did see Antoine Toffa. Let me know when you’re up to meet!
October 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I belong to a network of about 100 people all over the world. We’re a web based university and I’d like to put every person’s address on a map that we could all use when traveling to know where other associates live. Is there any way to do this using your application or do you have any suggestions on how I could do this? Ideally, I’d upload a spreadsheet of names and addresses and they could be added onto a world map. Thanks.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:01 am
This is great! Of course, it can be used for any type of image - not just a map - so I just tried it with a painting!
However, the example you have here above does not show a marker, just a rollover of a region. Is that possible?
Beth Harris
(Director of Digital Learning, Museum of Modern Art)
October 14th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Hi - Actually, I have been playing with this more - and figured out how to mark a region (duh), but having significant problems editing an annotation once its created. Also, wish I didn’t have to click on the marker to see the entire note.
Wondering if you are working on the bugs - since this is a cool tool.
Beth
October 14th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Beth, thanks for your comments. I am going to follow-up via the email.
Cheers,
Andrei
October 21st, 2009 at 6:05 am
[...] aufregend an. Das besondere ist aber, dass man mit Hilfe von UMapper neuerdings aus jedem Bild eine interaktive Karte machen kann – und zwar innherhalb von Minuten. Einfach ein beliebiges Bild hochladen, es muss noch nicht [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 am
[...] Create Map Explore Sign Up Login Blog « New Release! Convert Any Image Into an Interactive Map [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 8:10 am
[...] up on the release of the custom maps feature, we would like to showcase a Periodic Table Elements GeoDart game by donbenn. What makes [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 9:14 am
[...] I’ve been following the success of UMapper (formerly GMap, provided by the good folks at AFComponents.com) since a client of mine asked era//404 to build a dating search with results based on proximity around a geographic area. And while the site has taken a slightly different direction since then, UMapper piqued my interest. In their latest newsletter, they cited creating Google Maps-style widgets from any image. And sure enough, it works! [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
[...] arăta situaţia dintr-o anumită perioadă de timp. Cool… Detalii în clipul de mai sus şi în anunţul de pe blogul [...]
October 27th, 2009 at 7:33 am
I like the idea of converting images to interactive maps but it simply does not work for most of my jpgs. After uploading a custom map image, a jpg file, the app indicates it uploaded successfully and then specifies that it is converting the image. After a short while the screen refreshes but the image is not added to the list of maps. Frustrating. It does work as advertised with simple jpgs that came directly from my digital camera. But it does not work with jpgs that have been edited in Photoshop (and saved as jpgs), nor does it work with jpgs that have been exported from ESRI’s ArcMap program. Does UMapper only understand a certain type of jpg image?
October 28th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Michael, thanks for your comment. Our technical team confirmed that there is an issues with some JPGs. We are not sure to what is causing the issue but we are looking at it.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:19 am
[...] on the tutorials (coming soon) for UMapper editor, we discovered a another great use for the Custom Maps feature - annotate user interfaces. We jumped on this right away and created a map of UMapper [...]
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:34 am
Thanks for this fantastic tool. I got a million of new ideas when I first tried it. Question: Will it ever be possible to embedd youtube-(vimeo- etc.)videos in custom maps?
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
@chris, the answer is yes. Video integration is at the top of our development road map.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 am
[...] National Park Highlights Beautiful map by Map Geeks showing the power of UMapper custom maps. [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 10:19 am
@bethann, just add the list to a google doc and add the map gadget…
http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99488
November 12th, 2009 at 2:11 am
[...] oktober 2009 · Laat een reactie achter Yubby Kaartje maken op elk plaatje Een chat [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 10:18 am
[...] we are releasing the most requested feature since the custom maps release. Horizontal tiling has been disabled for custom maps. In other words when you create a [...]
November 27th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
[...] possibilità di creare dei semplici giochi didattici. Recentemente è stata però aggiunta un’altra funzione importante, quella di creare mappe interattive da una immagine caricata dagli utenti. Come [...]
December 6th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Wow, I can’t believe I just found this mapping resource. I have been searching for an application like this for quite some time. Thanks!
December 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
[...] since the release of the Custom Maps feature we have seen a large number of great use cases, and the map of Jackson is most certainly [...]
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 pm
[...] UMapper blog post has many other examples of maps created with the new [...]
December 24th, 2009 at 10:01 am
[...] UMapper blog post has many other examples of maps created with the new [...]
April 6th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Is it possible using your applictaion to convert a .jpg into .map format…?
May 20th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Sure, just upload and image and your map is ready.