Dividing a Map and Using Tile Coordinates

NMAMapTileLayer uses a scheme that divides the world map into tiles, specified by x, y and zoom level coordinates. This coordinate system is used by the NMAMapTileLayerDataSource protocol when it requests tiles.

For example, at zoom level 2, the world map would be divided up as follows:

Figure 1. World Map at Zoom Level 2

The x and y parameters indicate which tile is being requested for the given zoom level.

You need to provide enough tile images to cover all the zoom levels you are supporting within a geographical area. You can restrict custom tile rendering to a specific NMAGeoBoundingBox using the boundingBox property of NMAMapTileLayer. You can restrict the zoom level using showAtZoomLevel: and related methods.

Supplying Tiles from a Web Server

The following code snippet shows a class that renders the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. The park is displayed as a tile layer that is added to an NMAMapView, and the raster tiles are served from the HERE server. To use this class, call [OlympicParkTileLayer addOlympicParkTileLayerToMapView:myMapView].

@interface OlympicParkTileLayer : NMAMapTileLayer <NMAMapTileLayerDataSource>
@end

@implementation OlympicParkTileLayer

+(void)addOlympicParkTileLayerToMapView:(NMAMapView*)mapView
{
  OlympicParkTileLayer *tileLayer = [OlympicParkTileLayer new];
  [mapView addMapTileLayer:tileLayer];
  [mapView setGeoCenter:tileLayer.boundingBox.center
      zoomLevel:14.0
      withAnimation:NMAMapAnimationNone ];
}

-(id)init
{
  if (self = [super init]) {
    // Set the data source
    self.dataSource = self;

    // Limit the tiles to the bounding box supported by the server
    NMAGeoBoundingBox *olympicParkBoundingBox =
    [NMAGeoBoundingBox geoBoundingBoxWithTopLeft:[NMAGeoCoordinates 
      geoCoordinatesWithLatitude:51.557000 longitude:-0.042772]
      bottomRight:[NMAGeoCoordinates geoCoordinatesWithLatitude:51.525941 
       longitude: 0.028296]];
    self.boundingBox = olympicParkBoundingBox;

    // Enable caching
    self.cacheTimeToLive = 60 * 60 * 24;  // 24 hours
    self.cacheSizeLimit = 1024 * 1024 * 64; // 64MB
    [self setCacheEnabled:YES withIdentifier:@"OlympicParkTileLayer"];
  }
  return self;
}

-(NSString *)mapTileLayer:(NMAMapTileLayer *)mapTileLayer
      urlForTileAtX:(NSUInteger)x
            y:(NSUInteger)y
        zoomLevel:(NSUInteger)zoomLevel
{
  // Return a URL for the specified tile
  // This tile source is hosted by HERE Global B.V. and may be removed at any time
  return [NSString stringWithFormat:
    @"http://api.maps.example.org/maptiles/olympic_park/normal.day/%d/%d/%d.png",
    zoomLevel,
    y,
    x ];
}

@end

Supplying Tiles as Bitmaps

You can choose to supply tiles as bitmaps if your app uses bundled static tiles, dynamically-generated tiles, or if the server that you are using for tile images requires authentication. In the third case, since NMAMapTileLayer only uses simple HTTP GET requests to retrieve tile images, it is up to you to provide code that handles authentication and downloads the tiles. Once the tiles have been downloaded, you can use them as local bitmaps with the NMAMapTileLayer class.

Caching Tiles

Tiles can be cached to the disk to improve performance and reduce data traffic in the URL fetching case.

When you enable caching, you must provide a cache identifier. This identifier must be unique for each NMAMapTileLayer used within your application. Since the cache persists across app sessions, it is important to use the same identifier across sessions (by defining a constant, for example).

You can optionally limit the cache size and time-to-live for each cached tile. The cache can be cleared at any time by calling [NMAMapTileLayer clearCache]. To be sure the cache is completely cleared first remove the NMAMapTileLayer from the map view before calling [NMAMapTileLayer clearCache].

The following code enables disk caching with a 128MB maximum size and a tile time-to-live of 7 days:

NMAMapTileLayer *tileLayer = [[NMAMapTileLayer alloc]init];
tileLayer.dataSource = self; // Assuming self is a valid data source
[tileLayer setCacheEnabled:YES withIdentifier:@"MyUniqueTileCacheIdenfifier"];
tileLayer.cacheTimeToLive = 60 * 60 * 24 * 7; // 7 days
tileLayer.cacheSizeLimit = 1024 * 1024 * 128; // 128 MB
[mapView addMapTileLayer:tileLayer]; // NOTE: add to map view after setting tile properties
      

Performance Tips

1. IMPORTANT: Set NMAMapTileLayer properties before adding the tile layer to the map view. Most properties ignore attempts to set them after being added to the view.
2. Ensure the properties you set on the tile layer match the data you are supplying via the NMAMapTileLayerDataSource protocol.
3. Do not block NMAMapTileLayerDataSource methods for extended periods of time. For example, if it takes a while to generate tiles on the fly move the processing to a separate GCD queue.
4. If requesting a specific tile is constantly failing consider implementing mapTileLayer:hasTileAtX:y:zoomLevel:, returning NO.
5. Use the provided disk caching mechanism.