Map viewers comparison

In this page we list some features that you may be interested in and show which map viewers support them.

caution

Not all mentioned features are supported by MapColonies. To see supported features please browse the documentation.

Projections and Coordinate Systems

danger

The only supported Coordinate System in our project is WGS84 (EPSG:4326) with a tiling scheme of 2x1.

info

If you don't know what a Coordinate System or projection is, you can find the defenition here, or on wikipedia 🌐.

Viewer	EPGS:4326	EPSG:3857	Supported projections	Can reproject	Notes
Cesium	✅	✅	Projections	✅
Leaflet	✅	✅	Projections	❌
OpenLayers	✅	✅	Projections	✅	Supports all EPSG
ArcGIS JS SDK	✅	✅	Projections	✅	Supports all EPSG
iTowns	✅	❌	Projections
Mapbox v1	❌	✅	Projections
Mapbox v2	➖ Not tested yet	✅	Projections	❌
deck.gl	❌	✅	Projections
Maplibre-gl-js	❌	✅

Raster

Supported data types and protocols

Viewer	WMS	Can read WMS capabilities	WMTS	Can read WMTS capabilities	Tile Layer	GeoTiff	COG
Cesium	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Leaflet	✅	❌	✅	➖ Possible with package or TileLayer Hack	✅
OpenLayers	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
ArcGIS JS SDK	✅		✅	✅	✅
iTowns	✅		✅	❌	✅
Mapbox v1	✅
Mapbox v2	✅
deck.gl	✅		➖ With package or TileLayer Hack
Maplibre-gl-js	✅		➖ Through templating

Features

Viewer	Bounds	Image Bands	Alpha	GPU	Features
Cesium	✅	❌	✅	✅
Leaflet	❌	❌	✅	✅
OpenLayers	✅	✅		✅	Preload tiles
ArcGIS JS SDK	✅	❌	✅	✅
iTowns		❌		✅	Immersive view (Street view)
Mapbox v1				✅
Mapbox v2				✅
deck.gl				✅
Maplibre-gl-js	✅	❌	✅	✅

info

Image bands means that the map viewer let's us control the RGB scales of the displayed layers.

3D

Viewer	3D Tiles	I3S	Point cloud	Features
Cesium	✅	✅	✅	- Control sun and atmosphere - Custom lightings
Leaflet	❌	❌	❌
OpenLayers	❌	❌	❌
ArcGIS JS SDK	❌	✅	✅	Custom lightings
iTowns	✅	❌	✅	Sun simulation
Mapbox v1	❌	❌	❌
Mapbox v2	❌	❌	❌
deck.gl	✅	✅	✅	Custom lightings
Maplibre-gl-js

DEM

Viewer	QMesh	Raster DEM	Skyline terrain
Cesium	✅	❌	✅ (With plugin)
Leaflet	❌	❌
OpenLayers	❌	❌
ArcGIS JS SDK	❌	➖ (ESRI format)
iTowns	❌	✅
Mapbox v1	❌
Mapbox v2	❌	✅
deck.gl	❌	✅
Maplibre-gl-js		✅

Vector

Supported data types and protocols

Viewer	WFS	GeoJSON	Features	Drawing
Cesium	❌ No native support but feasible	✅	✅	✅
Leaflet	❌ No native support but feasible	✅	✅ 2D ❌ 3D	✅
OpenLayers	✅	✅	✅ 2D ❌ 3D ✅ OpenLayers symbology ✅ Mapbox symbology adapter	✅ With complex symbology
ArcGIS JS SDK	✅	✅
iTowns	✅	✅	✅ 2D ✅ 2.5D ❌ 3	✅ Simple symbolog
Mapbox v1		✅	✅ 2D ✅ 2.5D ❌ 3	✅ With complex symbolog
Mapbox v2		✅	✅ 2D ✅ 2.5D ❌ 3	✅ With complex symbolog
deck.gl	❌	✅
Maplibre-gl-js

Vector Tiles

Viewer	Query	Symbology	OGC Vector Tiles
Cesium	❌	❌	❌
Leaflet	➖ With plugins		❌
OpenLayers	✅	❌	✅
ArcGIS JS SDK	✅	✅	❌
iTowns	✅	❌	❌
Mapbox v1	✅	✅ But for v1	❌
Mapbox v2	✅	✅	❌
deck.gl	✅	❌	❌
Maplibre-gl-js		✅

info

OGC added vector tiles support in their OGC Tiles API 🌐 (still in it's early stages).
Read more about clients supporting Tiles API 🌐.