Table Of Content[ 1 ]
Mapbox Cookbook
Over 35 recipes to design and implement uniquely
styled maps using the Mapbox platform
Bill Kastanakis
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Mapbox Cookbook
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
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First published: March 2016
Production reference: 1150316
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-78439-735-7
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Bill Kastanakis Nidhi Joshi
Reviewer Proofreader
Balkan Uraz Safis Editing
Commissioning Editor Indexer
Usha Iyer Mariammal Chettiyar
Acquisition Editors Production Coordinator
Vinay Argekar Conidon Miranda
Shaon Basu
Cover Work
Content Development Editor Conidon Miranda
Siddhesh Salvi
Technical Editors
Siddhesh Ghadi
Taabish Khan
Copy Editors
Shruti Iyer
Sonia Mathur
About the Author
Bill Kastanakis has been a software engineer for over 15 years with experience in
desktop, mobile, and web application development. His love for the Mapbox platform
came from a project he worked on in 2010 to build a series of iOS tourist guide apps. With
maps being simplistic in appearance and their customization options being nearly zero,
he discovered the potential of a platform that allows the developer to totally customize the
appearance of maps and the experience of using them.
Bill currently owns MindBomb, which specializes in mobile apps for the iOS platform, and
he is a cofounder of nCoded+ Limited, which builds enterprise mobile and web applications
for casino accounting. He also works as an iOS team lead and architect for one of the most
popular apps in Ireland.
Bill often contributes to presentations as well as writing several mobile development blogs
about new mobile technologies.
About the Reviewer
Balkan Uraz is a city planner with a master's degree in Geographical Sciences. He has over
18 years of experience in the field of Geographic Information Systems.
Throughout his career, Balkan has worked on several projects with one thing in common:
GIS. In the early days of his career, he worked on projects involving municipal GIS and city
information systems. He has worked on major LBS projects for mobile operators in Turkey
that involve both software development and building data inventories. He cofounded a tech
company that specializes in navigation data collection and products. He has also been a GIS
consultant for major companies operating in the areas of field tracking and real estate. In all
his projects, he has worked around his one passion, which is building up spatial infrastructure.
Balkan is the coauthor of the book Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook with Alper Dincer,
published by Packt Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Preface iii
Chapter 1: Introduction to Mapbox 1
Introduction 1
Creating your own map 9
Adding vector data 12
Publishing your map 18
Chapter 2: Mapbox Services 23
Introduction 23
Accessing styled tiles on your map 26
Creating static images 31
Finding coordinates for an address 33
Finding an address from coordinates 36
Finding an address on a map click 38
Getting directions 40
Chapter 3: TileMill and Mapbox Studio 45
Introduction 45
Styling a map with TileMill 62
Styling a map with Mapbox Studio 85
Publishing your base map on your server with PHP 98
Publishing your base map on your server with Node.js 103
Chapter 4: Mapbox.js 105
Introduction 105
Creating a simple map 106
Changing map properties programmatically 109
Working with base layers 114
Adding markers and popups 118
Clustering markers to improve our map 123
i
Table of Contents
Getting mouse coordinates 129
Working with controls 133
Adding interactivity to your map with UTFGrid 137
Creating a choropleth map 144
Creating a heat map 151
Chapter 5: Mapbox.js Advanced 155
Introduction 155
Adding external data to your map 156
Adding a time dimension to your map 160
Comparing two maps at the same time 168
Adding a WMS layer from GeoServer to your map 171
Adding ArcGIS layers from a server or from online 179
Adding Fusion Tables to your map 186
Adding Foursquare data to your map 196
Chapter 6: Mapbox GL 203
Introduction 203
Integrating your project with Mapbox GL 204
Creating a basic map using Mapbox GL 208
Switching between locations programmatically 214
Adding markers to the map 218
Switching map styles 223
Loading GeoJSON and drawing a polyline 232
Drawing polygons on the map 237
Index 245
ii
Preface
Maps are an essential element in today's location-aware applications, but they lack variation
and customization. The Mapbox platform offers the tools and APIs required to totally
customize, populate, and publish a map.
In this book, starting with the basics of Mapbox Editor for your first map styling steps, we
will take you all the way to building advanced web and mobile applications with completely
customizable map styles. The book focuses on the CartoCSS styling language as well as
Mapbox tools and its JavaScript API, which inherits from Leaflet and is one of the most
established, robust, and easy-to-use libraries.
We will then introduce two core Mapbox tools: TileMill and Mapbox Studio. Using them, we will
generate custom-styled map tiles and vector maps. We will then move on to how to publish
your custom maps using PHP, Node.js, and third-party tools such as GeoServer.
The next step is to start using the Mapbox JavaScript API and Leaflet to create different
visualization map styles, such as a choropleth map and a heat map, and add user interactivity
using UTFGrid.
We will continue with the advanced chapters and focus on integrating with third-party services
such as Foursquare, Google Fusion Tables, CartoDB, and Torque to help us populate and even
animate our maps.
Finally, we will end the book with a chapter dedicated to mobile devices. You will learn about
Mapbox GL and how to create a fully functional, location-aware mobile app, which will use the
map styles created in the earlier recipes.
This book is fast-paced, and the recipes are easy to follow. While it focuses on a recipe
approach, it dives into the core concepts and theory of the technologies used to help you
understand the theory required for GIS, web, and mobile development.
iii
