TileServer: WMTS from map tiles and MBTiles

Do you want to host your maps online according the OGC WMTS standard? Did you know you can do that from an ordinary PHP web hosting?

Your maps could be used on the web and in mobile devices, but also opened in ArcGIS for Desktop from ESRI or in the open-source QGIS and other desktop GIS clients and systems. There is no need to install any special server software such as MapServer or GeoServer to achieve this.

On the 26th International Cartographic Conference in Dresden, Germany we have announced a new TileServer project which allows exactly this.

The presentation contains a step-by-step guide how to convert GeoTIFF or other raster geodata files into tiles and WMTS online endpoint.
Any ordinary webserver is supported  - no need to install additional server software - so the publishing process is extremely easy and the maps are very fast.

http://tileserver.maptiler.com/

The TileServer comes with a nice JavaScript interface showing the list of the published maps, sample viewers in Google Maps, Leaflet and other web libraries including copy&paste ready code. Both tiles in a folder as well as the MBTiles are supported.

There are also step-by-step guides for desktop GIS software which is supported:

• QuantumGIS Desktop 1.9+ - open with Layer->Add WMS layer - http://www.qgis.org/
• ESRI ArcGIS Desktop 10.1+ - native WMTS implementation supported http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgis-for-desktop
• ArcBruTiles plugin for ArcGIS 9.3+ - via TMS endpoint http://arcbrutile.codeplex.com/
• GAIA - native WMTS (issues with 3857 to be fixed) http://www.thecarbonproject.com/gaia.php

The maps are of course usable with:

• Web mapping via Google Maps API, Leaflet, OpenLayers, MapBox.js via TileJSON
• iOS mobile devices (iPhone/iPad) via MapKit or RouteMe
• Android tablets and mobile phones via OSMDroid and Google Maps Android API

Check the presentation and feel free to download and try the open-source TileServer-PHP project.

To convert your geodata into tiles you can use our http://www.maptiler.com/.

The TileServer PHP project website:
https://github.com/klokantech/tileserver-php/

Video recording of the presentation:
https://plus.google.com/112524594087395104243/posts/YDdRPtah7cn

Slides for presentation:

http://www.slideshare.net/klokan/dresden-icc2013tileserver

The TileServer-PHP projects has been co-developed together with NOAA - and in fact it has been successfully used on the official Hurricane Sandy Response Imagery service where it has replaced ArcIMS server for large number of simultaneous visitors - from the web and mobile application as well as GIS clients.

MapTiler Pro launched

The new Pro version of MapTiler with a graphical user interface provides more comfortable way of using the software, while the advanced users can still utilise the command line for complete automation and batch processing.

The MapTiler Pro is enhancing and replacing the older MapTiler Cluster product. All our customers are being upgraded now.

MapTiler and MapTiler Pro converts raster maps into a format suitable for web applications, mobile devices and 3D visualisation. It provides the easiest way how to prepare raster geodata for mashups, apps and for Google Earth. It produces either a folder with tiles and simple HTML viewer or the MBTiles data format.

Raster maps and images are transformed into tiles compatible with Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Microsoft Bing, MapQuest or MapBox and can be used as overlay or standalone background maps. The maps can be also visualised in 3D form by Google Earth.

Developers can easily render raster geodata into map tiles suitable for Google Maps API mashups and native mobile applications (iPhone/iPad/Android) made with Apple MapKit, RouteMe or OSMDroid.

MapTiler Pro 0.4.1 has following added features:

• Graphical user interface for Windows and Mac OS X for rendering of multiple files (GeoTiff, MrSID, ECW,...) into a seamless map layer
• Support for direct output into MBTiles format
• Leaflet viewer automatically generated for all maps, next to Google Maps API V3
• Improved progress bar status for rendering
• Drag and Drop files and improved dialog for spatial reference systems
• User friendly installer under Windows and fixes of various bugs
• A new cheaper license option - with availability for one month

Contact info@klokantech.com to get a free demo and more info.

Custom style for Google Maps

I am impressed by the new functionality in Google Maps API V3: StyledMaps 

You can create your own dynamic style for Google Maps tiles - and change the look and feel of the base maps which you want to include in your website.

It is quite a natural step, something what open-source projects like Cascadenik and products of other companies such as CloudMade made possible already some time ago. The adoption of this functionality by Google brings this possibility to masses.

If you want to define your own styles for the map you can use the online Style Map Wizard tool. More info and the official announcement is available here.

Tiles à la Google Maps: Coordinates, Tile Bounds and Projection...

I prepared an online tool I was missing when I started to study how the tiling using Spherical Mercator runs in Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps, OpenStreeMap and others... This tool can help you to understand how are the tiles referenced and how they are stitched together in the browser.

I think this mashup could be an excellent starting point for people who are interested in this subject, because it contains all the math what you need for overlaying your own geodata from external sources: it can be tiles pre-generated by Maptiler/GDAL2Tiles following the OSGeo TMS recommendations, it can be raster data from WMS servers probably cached by TileCache, or tiles from MSR MapCruncher etc.

The tool is excellent for fast debugging of tiling for particular area, because you can use the search for display the tiles of a given place.

A transparent tile with correct coordinates is displayed for every original map tile by calling Google Chart API service.
Whereever you click the longitude/latitude boundaries of the underlaying tile are displayed in WGS84 datum. Boundaries are also displayed in projected Mercator coordinates (EPSG:900913, EPSG:3785) and in pixels for active zoom level. This information is all you need for generating custom map tiles.

The site contains also a Python script doing the coordinates and bounds calculation offline.

So enjoy this mashup:

Tiles à la Google Maps: Coordinates, Tile Bounds and Projection

BTW This demo is part of the documentation of MapTiler application.

Opacity Control for Google Maps in official demo gallery

One of the results of the MapTiler/GDAL2Tiles is an extension of Google Maps API for new functionality related to tile overlays. In summer I created an Opacity slider control for Google Maps which lets the user drag a slider to change the transparency of a TileLayerOverlay on the map.

Recently I was contacted by Pamela Fox from Google and now she add my control to the official Google Maps API Demo Gallery.

I still should add similar control to OpenLayers, but till now there was no time for that unfortunately. The design of the control is finished (done in SVG in Inkscape, same as the Google one), so only the coding in JavaScript is missing. Christopher Schmidt from OpenLayers recommended to create a new OpenLayers Addin.

Google IP Geolocation

Google just published new AJAX API function ClientLocation for IP Geolocation.

This way you receive an JavaScript object with latitude and longitude and with address (city, region, country and country code) of your visitor.

It is cool and practical for use even without displaying Google Maps, as you can change behavior of your website according location of the visitor.

I wrote a typical example application Google IP Geolocation Map and Address which you can just copy and paste.



What IP database is Google practically using? Anybody knows? Is it their private or they are licensing one from another company?

Is the quality of IP geolocation better then free GeoLite City from MaxMind?