April 19, 2022

Soar can be used for many things, but one feature I personally love is the ability to create a portfolio of my maps in Soar.

As a Creative Producer and designer, I produce maps for art, and my Soar profile is the best place to showcase them.

Whether you make maps for work or pleasure, there’s plenty of reasons to create a map portfolio on Soar.

Reason 1: No more large files

Maps tend to be very large files that aren’t easy to share online. Some can be up to a terabyte in size!

Uploading a map to your Soar account allows you to easily share it with anyone, without them having to download a huge file. They don’t even have to be a Soar user to see it. Simply flick them the link and they can view the map in their browser - making the file size issue a thing of the past.

Once you’ve uploaded your map, it’s done and dusted and safe in the cloud. This can be great for clearing storage space on a computer. If you ever need to get your file back after deleting it from your computer, you can download your map files from your dashboard.

Reason 2: One link, zero fuss
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Having a single link to share your entire mapping history is a powerful tool. Once your maps are on Soar, you can go to your profile and share your profile link with anyone.

You can put this link in your social media bio for people to explore as it gets updated with new maps each time you upload to Soar. What better way to show your mapping work than an interactive mapping platform!

Reason 3: Your professional portfolio
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As a mapping company, we work and collaborate with a lot of field experts and like to see examples of their work. When we’ve asked to see people’s work, some have sent examples using file sharing services that are slow, clunky, and when the final file is received, it can’t even be opened!

Soar gives any employers or collaborators a view of your map/imagery portfolio, which they can even zoom into for the highest level of detail. It’s a great way to stand out as a candidate for a job.

Reason 4: Track your mapping journey

‍Mapping enthusiasts often have a large folder of maps from the past, sitting on their hard drive gathering metaphorical dust. Even though each map took a lot of work to create, by the time you open the folder again, you can’t even remember what they were about. If this sounds like you, storing your maps on a Soar account is a great way to bring life back to your work and explain what it means.

Using Soar as a portfolio lets you keep a detailed record of your work, complete with titles, descriptions and tags to remember what they were. Best of all, it gives you a wider perspective on your work, letting you see at a glance how much you’ve improved and where you’re heading next.

Reason 5: Zoom in to the detail
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We see a lot of people in the mapping community sharing pictures of their map on social platforms like Twitter. This is fine for giving people a quick glance, but it limits the interactivity and level of detail you can see on the map.

You can’t zoom in and see the finer details in Twitter the same way you can with a mapping platform like Soar. In our platform, each map is made up of ‘tiles’ which load different levels of detail depending on your zoom. To put it simply, this makes it possible to have highly detailed maps viewable on any device in a matter of milliseconds.

Reason 6: Annotations
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The other limitation of social media is you can’t annotate directly on the map. Usually, if you want to annotate an existing map, you’d need to use external software or edit a screenshot of the map on your phone. With Soar, all maps have the ability to be commented on and annotated directly. This makes every map on Soar interactive in a way that's meaningful.

This is especially useful for annotating on a specific part of a large map. You can use the Soar tools to draw a shape around the area you want to comment on so people know exactly which part of the map your annotations relate to.

Reason 7: Compare your imagery

On Soar, you can compare your map to the base maps on the platform to view changes and differences. The transparency slider lets you compare any map at any degree of transparency with a base map.

You can also upload transparent maps to Soar, making the overlay of your map on base map even easier.

Reason 8: Sharing is caring
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It’s never been easier to share maps! At the press of a button, you can instantly copy a generated link to share your map to the social media platforms of your choice. This will link your followers directly to your interactive map on Soar.
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Not only can you use these links to let people explore your maps, but your followers can add to them by commenting and annotating directly on the map. This opens up new opportunities for collaboration.

‍Reason 9: See how much you’ve mapped

‍Every map uploaded to your account adds to your total mapped area count, which can be found on your profile page. As you can see, I’ve currently mapped a total of 138,533 km² - roughly around the size of Greece. It really puts into perspective the scale of your work. How much of Earth have you mapped?

So, if you haven’t already, why not use Soar as your map portfolio today! It’s 100% free. No software to download, no complexity.

This blog was written by:

Michael Pearce

Michael is a creative producer for Soar, crafting creative content such as videos, graphics, and social media posts. He has a background in video game development and enjoys spending time with pigeons in the city.

View author's Soar profile

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9 Reasons To Use Soar As Your Map Portfolio

April 19, 2022

Michael Pearce