This tool is an alternative to Mapbox Studio and lets you easily create or update vector tilesets on Mapbox from your CSV, SHP or GeoJSON files using command line. It can be especially handy if you need to:
- periodically update some vector tileset (e.g. every day updates) using some script
- fine tune zoom levels or other parameters of vector tiles
- overcome Mapbox Studio upload limits
Under the hood the tool is using Mapbox Python API, ogr2ogr and tippecanoe utilites. Just pass your geofile, specify some parameters and you are done.
Installation
MapboxUtils is distributed as a Docker image so you need to have Docker platform installed. You can get Docker here.
MapboxUtils is publicly available on Docker hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/clevermaps/mapbox-utils
Use following command to get the image:
docker pull clevermaps/mapbox-utils:latest
Data requirements
- Input file needs to be either in CSV, SHP or GeoJSON format
- Geometry needs to be in WKT format in case of CSV format
- Geometry needs to be in WGS84 coordinate system
MapboxUtils parameters
| name | mandatory | example | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| inputfile | yes | --inputfile /workdir/countries_wkt.csv | Path of the input CSV file with geometry |
| pkeycolumn | yes | --pkeycolumn id | Name of the primary key column |
| geomcolumn | yes in case of CSV format | --geomcolumn wkt | Name of the column with WKT geometry. |
| tilesetmapid | no | --tilesetmapid cleveranalytics.14j1fhp2 | Mapbox tilesetmapid. If not specified than random value is generated by Mapbox. Specify in case of updating an existing tileset. |
| tilesetname | no | --tilesetname countries_wkt-02ssft | Mapbox tilesetname. If not than specified than tilesetname is generated as combination of input file name and random hash. Specify in case of updating an existing tileset or if you need your own tilesetname. |
| layername | no | --layername countries_wkt | Mapbox layername. If not specified than same value as tilesetname is used. Specify in case of updating an existing tileset or if you need your own layername. |
| minzoom | no | --minzoom 5 | Minimal zoom of the tileset |
| maxzoom | no | --maxzoom 10 | Maximal zoom of the tileset. Maximal allowed zoom is 10. |
| mbtiles_params | no | --mbtiles_params "drop-fraction-as-needed extend-zooms-if-still-dropping" | Parameters of MBTiles generation internally used by tippecanoe. Parameters can be found here https://github.com/mapbox/tippecanoe |
| mapboxtoken | yes | --mapboxtoken abcdefgah1234 | Your Mapbox account token. Token needs to have following priviliges: TILESETS:WRITE, TILESETS:READ, TILESETS:LIST, UPLOADS:READ, UPLOADS:WRITE. Check https://docs.mapbox.com/help/how-mapbox-works/access-tokens/ for more information. |
Running MapboxUtils
Create a new tileset from CSV file
docker run -t -v /home/user/clevermaps/mapbox-utils:/workdir clevermaps/mapbox-utils:latest --inputfile /workdir/countries_wkt.csv --pkeycolumn id --geomcolumn wkt --minzoom 5 --maxzoom 10 --mapboxtoken abcdefgah1234
Create a new tileset from SHP file
docker run -t -v /home/user/clevermaps/mapbox-utils:/workdir clevermaps/mapbox-utils:latest --inputfile /workdir/countries.shp --pkeycolumn id --minzoom 5 --maxzoom 10 --mapboxtoken abcdefgah1234
Update existing tileset
docker run -t -v /home/user/clevermaps/mapbox-utils:/workdir clevermaps/mapbox-utils:latest --inputfile /workdir/countries_wkt.csv --pkeycolumn id --geomcolumn wkt --minzoom 5 --maxzoom 10 --mapboxtoken abcdefgah1234 --tilesetmapid cleveranalytics.14j1fhp2 --tilesetname countries_wkt-02ssft