tilenol

Tilenol is a scalable web server for serving geospatial data stored in multiple supported backends as Mapbox Vector Tiles.

Installation

Navigate to the root tilenol/ directory (where the Makefile is located) and run:

make install

Usage

tilenol

usage: tilenol [<flags>] <command> [<args> ...]

Flags:
  --help  Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).

Commands:
  help [<command>...]
    Show help.

  run [<flags>]
    Runs the Tilenol server

  version
    Prints out the version

tilenol run

usage: tilenol run [<flags>]

Runs the Tilenol server

Flags:
      --help                 Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
  -d, --debug                    Enable debug mode
  -f, --config-file=tilenol.yml  Server configuration file
  -p, --port=3000                Port to serve tiles on
  -i, --internal-port=3001       Port for internal metrics and healthchecks
  -x, --enable-cors              Enables cross-origin resource sharing (CORS)
  -s, --simplify-shapes          Simplifies geometries based on zoom level
  -n, --num-processes=0          Sets the number of processes to be used

Configuration

# Cache configuration (optional)
cache:
  redis:
    host: localhost
    port: 6379
    ttl: 24h
# Layer configuration
layers:
  - name: buildings
    minzoom: 14
    source:
      elasticsearch:
        host: localhost
        port: 9200
        index: buildings
        geometryField: geometry
        sourceFields:
          area_sqft: building.area_sqft
          height_ft: building.height_ft

Docker

Tilenol is also available as stationa/tilenol on DockerHub. This can be helpful when running in cloud environments or on Kubernetes:

# To run the Docker image on your machine, you can use the following:

docker run \
  --rm \
  -it \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -v my-tilenol-conf.yml:/conf/tilenol.yml \
  stationa/tilenol \
  run -p 3000 -f /conf/tilenol.yml

# Note that this will bind tilenol to your local port 3000, and requires a configuration file to be
# mounted at the /conf/tilenol.yml path

Currently, the Docker image tags are published according to the following scheme:

• vM.m.p is the image built for the exact SemVer major/minor/patch version M.m.p, e.g. v1.0.7
• vM is the latest image available for the given SemVer major version number M, e.g. v1
• latest is the latest stable image available
• devel is the latest unstable image available based on the last commit made to the main branch

We recommend you use either vM or vM.m.p where possible, though your appetite for risk may vary by use case.

Supported backends

Currently, tilenol supports the following data backends:

• Elasticsearch
• PostGIS

QGIS support

Tilenol layers can also be viewed in GIS software such as QGIS.

Instructions for adding a Tilenol layer to QGIS 3.16:

1. Navigate to Layer > Add Layer > Add Vector Tile Layer
2. Click on New, and then Create a New Generic Connection
3. Configure the Connection Details, for example:
4. Name: Places
5. URL: http://localhost:3000/places/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt
6. Min.Zoom Level: 0
7. Max.Zoom Level: 25

Example screenshot, pointing QGIS to a locally running instance of Tilenol:

1. Click OK and then Add
2. You should be able to see the Tilenol places layer at appropriate zoom levels

Contributing

When contributing to this repository, please follow the steps below:

1. Fork the repository
2. Submit your patch in one commit, or a series of well-defined commits
3. Submit your pull request and make sure you reference the issue you are addressing