Map Tiles server is a server that hosts an API used for generating map tiles. Map tiles are small square images, usually 256x256 pixels, that are used for rendering an interactive map on web page or mobile application. These tiles are used for rendering geospatial features at different levels of zoom and detail. Tiling is a new technique used to replace map services for generating a single image for the entire map. Tiling significantly improves interaction for websites and mobile applications.
To use interactive maps on web and mobile applications, developers must choose a library for this purpose. There are at least a few open-source libraries used for interactive maps, such as OpenLayers, Leaflet, and MapLibre. The mentioned libraries use a map tiles server API to display maps. Strues-maps.lt supports map tiling using both TMS (also known as XYZ tiling) and WMTS protocols. To increase the speed and responsiveness of apps, it is recommended to use JPEG compression of images, which strues-maps.lt also supports.
Interactive maps are used to provide website visitors with custom data on top of basemaps. The most common use of maps is to display company assets, company headquarters, or customer service departments. Guide agencies might use interactive maps for touring and regional information. Camping companies might use interactive maps for custom hiking, cycling, and walking trails. Skiing resorts might overlay our base maps with available slopes. Last-mile companies might use our maps to organize routes of parcels from the nearest hub to their final destination. Real estate agencies might use interactive maps to inform customers of the surroundings of properties they are offering. NGOs might publish geographic data on the spread of human or animal diseases. Any of these cases will use a map tile server to provide compelling visualizations of their data.
Our map tile server is compatible with any javascript library supporting XYZ or TMS tiling protocol like OpenLayers, Leaflet, or MapLibre. Using our server reduces development, administration, and infrastructure costs. We also provide software developers with API documentation and tutorials that contain working examples.
Tile server has ready-to-use boundaries of administrative divisions. Maps are rich with land use areas like residential, industrial, parking, farmland, forest, grass, and wetland for those interested in area use trends. There is also detailed road data like service roads, tracks, footways, cycleways, taxiways, motorways, rails, etc. Hydrographic features are also included in maps like water areas and waterways. Water area data includes basins, water bodies, reservoirs, and so on. Waterways like ditches, streams, rivers, drains, piers, dams, and canals are visible in our base maps. At higher zoom levels one can observe detailed street maps, buildings, and places of interest like airports, shopping centers, amusement parks, hospitals, colleges, and universities.
Using a tiling server for interactive maps improves website or mobile application performance. It also allows developers to speed up development and accelerate the deployment of interactive maps. Our tile server supports fast response times for tiles at zoom levels from 6 to 15. We support domain configuration for cross-origin resource sharing. We also support customizable tile throttling per API key or per IP address. Building such functionality from the ground up requires tangible development and maintenance efforts.