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Cartographic Implications of Vector Tile Technology Ingmar De Beukelaar

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Cartographic Implications of Vector Tile Technology Ingmar De Beukelaar Master’s Thesis Cartographic implications of Vector Tile technology Ingmar de Beukelaar September 2017 - March 2018 Final report - February 28th, 2018 Author: Ingmar de Beukelaar Supervisor: Drs. Barend Köbben i Colophon This master’s thesis is commissioned by the Utrecht of University, University of Wa- geningen, University of Twente, and the Delft University of Technology as part of the Geographical Information Management and Applications (GIMA) - Master of Science. Responsible Professor: Prof.dr. Menno-Jan Kraak Supervisor: Drs. Barend Köbben Contact information: Ingmar de Beukelaar [email protected] UU student number: 3940330 ITC student number: s6030858 How to cite this master’s thesis: De Beukelaar, I.T.Y. (2018). Cartographic implications of Vector Tile technology (Unpublished master’s thesis). Geographical Information Management and Applications (GIMA MSc). ii Abstract Cartographic implications of Vector Tile technology by INGMAR DE BEUKELAAR -MARCH 2018 The Web has changed the way maps and geographical information are designed, produced and delivered as web maps by cartographers (Cartwright, Gartner, Meng, & Peterson, 2010). Most maps available on the Web today are based on well-established raster transmission methods. However, rapid technological innovation in web map- ping is driving the need to utilize fast rendering tiles. Vector Tiles seem to be an emerging solution (Antoniou, Morley, & Haklay, 2009). Therefore, the goal of this thesis was to investigate the new opportunities and challenges that Vector Tiles offer for Web Cartographers. Several existing Vector Tile tools and technological solu- tions/workflows on how to implement Vector Tiles in Web Mapping were invento- ried. Afterwards, two different workflows were assessed in terms of cartographic strengths & weaknesses. The aim was to investigate the cartographic potential of Vector Tile technology and solutions. The challenges of the thesis were to give an overview of the current state of Vector tile technology and to fill the knowledge gap between computer sciences and cartography by combining practical research regarding the emerging Vector Tile technology with cartographic theory. iii Summary Cartographic implications of Vector Tile technology by INGMAR DE BEUKELAAR -MARCH 2018 The Web has changed the way maps and geographical information are designed, produced and delivered as web maps by cartographers (Cartwright et al., 2010). Most maps available on the Web today are based on well-established raster trans- mission methods. However, rapid technological innovation in web mapping is driv- ing the need to utilize fast rendering tiles. Vector Tiles seem to be an emerging so- lution (Antoniou et al., 2009). Therefore, the goal of this thesis was to investigate the new opportunities and challenges that Vector Tiles offer for Web Cartographers. Several existing Vector Tile tools and technological solutions/workflows on how to implement Vector Tiles in Web Mapping were inventoried. Afterwards, two differ- ent workflows were assessed in terms of cartographic strengths & weaknesses. The aim was to investigate the cartographic potential of Vector Tile technology and so- lutions. The challenges of the thesis were to give an overview of the current state of Vector tile technology and to fill the knowledge gap between computer sciences and cartography by combining practical research regarding the emerging Vector Tile technology with cartographic theory. The results show that while Vector Tile tools make it very easy for Web Cartogra- phers to implement Vector Tile technology, that they do not always take into account how to solve certain cartographic challenges. It was identified that the main carto- graphic weaknesses in Vector Tile technology and workflows are the lack of control over the simplification process and the lack of support for custom projections with Vector Tiles. The cartographic strength identified was the support for styling and the ability of the Cartographer to customize these styles on the client side. The car- tographic potential lies in developing the weaknesses and deploying the strengths. It was concluded that Vector Tile technology positively contributes to the field of Cartography because it stimulates the effective communication of spatial informa- tion by means of technological improvements (i.e. the compact size and efficient caching of Vector Tiles enabling fast loading and high-resolution maps) and benefits regarding map design and interactivity (i.e. the flexible styling on the client side al- lowing for many map styles for the same geo-data). However, it was also identified that there could be more research on cartographic aspects regarding the too techni- cal and performance driven Vector Tile technology which is due to an observed gap between one hand a lack of cartographic focus in computer sciences and on the other hand a technical knowledge gap with traditional cartographers. Therefore, there is a new potential and role for the cartographer to be more involved in the creation of Vector Tile tools to deploy cartographic knowledge. Developers with a background in computer sciences should take into account more the cartographic aspects in Vec- tor Tile technology, whereas cartographers can nowadays not ignore the technical and programming part anymore. Bridging the gap between computer sciences and cartography was the aim of this thesis and at the same time the identified potential that can be deployed. