pixelcooker

It is been a while since last time I discuss about vector tiles basemap. And today I found something cool that may be useful for you too. As you already know, Google nowadays is also publish it online maps to vector tiles format which make their maps more beauty as well as faster to load. And because vector tiles based online maps can be stylized in a custom way, there goes also the google maps vector tiles. You can modify how it looks to suit your application needs without spending additional money or resources. Now, lets go to how to do that. 1. First, go to application that enabling us to customize the Google Maps style using CSS.  https://snazzymaps.com is one example. You can explore styles made by other people or make a new style for yourself if you have enough knowledge about CSS. 2. After you find certain style that you are interested in, go to inspect element (chrome) or Firebird (Firefox) and find out the URL for a tile image. Below is an example. https:/...

My two previous posts concerned about tile layers served as basemap in raster format. Tile layer in raster format is superb because it is deliver fast reading, great compatibility between systems and standards, Tile layer in raster format is also works for any kind of data and independent from the source data format. Either you have thematic maps in vector format or satellite imagery/DEM in raster format, Tile layer in raster could handle them well. But technology always changing. In recent years, development of tile layer in vector format got its fruition. It is somewhat better than raster, but it is not dedicated to replace the raster based tiles. It has specific function which is mainly to serve basemap in VECTOR format. By using vector format, you can get : 1. Smaller file size to serve, so higher performance is guaranteed. 2. Dynamic and good resolution/display in every scale or zoom level (vector ftw man). 3. Faster generation and processing time compared to raster. 4. No...