Ubähnchen

Dev tools

transit map visualisation

SHOW HN2022

278points
102comments
#161of 2,570 in 2022
Top 7%of 2022 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

11 positive, 20 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 16 critical, out of 50 comments about the project. Thread score -0.11.

Performance: 2 for, 12 againstExecution: 3 for, 1 againstIdea: 2 for, 2 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Smooth animation and Mini Metro feel

    From 3 comments
    • Very nice. Given the smoothness, I first thought this was real-time:) As someone who lives in Berlin, I didn't know there was an open API for the VBB. I'll have to have a look at…
      radiosnob on HN
    • Agreed on the minimetro feel! I thought it was live too, I wonder if there's a way to do that? I like that you can see both the s and u bahn, though I kind of wish the abstract…
      YLE118 on HN
    • Mini Metro IRL. Kudos!
      insane_dreamer on HN
  • Clever fade in/out handling of terminal trains

    From 1 comment
    • The solution with fade out / fade in is pretty clever. Short layovers will cross-fade automatically, but you don’t need complicated internal information about which train…
      ant6n on HN

Objections

  • Very slow rendering in Firefox

    From 4 comments
    • It's super smooth on Chrome, but it's doing (say) 1 frame per second on Firefox.
      akie on HN
    • Extremely slow for some reason in Firefox on Mac OS for me
      Quanttek on HN
    • Totally unusable in Firefox on Windows 10 as well.
      runxel on HN
    • Same here. A profile suggests that most native time is spent rendering the backdrop shadow of the text rendered to the canvas, and most of the remaining CPU time is spent on the…
      jeroenhd on HN
  • Trains do not stop at stations and disappear at terminals

    From 1 comment
    • Nice! Would be more realistic (and more Mini Metro-like) if the trains actually stopped at the stations though. Also, the trains don't have to disappear and reappear at the…
      rob74 on HN
  • Map is schedule-based, not real-time

    From 2 comments
    • What's the purpose of animation here? It seems to have no information about actual train position, or am I missing something?
      divan on HN
    • I think it is just a toy :) But the trains are sort-of-actual positions based on the time in the top right hand corner and the latest estimated arrival times, but time is moving…
      Closi on HN
  • Does not combine S-Bahn and U-Bahn well

    From 2 comments
    • The problem with Berlin is than there are many operators for public transport by train: * U-Bahn, for the subways (underground & aerial) * S-Bahn, for sub-urban lines (mostly…
      miniwark on HN
    • There's actually a button in the upper right corner to enable both S+U Bahn! Although the app gets a little sluggish for me when I enable them both.
      jkukul on HN

Requests

  • Add live real-time mode

    From 2 comments
    • Agreed on the minimetro feel! I thought it was live too, I wonder if there's a way to do that? I like that you can see both the s and u bahn, though I kind of wish the abstract…
      YLE118 on HN
    • Thanks a lot for the feedback!! The "live mode" is already developed using hafas-client[1] and VBB-API[2]. I just asked VBB to give me API access, I'll release the feature when I…
      Elzear on HN
  • Show engineering works and temporary route changes

    From 2 comments
    • I really like it! Well done! - As others have mentioned, it seems dodgy on Firefox. The button to switch between U-Bahn and S+U mode doesn't seem to work at all on Safari (?) -…
      NeoTar on HN
    • Nice, only thing is it's not currently accurate. The U1 and U2 have temporarily combined into the U12.
      amaccuish on HN
  • Make source code available

    From 2 comments
    • Nice! Would be more realistic (and more Mini Metro-like) if the trains actually stopped at the stations though. Also, the trains don't have to disappear and reappear at the…
      rob74 on HN
    • It's linked in the (somewhat easy to miss) about page https://xn--ubhnchen-1za.vercel.app/en/about
      pvg on HN

Questions

  • Where does the data come from

    From 1 comment
    • Well executed side project with a great name! :) Where do you get the data from?
      hubraumhugo on HN

Alternatives named

  • VBB official live map

    From 2 comments
    • There is a real Berlin live map of subway, bus and railway at: https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/ by the operator. Seems no english version available, you have to ``` - click upper…
      purecode on HN
    • Reminds me of the official live map "Livekarte" at https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo/
      bugmen0t on HN
  • Mini Tokyo 3D

    From 1 comment
    • Looks great! If author wants some inspiration then this tokyo map is awesome: https://github.com/nagix/mini-tokyo-3d
      sccxy on HN
  • travic.app

    From 1 comment
    • How about this one? It also includes the rest of Germany: https://travic.app/?z=13&x=1493233.2&y=6894127.0
      lqet on HN
  • CartoMetro

    From 1 comment
    • I really like it! Well done! - As others have mentioned, it seems dodgy on Firefox. The button to switch between U-Bahn and S+U mode doesn't seem to work at all on Safari (?) -…
      NeoTar on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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