Custom Mapbox Maps

[bherbes]

Hi,

I’m currently evaluating the trial 6.3 beta.

I would like to be able to use our custom designed mapbox maps for our tours. I’ve successfully used the new mapbox standard maps in the current beta.

But the question I have, is ggnome going to support custom mapbox maps?

As you probably know each mapbox custom map has a unique id. If a new field was added to the map panel where the "access token" is located this would allow the custom mapbox map "map id" to be entered and we’d be able to have 100% custom maps working in pano2vr.

Could this be added in the next beta?? I’d be happy to test it. (I have deep experience with mapping on the mapbox platform).

[Hopki]

Hi,
I have added this to our bug tracker as a feature request.
Regards,
Hopki

[bherbes]

Using Mapbox maps in Pano2VR 6

Being a cartographer I use mapbox maps regularly. I thought I’d share a bit of my knowledge about Mapbox as I know many people are looking for alternatives since Google’s recent changes. https://www.mapbox.com/maps/


I believe Mapbox is a good alternative to Google maps, it has a lot of power but most importantly the ability to customise the maps to suit your project. Google maps flexibility to customise is minimal compared to what can be achieved with Mapbox.

Pano2VR 6 Beta 3 makes “selected" Mapbox maps available for use. Here’s a brief rundown on Mapbox maps.

Maps are based on OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM is an open source global community map which anyone can contribute too. The Mapbox map styling looks cleaner than the standard OSM maps which by default show a lot of detail that often clutter the map and make them less appealing for tours in my view. Plus, users don’t need to see clutter on the map it gets in the way of primary message!

Pano2VR6 lets you integrate 3 types of standard (free) map tiles from Mapbox: Streets, Terrain and Satellite. These maps are all images tiles, (not vector tiles - difference explained below). Map image tiles are created at fix zoom levels - which means they jump from one zoom level to the next as apposed to continuous zoom with vector based maps. While image maps work fine, they do require more bandwidth as they are images (they are the same as the tiled images in panoramas). The styling of the mapbox maps are clean and without advertising (poi) which should be appealing for many tours.

To use Mapbox you need to register and set up an account (free) and no credit card is needed (last time I did this). Once your account is set up you will find your unique access token on your account page. This is the token to add into the Pano2VR map panel when Mapbox is selected as your map provider. That's all there is to it. The maps should appear in the tour browser and in the skin map element.

Mapbox gives you 50,000 map views per month free. (beyond that modest charges kick in). I use a lot of maps and have not breached the free limit, although numbers do increase over time depending on the level of exposure and popularity of your project.

Beyond the standard tiles, Mapbox also lets you create custom maps to suit your projects brand or feel. Mapbox Studio is a very powerful map editor which with a bit of review of their tutorials you can use it to modify the maps. For example you can fairly easily change colours, labels, fonts etc etc. Custom maps are based on vectors (not image tiles) and are very fast to load (less data bandwidth needed) and are subsequently highly efficient and responsive when zooming/panning etc. Vector maps are rendered in the browser with WebGL (html 5) which makes for a great user experience.

Here’s an example of a custom map https://www.youareheremaps.com.au/Maroondah/map.html I built for a local government project (not a tour - just a mapping project)

Personally I think custom maps for custom tours go together. However custom maps are not yet supported in Pano2VR 6 beta3. If you’re interested in using custom maps for tours, may I suggest you let the developers know (like I have) that you're interested in this feature and request them to support mapbox custom maps.

Great tours deserve nice maps too!

I hope you found this of interest.

[bherbes]

Beta 4 includes custom mapbox maps which I’ve been eagerly awaiting - however I'm not able to get it working.
I’ve successfully used the openstreetmaps, leaflet and custom hosted maps.

As required I’ve added my mapbox “access token” and the unique “style url”. The map window remains blank.

I assume that when an access token and a map style url are added into the Properties - Map panel, P2VR ignores the “Map Style:” input? (as this is associated with the default maps types)

Specifically what happens, the mapbox maps work until paste in my style URL, then the map window goes blank. If I delete the style URL, the default mapbox streets map reappears.

To my logic the map style button needs another option to set it to Custom - ie ignore streets style.

All the other map types supported by P2VR are raster tiles (pngs). (I have not tested Google maps)
Can you please confirm - does P2VR b4 style URL support vector based maps?

Have you got any demo projects running with custom maps? Is this a bug?

[bherbes]

Ignore the post above - I've since got custom maps working within a new project file

[360° Immersion]

Super informative, thank you Bruce!