Overview of MapDeck support for common map layer services

MapDeck mission is to personalise location intelligence services. That is, to deliver tailored solutions to meet specific requirements of a wide range of users - from private individuals and small business operators, to professionals and persons in corporate roles.

Flexibility in selection and ease of mixing map layers is a basic requirement for personalising map creation process. It is especially important for those users who are just starting to master the power of maps for decision making and who are not yet technically savvy to use advanced features of spatial software.

Unfortunately, the reality is that even a simple task, such as displaying several map layers from different web services, can turn into quite a challenge because of incompatibilities of variants of public web map services available on the Internet.

MapDeck’s Map Layers Manager handles that complexity of options, which makes it easy for anybody to work with almost any map layer, regardless of web service origin.

"[It] handles information published in Open Street Map (OSM), Tile Map Service (TMS), Web Map Tile Service (WMTS), Web Map Service (WMS) as well as ESRI image, map and tile service formats..."

Map Layers Manager tool handles information published in Open Street Map (OSM) tile format, but also those in Tile Map Service (TMS), Web Map Tile Service (WMTS), Web Map Service (WMS) as well as ESRI image, map and tile service formats. Also those variants requiring access key and/or published with custom parameters. That should cover 99% of map service formats available on the Internet.

MapDeck users have an option to subscribe to Map Layers Manager app which will give them the ability to create their own map layers from almost any web map service publicly available on the Internet. These custom map layers can then be used to create personalised maps and/or can be shared with other MapDeck users.

But perhaps of the most interest to all is that, thanks to Map Layers Manager, many public, as well as commercial, web services will be catalogued and pre-configured for immediate use with MapDeck apps, making it very easy to discover and mash map layers, and ultimately to customise map content to individual requirements.

MapDeck.com public page

The first batch of 32 public map layers has already been published on MapDeck beta test version. Additional 220+ map layer services have already been preconfigured and they will be progressively released to MapDeck users.