5 ms·

What other alternatives exist? I know now: * openlayers, but vector tiles have no web GL support there * Procedural GL JS * tangram * deck.gl (from Uber) *

What other alternatives exist? I know now: * openlayers, but vector tiles have no web GL support there * Procedural GL JS * tangram * deck.gl (from Uber) * harp.gl (from HERE Maps)

Waterluvian 6y ago
Openlayers has some prototype webgl support that's a bit promising. I enjoyed working with it (but hate working with buggy webgl in general). Leaflet is also great. If you're doing any sort of front end GIS I recommend openlayers above all else including mapbox. But I suspect 99% of users just need basic maps. Leaflet is great for that.
- karussell 6y ago
  Openlayers has web GL support but not for vector tiles and I would like to have fast vector tiles :) They removed this support in some previous version, I think. Or do you have a link to a pull request or issue? (IMO Leaflet is dead now that the creator is working since several years for Mapbox)
  - bdon 6y ago
    I suspect Leaflet's current install base is many times that of any alternative - it's certainly not dead, and I'd argue its simplicity makes it ideal for most basic mapping applications.
  - mourner 6y ago
    7+ years to be exact. It's unfair to call Leaflet dead — it's still quite actively maintained, gets regular releases and has a huge community of both users and contributors, and Mapbox have always been supportive of me spending time on it during work hours. What someone can see as less development activity is simply a sign of a mature product that doesn't need many new features and changes to remain useful — focusing on the core basic mapping needs has always been its goal, and it continues to adhere to it.
    - karussell 6y ago
      Thanks for replying and all your amazing work :) ! What I see or meant as a sign of "dead" is that there will be no new features that Mapbox GL JS has but that are critical for future applications. Like proper or inbuilt vector tiles support.
      - trynewideas 6y ago
        > Like proper or inbuilt vector tiles support I thought one of the primary features of Leaflet was its modularity. Would built-in vector tile support be an anti-pattern?
      - Widdershin 6y ago
        Reading this comment makes me a bit sad because I wrote a really good incremental tile based renderer for leaflet that could easily be adapted for vector tiles. Unfortunately that whole business unit got canned and the code is now gathering dust somewhere :/ would have loved to open source that one
        webmaven 6y ago
        > Unfortunately that whole business unit got canned and the code is now gathering dust somewhere :/ would have loved to open source that one I'd encourage you to reach out and ask for permission to release it. In the past I've found that the sticking point was usually copyright assignment rather than the release per-se (with a side helping of worry over hidden IP violations), so get them to release a tarball under a permissive license like MIT/BSD, even if your intention is to immediately fork it. Basically, if you can manage to do the work for them so they can just rubber stamp the release, you can probably get it done.
- modeless 6y ago
  I work on WebGL in Chrome and WebKit and am interested to hear what problems you've experienced with WebGL.
  - Waterluvian 6y ago
    I'm probably being very unfair given I'm new to it. I've perpetually run into memory leaks and Max gpu issues whenever I try to use WebGL stuff in Openlayers depending on which browser I use. Something will work fine in Chrome but max out my laptop's discrete card in Firefox until my laptop thermal throttles. If you want a concrete example of this I would be happy to put together a reproducible example for you.
    - modeless 6y ago
      That would be great. There are a practically infinite number of things we could improve, and without feedback we won't end up working on the ones that matter to people.
eyesee 6y ago
https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/ https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/
- gabereiser 6y ago
  I’ll add cesium also has commercial support and has been doing this for a while. It’s excellent. Patrick Cozzi and crew really know their stuff, highly recommend.
- karussell 6y ago
  Does it have vector tiles support?
  - trynewideas 6y ago
    Nope. Roadmap issue: https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/issues/2132 https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/issues/2132
  - stevage 6y ago
    It has had 3D tiles for a long time. Not Mapbox 2D vector tiles though.
- ajinkyapatil 6y ago
  +1 for CesiumJS, they have been doing 3D since ages... Also webpage mentions its Open Source from 2012 until Forever (Apache 2.0). I guess its time to switch.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kylebarron 6y ago
Note that deck.gl was originally developed inside Uber, but was donated to the Urban Computing Foundation (part of the Linux Foundation) and is now under open governance.
pbowyer 6y ago
Will any of these work with LIDAR data under their 3D rendering? I'm keen on industrial archaeology and it's really helpful to have 3D visualisations of sites like old quarries. Stand-alone 3D models can be done like [1] and the detail is substantially better compared to the map 3D views [2] (pits are pits again!) but I want to embed these into a website and start overlaying other data - just like I can with Mapbox maps. 1. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dinorwic-snakes-ladders-and-tunnels-0a519a963b1c4018b286128edbd90bfd https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dinorwic-snakes-ladders-and-... 2. https://felixpalmer.github.io/procedural-gl-js/ https://felixpalmer.github.io/procedural-gl-js/, search for Llanberis
- scanny 6y ago
  You might be interested in this: https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/layers-pointcloud-portal/index.html https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/... I have seen in demos coming from a few construction projects using this.
- segheysens 6y ago
  Mapbox actually put out this blog post for visualizing point clouds in 3D with GL JS + Deck.GL in May 2019 - should still be totally possible! https://blog.mapbox.com/coloring-lidar-4522ca5a7186 https://blog.mapbox.com/coloring-lidar-4522ca5a7186
scanny 6y ago
The ESRI JavaScript API https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/showcase/ https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/showcase/ It does 3d, 2d, vector tiles, client side geoprocessing, and plenty of open data/service types

