Get started

Gain hands-on experience of working with the HERE Vector Tile API by configuring the HERE platform to process your first request.

• Get a HERE account
• Create a project
• Get an API key
• Obtain a tile
• Next steps

Get a HERE account

Obtain access to the HERE platform through the organization admin's invitation or by creating a free trial account.

Perform one of the following actions:

• If your company has already established a HERE platform organization, contact your organization admin who can invite you to join the organization.
• If your company has not established a HERE platform organization yet, request a free trial. For more information, see the HERE platform pricing.

Create a project

Configure a project, which is a container for storing HERE platform resources that are essential for building an app or a service.

1. Sign in to the HERE platform using your HERE account.
2. In the Launcher pane, click Projects Manager.
3. On the Projects Manager page, click Create new project.
4. Enter the following project details:
   1. In the Name field, enter a name for your project. Project names do not have to be unique.
   2. In the Project ID field, enter a unique project identifier. You cannot modify this parameter after you create a project.
   3. Optional: To provide a meaningful description for the new project, fill in the Description field.

      Note

      Follow the on-screen instructions for naming conventions, character length, and allowed characters.

   4. Confirm your settings by clicking Save.
      Result: A new project automatically opens with the settings that you entered.
5. In the project that you just created, on the Resources tab, select Services, and then click Link a Service.
6. In the Link a service window, search for the HERE Vector Tile service, and then click Link.
7. Confirm your settings by clicking Done.

The following figure shows a sample project that uses the HERE Vector Tile API through the corresponding service:

Get an API key

Register an app and create a unique API key for authenticating your requests to the HERE platform.

1. From the Launcher pane, select Access Manager.
2. On the Access Manager page, click the Apps tab.
3. On the Apps tab, click Register new app.
4. In the Register new app window, provide the details for the new app:
   1. In the Name field, enter your app name.
   2. Optional: To provide a meaningful description for your new app, fill in the Description field.
   3. In the Default access to a project field, define the scope of the new app:
      • To allow your app to access all location service APIs, select No project.
      • To restrict your application to access only the location service APIs that a specific project includes, select that project from the list.
   4. Optional: If you restricted the application scope to a single project, to track and report on this app's resource usage by project when using API keys, select Allow access only in this project. For more information, see Manage projects.
   5. Click Register. The HERE platform creates a new app with a unique app ID.
5. On your app page, generate up to two API keys:
   1. On the Credentials tab, select API Keys and, then click Create API Key. The HERE platform displays the API key that you created with the enabled status.
   2. Optional: To add an extra API key, click Create API key.

The following figure provides a visual summary for generating API keys:

Obtain a tile

Obtain a binary, protobuf-encoded tile representation from the HERE platform by sending a simple request.

1. Choose any location on which to center the tile, and then note down the location latitude and longitude coordinates.
2. Convert the latitude and longitude into column and row vector tile grid coordinates. For more information, see Mercator Projection.

3. Build a GET request to obtain the tile that centers on the coordinates of the location that you chose.

   Consider the following request example for a vector tile that centers on Berlin:

   curl "https://vector.hereapi.com/v2/vectortiles/base/mc/12/2200/1343/omv?apikey=APIKEY_HERE"
   

   where:

   • base is the layer available for the vector tile
   • 12 is the zoom level
   • 2200 is the column grid coordinate
   • 1324 is the row grid coordinate

   For more information, see API Reference.

   Note

   The sample request uses the API key for authentication. For more information on OAuth token authentication, see the Identity & Access Management Developer Guide.

4. Send the request. For example, you can use the Postman tool.

   Result: The response status code is 200, indicating that the HERE platform processed the request successfully. The response payload is a protobuf-encoded binary file that contains the details for the vector tile that you requested, in the format that you specified.

5. Decode the response payload by using a protobuf schema. For more information, see Obtain the Protobuf Schema to Decode the Vector Tiles.

Next steps

• For tutorials on how to render maps by using the HERE Vector Tile API, see Examples.
• For the terms and conditions covering this documentation, see the HERE Documentation License.