Vector tiles allow you to create interactive maps on the web. They come from a need of a free and competitive solution again Google Maps(c). After several iterations, they are now becoming a standard and are already a standard in the web mapping industry, for free ecosystem but also beyond. This presentation reviews the history, functionality and adoption of vector tiles.

1. Cartography: Vector Tiles
From an Open Initiative
To an Industry Standard
Frédéric Rodrigo
frederic.rodrigo@makina-corpus.com
CC-By-SA 2019

3. Context
●
Maps, a profession
– GIS format : images on WMS protocol
●
The Web, maps for everyone
– Google Maps, Bing, IGN, OpenStreetMap...
●
Tiles
– split, pre-compute
– images 256x256

4. Need of Interaction
●
Slow interactions, roud trip to server
●
Google Maps introduced vectors
– on Android in 2010, on the web in 2013
●
Need for alternatives

6. UTFGrid
●
Ecosystem in raster tiles
●
Tiles overlay of information
– 64x64
– Simple content

7. Vector Tiles
MVT, Mapbox Vector Tile
1.Binary Container: PBF + gzip
2.Content: layers
– Free properties (a la OSM)
– Geometry, relative, tile coordinates
3.Data Schema

9. Vector Tiles
Data Schema
●
The art of organizing things
●
Data schema subject to copyright
– Proprietary Mapbox Schema
– Need of Open Schema: OpenMapTiles

10. Distribution
●
Same as raster tiles
●
File, HTTP
●
MBTiles Packaged
– SQLite database

11. Consumers
●
Web Map libraries (WebGL)
– Mapbox GL, OpenLayer…
●
Desktop GIS
– QGIS, Esri
●
Natives mobiles SDK, Qt, Game
engines...

12. Advantages
●
Intermediate data
– Cache
– One Vector Tiles set, Many Maps
●
Style and customize on the clients side
– Mapbox GL Style JSON
●
Interaction, highlight
●
Soft zoom, rotation
●
Access to the data, selection

13. Disadvantages
●
Geometries are sliced by tiles
– Eg. require to pre-compute centre of
polygones
●
Not made for 3D
●
Built for the Web
– Adaptation required for GIS

14. Provider
Up from the Garage
●
Postgres
●
Mapnik
●
Pre rendering: OpenMapTiles
– OpenStreetMap
●
On the fly: lot of “small” projects

15. Provider
Down from the Cloud
●
OpenStreetMap data providers
– Mapbox
– MapTiler (OpenMapTiles)
– Jawg Maps (fork of OpenMapTiles)
●
Proprietary
– HERE, TomTom, Esri, Azure Maps
●
Public
– Swisstopo (l'IGN Suisse), IGN France en beta

16. OGC Normalisation
●
Redaction of MVT Version 3
●
Evaluation by OGC in process
●
Integration into other OGC Norms
– WMTS, WFS, GeoPackage
●
Better
– Definition
– Metadata
– Support of projection

17. Resources
●
MVT Spec(Creative Commons Legal Code)
●
OpenMapTiles(BSD 3-Clause)
●
Mapbox GL JS Style Spec (BSD 3-Clause)
●
Makina Corpus Blog
– Tour d’horizon des serveurs de tuilesvectorielles pour fond de carte
– Carte de Cassini vectorielle

18. Maps Expertize
●
Free Software
●
Development
●
Consultancy
Frédéric Rodrigo
frederic.rodrigo@makina-corpus.com