Intro To Web Maps

& Leaflet 101 

Follow along at: slides.com/kkowalsky/webmap

We're going to cover:

  • What's a web map?
  • Basic HTML/CSS & Javascript 
  • Spatial data
  • Intro to Leaflet
  • Leaflet.js tutorial
  • Resources 

What the heck is a web map?!

First things first:

Web maps aren't just digitized maps:

  • Tiles

  • Interactive

  • Functional

Most of you probably think of:

Mapping online is EXPLODING!

What's in a web map?

"These tiles are typically 256x256 pixels and are placed side-by-side in order to create the illusion of a very large seamless image."

1. Tiles: the baselayer

Why tiles?

  • Efficient
  • Load Progressively
  • Simple to use

There are 2 types of tiles:

Raster

Vector

  • Each zoom has own tiles
  • More zoom = more tiles 
  • Every tile is just an image
  • Have layers 
  • Using vector data

2. Data: the data layer

3. Javascript: putting it all together

HTML/CSS Review

"HTML is the noun, CSS is the adjective & Javascript is the verb" -A very smart person

HTML uses <tags>

<img> You can use them for images </img>

<h1> Inserting words </h1>

<p> Writing a lot of words </p>

<a> Links </a>

<div> ALL SORTS OF THINGS! </div>

All we need for today: <div>

<div> defines a section/element to a web page 

With Leaflet,

we just need a div called 'map'

Without CSS, nothing would look pretty!

Basic CSS syntax:

selector = tag/class/id 

selector{
property:
value;}

property = what are you styling?

value = what do you want it to be?

Example:

We have a div called 'map' in HTML

Spatial Data

What kind of data can we get?

Raster vs. Vector

We're gonna focus on vector

3 requirements:

  • location
  • geometry
  • attribute info

Familiar formats: The Shapefile

Web Spatial Data is a little different...

Web formats:

  • geoJSON
  • CSV
  • KML
  • GPX

You can convert to geoJSON! 

geojson.io

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