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Exercise 4 - Tiles of geospatial data via OGC API - Tiles

OGC API - Tiles provides a Web API to deliver tiled data (bitmaps or vectors), extending the functionalty other OGC API standards:

Note

OGC API - Tiles extends the collections/* URL structure (tilesets are listed under /collections/example/tiles:

https://demo.pygeoapi.io/collections/lakes/tiles/WorldCRS84Quad/{tileMatrix}/{tileRow}/{tileCol}?f=mvt

pygeoapi support

pygeoapi supports the core OGC API - Tiles specification, and is able to advertise an existing tileset. Note that pygeoapi itself does not render tiles from source data (tiles must be pre-rendered before serving). Existing tools to create tiles include, but are not limited to:

!!! The OGC API - Tiles URL structure is compatible with XYZ layers in common libraries such as OpenLayers, Leaflet and MapML

Note

See the official documentation for more information on supported tile backends

Publish a tile dataset

For this exercise, you will publish a vector dataset of cycle paths, from the city of Florence, from the locations below:

  • data: workshop/exercises/data/cycle-lanes-firenze.geojson
  • metadata: workshop/exercises/data/cycle-lanes-firenze.qmd

Let's generate the tiles as the first step using tippecanoe:

cd workshop/exercises
docker run -it --rm -v ${PWD}/data:/data emotionalcities/tippecanoe \
tippecanoe --output-to-directory=/data/tiles/ --force --maximum-zoom=16 --drop-densest-as-needed --extend-zooms-if-still-dropping --no-tile-compression /data/cycle-lanes-firenze.geojson

Update the pygeoapi configuration

Open the pygeoapi configuration in a text editor. Add a new dataset section as follows:

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    Cycle:
        type: collection
        title: Cycle Circulation Area in Florence 
        description: Cycle lanes and other cycle paths in the city of Florence.
        keywords:
            - cycle
        links:
            - type: text/html
              rel: canonical
              title: information
              href: http://opendata.comune.firenze.it/?q=metarepo/datasetinfo&id=52d8d3ab-eae5-400e-8561-d974f8612de0
              hreflang: en-US
        extents:
            spatial:
                bbox: [-180,-90,180,90]
                crs: http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/OGC/1.3/CRS84
            temporal:
                begin: 2011-11-11
                end: null  # or empty
        providers:
            - type: feature
              name: GeoJSON
              data: /data/cycle-lanes-firenze.geojson
              #id_field: accicid
            - type: tile
              name: MVT
              data: /data/tiles
              #data: tests/data/tiles/DATASET
              options:
                  metadata_format: tilejson # default | tilejson
                  bounds: [[11.1861935050234251,43.7512761718001855],[11.3125196304517655,43.8129406631082645]]
                  zoom:
                      min: 0
                      max: 16
                  schemes:
                      - WorldCRS84Quad
              format:
                  name: pbf
                  mimetype: application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile

Save the file and restart docker compose. Navigate to http://localhost:5000/collections to evaluate whether the new dataset has been published.

Additional check for the following tile specific endpoints in the Cycle collection:

TileSet

Client access

QGIS

QGIS supports OGC API Vector Tiles via the Vector Tiles Layer. Although OGC API - Tiles are not natively supported, you can customize the generic connection in order to access them in QGIS.

Access OGC API Vector Tiles from QGIS

Before entering QGIS, access your pygeoapi installation page on the browser and follow these steps.

  • access the collection page of the tiles dataset: http://localhost:5000/collections/Cycle
  • navigate to the tiles page by clicking on tiles: http://localhost:5000/collections/Cycle/tiles
  • click in Tiles metadata in tilejson format: http://localhost:5000/collections/Cycle/tiles/WorldCRS84Quad/metadata
  • note the URL in tiles: http://localhost:5000/collections/Cycle/tiles/WorldCRS84Quad/{tileMatrix}/{tileRow}/{tileCol}?f=mvt and of the values of minZoom and maxZoom

Follow these steps to connect to a service and access vector tiles:

  • locate the vector tiles service on the left hand side browser panel. Note that you can also use the top menu and navigate to Layer > Add Layer > Vector Tile Layer

  • right-click to bring up the context menu and choose New Generic connection
  • fill the required values. For URL, use the URL you noted from the previous step, replacing {tileMatrix}/{tileRow}/{tileCol} with {z}/{x}/{y}.
  • press OK to add the service. At this point, if you are using the browser you should see the collection appearing in the menu, below "Vector Tiles"
  • double-click in the collection to add it to the map
  • remember to set the CRS of the map to EPSG:4326 by clicking in the button on the lower right corner
  • zoom in to Florence to visualize your dataset

LeafletJS

LeafletJS is a popular JavaScript library to add interactive maps to websites. LeafletJS does not support OGC API's explicitely, however can interact with OGC API by using the results of the API directly.

Add OGC API - Tiles to a website with LeafletJS

  • copy the HTML below to a file called vector-tiles.html, or locate this file in workshop/exercises/html
  • open the file in a web browser

The code uses the LeafletJS library with the leaflet.vectorgrid plugin to display the lakes OGC API - Tiles service on top of an OpenStreetMap base layer.

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<html>
<head><title>OGC API - Tiles exercise</title></head>
<body>
<div id="map" style="width:100vw;height:100vh;"></div>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/leaflet@1.0.3/dist/leaflet.css"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/leaflet@1.3.1/dist/leaflet.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://unpkg.com/leaflet.vectorgrid@1.2.0"></script>
<script>
map = L.map('map').setView({ lat: 43.79, lng: 11.25 }, 12);
map.addLayer(
    new L.tileLayer('https://stamen-tiles-{s}.a.ssl.fastly.net/watercolor/{z}/{x}/{y}.{ext}', {
    attribution: 'Map tiles by <a href="https://stamen.com">Stamen Design</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0">CC BY 3.0</a> &mdash; Map data &copy; <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">OpenStreetMap</a> contributors',
    subdomains: 'abcd',
    minZoom: 1,
    maxZoom: 16,
    ext: 'jpg'
    }));
map.addLayer(new L.vectorGrid.protobuf(
    'http://localhost:5000/collections/Cycle/tiles/WorldCRS84Quad/{z}/{x}/{y}?f=mvt', 
    { rendererFactory: L.canvas.tile }));
</script>
</body>
</html>

Tip

Try adding a different pygeoapi vector tiles layer by updating the code in workshop/exercises/html/vector-tiles.html.

OpenLayers

OpenLayers is a popular JavaScript library to add interactive maps to websites. OpenLayers natively supports OGC API - Tiles.

Tip

See the official OpenLayers documentation

Summary

Congratulations! You are now able to publish tiles to pygeoapi.