Shapefiles to Mapbox Vector Tiles Conversion

convertmapboxshapefilevectorvector-tiles

We are currently hosting OSM vector tiles on our mapping server (courtesy osm2vectortiles and tilesever-gl). Now I'm trying to convert our own shapefiles into the same Mapbox Vector Tile format so we can add them as an overlay to our maps.

I believe one way this can be accomplished is by importing the shapefile to PostGIS and then creating vector tiles from that, but I'd like to avoid having to use PostGIS as a middleman if I can, and instead go directly from Shapefile->Mapbox Vector Tiles (which will be stored in an MBTiles container). These will then be served via tileserver-gl.

Does any such tool exist that can convert shapefiles (1-2GB) directly to vector tiles, and ideally perform simplification while it does so?

Best Answer

mapbox-tile-copy will convert shapefiles (and a bunch of other formats) to Mapbox Vector Tiles on Amazon S3.

There is also tippecanoe to create an mbtiles of vector tiles from your shapefile.

Related Solutions

Self-Hosting Mapbox Tiles – Guide to Self-Hosting Mapbox Vector Tiles

As pointed out by @Greg, instead of TileStream (my first attempt) you should use Tilelive to host your own vector tiles.

Tilelive isn't a server itself but a backend framework that deals with tiles in different formats from different sources. But it's based on Node.js so you can turn it into a server in a pretty straight-forward way. To read tiles from a .mbtiles source as exported by Mapbox Studio, you need the node-mbtiles tilelive module.

Side note: Current Mapbox Studio has a bug under Windows and OS X that prevents an exported .mbtiles file to show up at your chosen destination. Workaround: Just grab the latest export-xxxxxxxx.mbtiles file in ~/.mapbox-studio/cache.

I found two server implementations (ten20 tile server by alexbirkett and TileServer by hanchao) who both use Express.js as a web app server.

Here is my minimalistic approach which is loosely based on these implementations:

Install Node.js
Grab the node packages with npm install @mapbox/tilelive @mapbox/mbtiles express

Implement the server in the file server.js:

 var express = require('express');
 var http = require('http');
 var app = express();
 var tilelive = require('tilelive');
 require('mbtiles').registerProtocols(tilelive);

 //Depending on the OS the path might need to be 'mbtiles:///' on OS X and linux
 tilelive.load('mbtiles://path/to/osm_roads.mbtiles', function(err, source) {

     if (err) {
         throw err;
     }
     app.set('port', 7777);

     app.use(function(req, res, next) {
         res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
         res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
         next();
     });

     app.get(/^\/v2\/tiles\/(\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+).pbf$/, function(req, res){

         var z = req.params[0];
         var x = req.params[1];
         var y = req.params[2];

         console.log('get tile %d, %d, %d', z, x, y);

         source.getTile(z, x, y, function(err, tile, headers) {
             if (err) {
                 res.status(404)
                 res.send(err.message);
                 console.log(err.message);
             } else {
               res.set(headers);
               res.send(tile);
             }
         });
     });

     http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function() {
         console.log('Express server listening on port ' + app.get('port'));
     });
 });

Note: The Access-Control-Allow-... headers enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) so webpages served from a different server may access the tiles.

Run it with node server.js

Set up the webpage using Mapbox GL JS in minimal.html:

 <!DOCTYPE html >
 <html>
   <head>
     <meta charset='UTF-8'/>
     <title>Mapbox GL JS rendering my own tiles</title>
     <link href='https://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v0.4.0/mapbox-gl.css' rel='stylesheet' />
     <script src='https://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/v0.4.0/mapbox-gl.js'></script>
     <style>
       body { margin:0; padding:0 }
       #map { position:absolute; top:0; bottom:50px; width:100%; }
     </style>
   </head>
   <body>
     <div id='map'>
     </div>
     <script>
       var map = new mapboxgl.Map({
         container: 'map',
         center: [46.8, 8.5],
         zoom: 7,
         style: 'minimal.json'
       });
     </script>
   </body>
 </html>

Indicate the location of the tile source and style the layers with the following minimal.json:

 {
   "version": 6,
   "constants": {
     "@background": "#808080",
     "@road": "#000000"
   },
   "sources": {
     "osm_roads": {
       "type": "vector",
       "tiles": [
         "http://localhost:7777/v2/tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf"
       ],
       "minzoom": 0,
       "maxzoom": 12
     }
   },
   "layers": [{
     "id": "background",
     "type": "background",
     "paint": {
       "background-color": "@background"
     }
   }, {
     "id": "roads",
     "type": "line",
     "source": "osm_roads",
     "source-layer": "roads",
     "paint": {
       "line-color": "@road"
     }
   }]
 }

Serve the webpage and rejoice.

[GIS] MapBox GL JS, TileStache and Leaflet

Render vector-tiles in a Leaflet Map : yes, you can use this Leaflet plugin, and point to your own tileserver in the configuration file.
Not sure to understand what is a wrapped MapBox Version, but normally the plugin should work with any vector tile source.
No, your data does not have to reside on MapBox server, look at what these amazing guys at Klokantech have done !

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Self-Hosting Mapbox Tiles – Guide to Self-Hosting Mapbox Vector Tiles

[GIS] MapBox GL JS, TileStache and Leaflet

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