TileMill

TileMill Quickly and Easily Design Maps for the Web

Shaky SherpaMatt Berg

Modi Research Group The Earth Institute. Columbia University

Plan for tonight.. Importing a spreadsheet(from formhub)

We we will walk through how to import a basic spreadsheet(csv) and ESRI Shapefile into TileMill. 

Styling dataHere we show the basics of using Carto - a CSS-like language - to style your data in TileMill. 

Adding tooltips and legendsHere we show how to add tooltip interactivity and legends to maps. 

Exporting your mapHere we show how to export a map from TileMIll as a fully interactive map that can be shared on the web.  

Geographic Information

LOCATION ATTRIBUTE

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Where? What?

Latitude (y)

Longitude (x)

Altitude (z)

Information linked to location

i.e. name, population, description

Location represents where on the earth the items of interest are locatedAttribute provides information about what is occurring there

Where?

Latitude (y)

Longitude (x)

Altitude (z)

What?Where?

Latitude (y)

Longitude (x)

Altitude (z)

Information linked to location

i.e. name, population, description

What?Where?

Latitude (y)

Longitude (x)

Altitude (z)

Where?

Latitude (y)

Longitude (x)

Altitude (z)

Information linked to location

i.e. name, population, description

What?

BasicsGIS- Geographic Information System(Recording, Analysis or Display of Data that is

related to a location)Map Projections(Refers to method used for representing a 3D

object like Earth on a 2D surface like paper or computer)

Coordinate systems(Provide ways of describing a specific location on

the earth. Using latitude and longitude or using distance in meters from the Equator)

Features: Points, Lines, and PolygonsPoints

households, populated place centroid, facility (school, health), water sources x,y coordinates

Line

roads, electricity grid, water pipelines, rivers series of x, y coordinates connected to form path/network

Polygon

boundary, administrative area, service area series of x, y coordinates connected to form enclosed area

* Display Hierarchy: (1) Points, (2) Lines, and (3) Polygons

Shapefile Limitations: • Cannot store null values• Round up numbers• Poor support for Unicode character strings• Field names can not be longer than 10 characters• Cannot store both a date and time in a field• 2 GB size limit for any shapefile component file (max ~ 70 million point features)• May take up three to five times as much space as a geodatabase• Spatial queries take longer compared to a geodatabase feature class

A vector data storage format for storing the location, shape, and attributes of geographic features. A shapefile is stored in a set of related files and contains one feature class.

Source: ESRI ArcGIS Desktop Help and GIS Glossary

What is a shapefile?

Interface tour1. List of Projects 2. New

Project

1. Main toolbar 2. Map Preview 3. Editing Tools 4. StyleSheet Editor

Editing Interface

1. Map Preview 2. Zoom Controls and Full Page toggle

M

1. Add Layer button 2. Geometry Icon 3.Layer Name 4. Inspect Layer Data 5. Edit Layer 6. Delete Layer

1. Active stylesheet 2. Inactive stylesheet 3. New stylesheet

4. Line numbers 5. Text Area 6. Color Palette

Adding LayersTileMill supports creating map layers from

following types of files and databasesCSVESRI ShapefileKML(Google Earth)GeoTIFF(Raster Data)GeoJsonSQLite(spatial database)PostGIS(spatial database)

Layer SettingsID – This is the name of the layer(can include letters, numbers, dashes or underscores)DataSource (local files or url)SRS(Spatial Reference System)

-TileMill autodetects it but sometimes it needs be specified

Project SettingsTooltips(allows you to make your maps interactive with dynamic tooltips that appear when you hover or click on a feature (any point or polygon). Teaser – displays on hover Full – displays on clickLegend(allows you to make your maps interactive with dynamic tooltips that appear when you hover or click on a feature (any point or polygon).

CartoSimilar to CSS (Cascading Style Sheet for Web)Various types of Symbolizers:

Line (for lines & polygons) Polygon (for polygons) Point (for points) Text (for points, lines, and polygons) Shield (for points & lines) Line Pattern (for lines & polygons) Polygon Pattern (for polygons) Raster (for rasters) Markers (for points, lines, & polygons) Buildings

ExportingMBTILESPNGPDFSVG

GIS Data SourcesNatural EarthGlobal Administrative Areas (GADM)CloudMade (OSM data)NYC Open Data (city agencies) geocommons