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the people that involved in the thesis for their support and contributions. First, I would like to thank my supervisor: Drs. Barend Köbben, University of Twente – Faculty of Geo–Information Science and Earth Obser- vation (ITC), for his strong support with regular meetings and feedback, contacts with other people involved with Vector Tiles and not to forget the time and effort in checking this thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank all the interviewees which made this thesis possible: Edward Mac Gillavry, Webmapper, for his expertise in Web Mapping and Vector Tiles, his hospitality to invite me several times at his office and giving me the opportunity to ask ques- tions and learn more about the practical side of Web Cartography and Vector Tiles. Niene Boeijen, Webmapper, for her expertise in Web Mapping and Vector Tiles and her sup- port to explain to me how to work with Tippecanoe and how the Vector Tile stack works. Jeroen Hogeboom, PDOK/Kadaster, for his hospitality to invite me at Kadaster to show me their Vector Tiles project and discuss the user needs and opportunities of Vector Tiles. Jan Willem Vierbergen, ESRI Nederland, for his interesting thoughts about the opportunities and challenges with Vector Tiles and especially is knowledge about how ESRI implements Vector Tiles for visualization and Vector basemaps. Robert Nordan, Norkart AS, for his interesting thoughts about Vector Tiles and how they are suited for GIS applications, consumers and for visualization. Prof. Stefan Keller, The Geometa Lab, Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil (HSR), for his inter- esting thoughts and expertise about Vector Tile technology and especially his critical view on the potential and challenges of Vector Tiles for Web Cartographers. Lukas Martinelli, Mapbox, for his interesting thoughts about Vector Tiles and especially his technical expertise as a computer scientist on how the technology works at Mapbox. Lastly, I would like to thank all the other people involved that I did not mention and that have supported me while writing this thesis. I hope you will all enjoy reading this thesis. v List of Abbreviations AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript And XML BAG Basisregistraties Adressen en Gebouwen BGT Basisregistraties Grootschalige Topgrafie BRT Basisregistratie Topografie CSV Comma-Seperated Values CSW Catalog Service Web ERP Extended Research Proposal GIS Geographical Information System GDAL Geospatial Data Abstraction and Library GIMA Geographical Information Management and Applications GML Geographic Markup Language GUI Graphical User Interface HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil HTML HyperText Markup Language ISO International Standards Organisation ICT Information and Communication Technology ITC Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (University of Twente) JPEG JointPhotographic Expert Group JSON JavaScript Object Notation KML Keyhole Markup Language MVT Mapbox Vector Tiles OGC Open Geospatial Consortium OSM OpenStreetMap PDOK Publieke Dienst Op de Kaart PBF Protocolbuffer Binary Format PNG Portable Graphics RID Research Identification SDI Spatial Data Infrastructure SLD Styled Layer Descriptor SQL Structured Query Language SVG Scalable Vector Graphics TMS Tile Map Service UU University Utrecht UT University of Twente VT Vector Tiles WFS Web Feature Service WMS Web Map Service WMTS Web Map Tiling Service WPS Web Processing Service WWW World Wide Web XML eXtensible Markup Language vi Glossary Cartographic implications of Vector Tile technology Refers to what is likely to hap- pen for Cartographers as a result of Vector Tile technology, namely the impli- cations the technology has on the cartographic possibilities and challenges. Cartographic potential Refers to the cartographic possibilities or opportunities (for the future). It has an emphasis on the positive advantages that could possibly be realized (e.g. what can be done with Vector Tiles from a cartographic point of view what has not been done yet). Cartographic strengths and weaknesses The possibilities and challenges from a
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