Inspect Object Store Layers

Unlike other layer types supported by the HERE platform, object store layers offer free-form data storage, with no layer-level restrictions on partitioning, schemas, and content type.

The Data Inspector allows you to inspect object store layers as you would with your typical file browser. An object store layer opens in the Partitions List on the highest level of the folder hierarchy:

An object store layer is a generic key-value store. A value is always represented as a binary object (encoded protobuf data, JSON, image, and the like). Each object is associated with a key. A key represents an arbitrary path to an object, for instance: berlin/districts_of_berlin_tiled/23618356. Note that in the context of the Data Inspector UI, objects are treated as partitions.

With the Data Inspector, you can do the following:

• Browse the layer's structure.
• View object details (name, size, last modified date).
• Download object contents (max 50GB per object).
• Search for specific objects or folders.
• Decode and visualize objects within a folder.

Browse an Object Layer Structure

The Data Inspector loads up to 100,000 items in the list per folder level.

When you click a folder, all folders and objects in that folder are displayed. The path above the Partitions List indicates which folder is being shown at the moment. Click a folder in the path to go directly to that folder.

Search for Objects and Folders

You can use the following search options:

• Search for an object within the current folder (with no / in the search query):
• Enter a full key to find a specific object or folder:
  • / at the beginning - the search starts from the root folder, ignoring the current folder:
  • / within the search query - the current folder is being looked up:
  • ./ at the beginning - the current folder is being looked up:
  • ../ at the beginning - the search starts from the parent folder:

Note that the default search is done only within the up-to-100k preloaded objects.

Decode and Visualize Objects within a Folder

You can decode and visualize objects in an object store layer similarly to versioned and volatile layers.

GeoJSON objects are decoded and visualized out of the box. Also, you can display plain text and JSON data directly in the Decoded Panel.

For other data types, there must exist a configuration file (.here/map.json) in the root folder or any subfolder within a layer. In that case, objects of the same type stored in the folder can be decoded and visualized as a tiled map. For more details on .here/map.json format and what conventions need to be respected to make your object store layer data decodable and/or visualizable, see Map Configuration.