Last week, Map Club revisited Tangram, the powerful open-source renderer for Mapzen. (We first explored Mapzen over the summer.) Mapzen is an open, sustainable, and accessible mapping platform that offers intricate control over the design of web-based maps.

Centered on a map of Manhattan, attendees referenced the comprehensive documentation page to alter the drawing style of Tangram’s vector tile service. Tangram is connected to the OpenStreetMap database, and leverages OpenGL and shader language to enable mapmakers to fine-tune the visual effects of rendered data. The custom YAML syntax through which Tangram maps are styled provided a readable way of adjusting the visual attributes of the city in unexpected ways.

From top: Vibrant map by Rachael, animated water and building coloring using GLSL

There will be no Map Club session next Friday! The following Friday (10/28), we will be looking at OpenLayers, a high-performance library for rendering geographic information in web pages.

Sign up here if you would like to receive updates on future Map Club sessions. For this session’s resources and materials, visit the Map Club Github repository.