[GIS] Create the own MapBox Vector tile and self hosting

mapboxmapbox-gl-jsmbtilespostgisvector-tiles

I understood hosting mbtiles is possible and some solutions are available. I not sure that I can find the answer;
How can I create my own vector tiles (mapbox vector tile format) which from my data stored in postgis or geojson etc.

Should I download mbtiles from mapbox?

Best Answer

As stated by other people, mbtiles were just raster format stored in a sqlite database using a particular specification.

Nowadays, it's seems that it's reuse to store vector tiles using the same scheme.

For vector tiles generation to mapbox vector tile format, you have choices listed at https://github.com/mapbox/awesome-vector-tiles#servers

You can also look at the recent osm2vectortiles project to directly download vector tiles stored in mbtiles. You can serve them following this recipe.

Related Solutions

[GIS] How to render Mapbox Vector Tiles from OSM data

If you just want OpenStreetMap data in Mapbox Vector Tile format, MapZen provides this service for free: https://mapzen.com/projects/vector-tiles/

All the tooling required to do it is open: https://github.com/mapzen/vector-datasource

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.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] How to render Mapbox Vector Tiles from OSM data

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

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