What other alternatives exist? I know now: * openlayers, but vector tiles have no web GL support there * Procedural GL JS * tangram * deck.gl (from Uber) * harp.gl (from HERE Maps)

Waterluvian 6y ago

Openlayers has some prototype webgl support that's a bit promising. I enjoyed working with it (but hate working with buggy webgl in general). Leaflet is also great. If you're doing any sort of front end GIS I recommend openlayers above all else including mapbox. But I suspect 99% of users just need basic maps. Leaflet is great for that.

karussell 6y ago
Openlayers has web GL support but not for vector tiles and I would like to have fast vector tiles :) They removed this support in some previous version, I think. Or do you have a link to a pull request or issue? (IMO Leaflet is dead now that the creator is working since several years for Mapbox)
- bdon 6y ago
  I suspect Leaflet's current install base is many times that of any alternative - it's certainly not dead, and I'd argue its simplicity makes it ideal for most basic mapping applications.
- mourner 6y ago
  7+ years to be exact. It's unfair to call Leaflet dead — it's still quite actively maintained, gets regular releases and has a huge community of both users and contributors, and Mapbox have always been supportive of me spending time on it during work hours. What someone can see as less development activity is simply a sign of a mature product that doesn't need many new features and changes to remain useful — focusing on the core basic mapping needs has always been its goal, and it continues to adhere to it.
  - karussell 6y ago
    Thanks for replying and all your amazing work :) ! What I see or meant as a sign of "dead" is that there will be no new features that Mapbox GL JS has but that are critical for future applications. Like proper or inbuilt vector tiles support.
    - trynewideas 6y ago
      > Like proper or inbuilt vector tiles support I thought one of the primary features of Leaflet was its modularity. Would built-in vector tile support be an anti-pattern?
    - Widdershin 6y ago
      Reading this comment makes me a bit sad because I wrote a really good incremental tile based renderer for leaflet that could easily be adapted for vector tiles. Unfortunately that whole business unit got canned and the code is now gathering dust somewhere :/ would have loved to open source that one
      - webmaven 6y ago
        > Unfortunately that whole business unit got canned and the code is now gathering dust somewhere :/ would have loved to open source that one I'd encourage you to reach out and ask for permission to release it. In the past I've found that the sticking point was usually copyright assignment rather than the release per-se (with a side helping of worry over hidden IP violations), so get them to release a tarball under a permissive license like MIT/BSD, even if your intention is to immediately fork it. Basically, if you can manage to do the work for them so they can just rubber stamp the release, you can probably get it done.
modeless 6y ago
I work on WebGL in Chrome and WebKit and am interested to hear what problems you've experienced with WebGL.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  I'm probably being very unfair given I'm new to it. I've perpetually run into memory leaks and Max gpu issues whenever I try to use WebGL stuff in Openlayers depending on which browser I use. Something will work fine in Chrome but max out my laptop's discrete card in Firefox until my laptop thermal throttles. If you want a concrete example of this I would be happy to put together a reproducible example for you.
  - modeless 6y ago
    That would be great. There are a practically infinite number of things we could improve, and without feedback we won't end up working on the ones that matter to people.

eyesee 6y ago

https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/ https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/

gabereiser 6y ago
I’ll add cesium also has commercial support and has been doing this for a while. It’s excellent. Patrick Cozzi and crew really know their stuff, highly recommend.
karussell 6y ago
Does it have vector tiles support?
- trynewideas 6y ago
  Nope. Roadmap issue: https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/issues/2132 https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium/issues/2132
- stevage 6y ago
  It has had 3D tiles for a long time. Not Mapbox 2D vector tiles though.
ajinkyapatil 6y ago
+1 for CesiumJS, they have been doing 3D since ages... Also webpage mentions its Open Source from 2012 until Forever (Apache 2.0). I guess its time to switch.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kylebarron 6y ago

Note that deck.gl was originally developed inside Uber, but was donated to the Urban Computing Foundation (part of the Linux Foundation) and is now under open governance.

pbowyer 6y ago

Will any of these work with LIDAR data under their 3D rendering? I'm keen on industrial archaeology and it's really helpful to have 3D visualisations of sites like old quarries. Stand-alone 3D models can be done like [1] and the detail is substantially better compared to the map 3D views [2] (pits are pits again!) but I want to embed these into a website and start overlaying other data - just like I can with Mapbox maps. 1. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dinorwic-snakes-ladders-and-tunnels-0a519a963b1c4018b286128edbd90bfd https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dinorwic-snakes-ladders-and-... 2. https://felixpalmer.github.io/procedural-gl-js/ https://felixpalmer.github.io/procedural-gl-js/, search for Llanberis

scanny 6y ago
You might be interested in this: https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/layers-pointcloud-portal/index.html https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/... I have seen in demos coming from a few construction projects using this.
segheysens 6y ago
Mapbox actually put out this blog post for visualizing point clouds in 3D with GL JS + Deck.GL in May 2019 - should still be totally possible! https://blog.mapbox.com/coloring-lidar-4522ca5a7186 https://blog.mapbox.com/coloring-lidar-4522ca5a7186

scanny 6y ago

The ESRI JavaScript API https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/showcase/ https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/showcase/ It does 3d, 2d, vector tiles, client side geoprocessing, and plenty of open data/service types