cesium-cartodb

CartoDB integration for Cesium

This plugin helps integrate CartoDB maps and data layers into Cesium.

Server-side layer integration

CartoDB's server-side layers include basemaps and data layers generated in the server. For this, the pluging adds a new imagery provider to Cesium, CartoDBImageryProvider.

Installation

You can use .../src/cesium-cartodb.js as is or run grunt build to get a minified version .../build/cesium-cartodb.min.js. You must include either after including Cesium in your html.

<script src="<path_to>/Cesium.js"></script> 
<script src="<path_to>/cesium-cartodb.min.js"></script> 

Usage

After this, you can create new imagery objects in Cesium and use them as needed. CartoDBImageryProvider is derived from Cesium's OpenStreetMap imagery provider, and can be initialized and used just the same.

Basemap layer

Just add a CartoDBImageryProvider instance to a viewer in order to use CartoDB's basemaps in Cesium.

var basemapProvider = new Cesium.CartoDBImageryProvider({
    url: '<MAP_TEMPLATE_URL>', // e.g.: http://{s}.basemaps.cartocdn.com/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}.png,
    credit: 'Basemap courtesy of CartoDB'
});
var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer', {
    imageryProvider: basemapProvider,
    baseLayerPicker: false,
    fullscreenButton: false,
    homeButton: false,
    timeline: false,
    navigationHelpButton: false,
    animation: false,
    scene3DOnly: true,
    geocoder: false
});

Data layer

In order to have a data layer from tiles generated in CartoDB, use cartodb.core.js's getTiles to inject the tiles in Cesium.

var layerData = {
    user_name: '<USER_NAME',
    sublayers: [{
        sql: "<SQL_QUERY>",
        cartocss: '<CARTOCSS>'
    }]
};
cartodb.Tiles.getTiles(layerData, function (tiles, err) {
    if (tiles == null) {
        console.log("error: ", err.errors.join('\n'));
        return;
    }
    viewer.scene.imageryLayers.addImageryProvider(new Cesium.CartoDBImageryProvider({
        url: tiles.tiles[0],
        credit: 'Data courtesy of CartoDB'
    }));
});

Client-side data layer

You can use CartoDB's SQL API to use data in CartoDB with Cesium renderers. You only need to make user data is in geoJSON format.

var dataSource = new Cesium.GeoJsonDataSource();
viewer.dataSources.add(dataSource);
 
var sql = new cartodb.SQL({user: '<USER_NAME>', format: 'geoJSON'});
sql.execute("SQL_QUERY")
        .done(function (data) {
            dataSource.load(data)
                    .then(function () {
                    })
        })
        .error(function (errors) {
            // errors contains a list of errors
            console.log("errors:" + errors);
        });

Examples

You can run a local HTTP server by running grunt in the root folder and then point your browser to http://127.0.0.1:8000/examples/ to see the examples.