To create maps from tiles, maptiles
downloads, composes and displays tiles from a large number of providers (e.g. OpenStreetMap, Stadia, Esri, CARTO, or Thunderforest).
You can install the released version of maptiles
from CRAN with:
You can install the development version of maptiles
from GitHub with:
This is a basic example which shows you how to dowload and display OpenStreetMap tiles over North Carolina:
library(sf)
#> Linking to GEOS 3.11.1, GDAL 3.6.2, PROJ 9.1.1; sf_use_s2() is TRUE
library(maptiles)
# import North Carolina counties
nc_raw <- st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package = "sf"), quiet = TRUE)
# Project to EPSG:3857
nc <- st_transform(nc_raw, "EPSG:3857")
# dowload tiles and compose raster (SpatRaster)
nc_osm <- get_tiles(nc, crop = TRUE)
# display map
plot_tiles(nc_osm)
# add Norh Carolina counties
plot(st_geometry(nc), col = NA, add = TRUE)
# add credit
mtext(text = get_credit("OpenStreetMap"), side = 1, line = -1, adj = .99)
maptiles
gives access to a lot of tiles servers, but it is possible to add others. The following example demonstrates the setting of a map tiles server and how to cache the original tiles for future use:
# define the tile server parameters
osmpos <- create_provider(name = "CARTO.POSITRON",
url = "https://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}.png",
sub = c("a", "b", "c", "d"),
citation = "© OpenStreetMap contributors © CARTO ")
# dowload tiles and compose raster (SpatRaster)
nc_osmpos <- get_tiles(x = nc, provider = osmpos, crop = TRUE,
cachedir = tempdir(), verbose = TRUE)
#> Zoom: 7
#> Source(s): © OpenStreetMap contributors © CARTO
#> Cache directory: /tmp/RtmpdG8qYB/CARTO.POSITRON
#> 8 tiles
# display map
plot_tiles(nc_osmpos)
# display credits
mtext(text = get_credit(osmpos), side = 1, line = -1, adj = .99)
The following figure shows mini maps for most of the tiles providers available:
Original tiles use a projection known as “Web Mercator”, “WGS84 / Pseudo Mercator”, “Google Mercator”, “EPSG:3857” or “EPSG:900913”. In most cases get_tiles()
uses the projection of its x
argument to reproject the tiles. If you wish to avoid any deformation induced by the reprojection process, use “EPSG:3857” for x
projection.
All maps available through maptiles
are offered freely by various providers. The only counterpart from the user is to properly display an attribution text on the maps. get_credit()
displays a short attribution text to add on each map using the downloaded tiles.
There are many alternative packages that pursue the same objective as maptiles
. Some focus on a specific map tiles provider (e.g. Mapbox, Google, OpenStreetMap) or on a specific graphics device (ggplot2
). The goal of maptiles
is to be flexible enough to allow the use of different providers and to have a minimal number of robust and modern dependencies. However, depending on the use case, one of following packages may better suit your needs:
ceramic
ggmap
(ggplot2
focused)ggspatial
(ggplot2
focused, based on rosm
)mapboxapi
(mapbox)mapsapi
(google, based on RgoogleMaps
)OpenStreetMap
(requires Java)RgoogleMaps
(google)rosm
Not to be confused with tilemaps
, that “implements an algorithm for generating maps, known as tile maps, in which each region is represented by a single tile of the same shape and size.”