ABmaps.com is a free web mapping

Web mapping

Web mapping is the process of designing, implementing, generating and delivering maps on the World Wide Web and its product. While web mapping primarily deals with technological issues, web cartography additionally studies theoretic aspects: the use of web maps, the evaluation and optimization of...

 server and portal.
The website provides services such as address finding, route planner and others. The mapping engine behind the portal is developed by AtlasCT

AtlasCT

AtlasCT is a worldwide provider of GIS and mapping applications for the Internet and wireless platforms. It was founded in 1987, as a maps and guides producer. In 1998 it went into the field of digital mapping by developing the AtlasNET map server...

. The technology is based on streaming vector graphics and Macromedia Flash format compared to other popular mapping portals such as Google Maps

Google Maps

Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...

 and Windows Live Local

Windows Live Local

Bing Maps is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps for Enterprise framework....

 which utilize raster maps.

Services

The services of the portal include:

• Address finding (Geocoding
  Geocoding
  Geocoding is the process of finding associated geographic coordinates from other geographic data, such as street addresses, or zip codes...
  
  )
• Routing
  Routing
  Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...
  
   and Driving directions
• Point of Interest
  Point of interest
  A point of interest, or POI, is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the Earth representing the location of the Space Needle, or a point on Mars representing the location of the mountain, Olympus Mons.The term is widely used in...
  
   lookup
• Weather forecast
• Traffic information in real-time
• Local Search
  Local search
  Local search may refer to:* Local search , a method for problem solving in optimization* Local search , web searching for web sites relevant to a given place...
  
  

Mobile

The portal offers maps for mobile devices via the ABmaps Mobile application. ABmaps Mobile belongs to the so called 'Offboard' category, which means that the actual maps data doesn't have to be stored on the device itself but downloaded from the Internet using GPRS. This approach provides a considerably lower cost mobile maps service for the public, but on the other hand it results in a slower map navigation which depends on a GPRS connection speed. The application provided for free but the user must pay for its own internet traffic. The ABmaps Mobile application can run on mobile devices which support Java ME

Java Platform, Micro Edition

Java Platform, Micro Edition, or Java ME, is a Java platform designed for embedded systems . Target devices range from industrial controls to mobile phones and set-top boxes...

 and are Internet enabled.

World maps

ABmaps contains a global map of the world and more detailed maps of the countries listed below. The maps data of these countries is provided by Navteq

NAVTEQ

Navteq is a Chicago, Illinois-based provider of Geographic Information Systems data and is a dominant company in providing the base electronic navigable maps...

and allows street level driving directions and address finding. The present countries with detailed coverage are:

North America

• Canada
• United States

South America

• Brazil
• Argentina

Europe

• Austria
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Ireland
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

Middle East

• Israel
• Jordan
• Bahrain
• Kuwait
• Saudi Arabia
• United Arab Emirates

Australia

External links

• ABmaps.com - Official website
• ABmaps.co.il - Official website (Hebrew version)
• ABmaps.ru - Official website (Russian version)
• developer.atlasct.com - Developer Zone
• mobile-angel.com - Mobile Angel service for tracking mobile phones