Add your data to the map
Once you have selected a ready-made map, you’ll most likely want to show something in it: the location of your shop, trail you’ve trekked, visualization of a future building, weather forecast… Whatever you need to share with the world, we have tools and services to help you prepare the data and put it on the map. This page explains the basics and helps you get started based on what type of data you want to add.
Add points, lines, polygons
Most objects on a map are essentially geometric shapes: points (single spots such as bus stops, lamps, trees), straight or curved lines (paths, roads, rivers), and area-covering polygons (buildings, forests, lakes). These object representations are called vector features, and they’re especially suitable for adding your own to a map. 👉 How to prepare and use vector data
Add images
There’s many different types of imagery you might want to use in your map, from simple icons to large sets of images taken from a drone, or even digitized historical maps. How to add them depends on the complexity of the task at hand.
The easiest way is to add an image to your map as a linked data source, but it’s only possible if the image has a public URL, and only advisable for simple tasks like adding a single image. Here’s how to add an image using MapTiler SDK JS:
If you need anything more advanced than that, it becomes much easier to create a raster tileset. It’s especially useful if your image is very large or if you have many of them. 👉 How to prepare and use a raster tileset
Add elevation
Enriching your maps with the 3rd dimension gives you additional options like visually enhancing hills and ocean depths, or providing helpful info to map users for their route planning. Elevation data can be stored and integrated as part of common formats that hold other information as well, like GeoTIFF. For pure elevation data, you don’t need to create a custom dataset – we have global data ready for you. 👉 How to use elevation data
Add weather data
Weather data is a special type of dynamic data describing atmospheric conditions such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind, and other information. To show it on a map, you first need to process the data into a suitable format. We have a separate section describing where you can get this data (if you don’t have your own), how to prepare it, and how to build a weather app with it. 👉 How to make weather maps
Add 3D objects
It’s possible to add 3D objects of many types. You can get a simple GLB model from 3D modelling software or an elaborate animated model, and make it rotate and move across your map, like in this fun demo. We also support other object types, like ones created by photogrammetry or scanned with LiDAR into a point cloud. 👉 See all 3D code examples