Tile Layers

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Note

Bing Maps SDK for Android and iOS retirement

Bing Maps SDK for Android and iOS is deprecated and will be retired. Free (Basic) account customers can continue to use Bing Maps SDK for Android and iOS until June 30th, 2025. Enterprise account customers can continue to use Bing Maps SDK for Android and iOS until June 30th, 2028. To avoid service disruptions, all implementations using Bing Maps SDK for Android and iOS will need to be updated to use Azure Maps Web SDK by the retirement date that applies to your Bing Maps for Enterprise account type.

Azure Maps is Microsoft's next-generation maps and geospatial services for developers. Azure Maps has many of the same features as Bing Maps for Enterprise, and more. To get started with Azure Maps, create a free Azure subscription and an Azure Maps account. For more information about azure Maps, see Azure Maps Documentation. For migration guidance, see Bing Maps Migration Overview.

In the Bing Maps native controls we have introduced a TileLayer class that makes it easy to separate multiple data sets as layers.

Note that a few different types of tile layers are provided, giving you flexibility in how you overlay custom information on the map.

Class Description
UriTileMapLayer Retrieves custom tiles using a URL template that the map will use to retrieve specific tiles from an HTTP Web Server.
CustomTileMapLayer Retrieves tiles from developer code.
GroundOverlayMapLayer Displays an image in a geographic area.

Also, an out-of-the box TileMapLayer is provider for displaying Traffic Flow:

Class Description
TrafficFlowMapLayer Displays traffic on the map.

Examples

Show traffic on the map

Android

TrafficFlowMapLayer trafficFlowMapLayer = new TrafficFlowMapLayer();
mMap.getLayers().add(trafficFlowMapLayer);

Swift

let trafficLayer = MSMapTrafficFlowMapLayer()
mMap.layers.add(trafficLayer)

Objective-C

MSMapTrafficFlowMapLayer *trafficLayer = [MSMapTrafficFlowMapLayer layer];
[self.mMap.layers addMapLayer:trafficLayer];

Overlay tiles from a web service

The following example shows how to overlay tiles retrieved from a web services by instantiating an UriTileMapLayer and specifying the format of URL to the tiles.

Swift

let urlLayer = MSMapUriTileMapLayer()
urlLayer.uriFormatString = "http://www.<web service name>.com/z={zoomlevel}&x={x}&y={y}"
self.mapView.layers.add(urlLayer)

Overlay tiles from a custom source

The following example shows how to overlay custom tiles on a map by using CustomTileMapLayer. Create tiles programmatically in memory on the fly, or write your own code to load existing tiles from another source.

The following examples show how to provide custom tiles by specifying the callback which return tiled image to be displayed on a map.

swift

// In your ViewController, subclass of MKMapViewDelegate.
class ViewController: UIViewController, MSMapCustomTileMapLayerDelegate {

...
//  Set the delegate and add the custom tile map layer to map.
let customLayer = MSMapCustomTileMapLayer()
customLayer.delegate = self;
self.mapView.layers.add(customLayer)
...

// This example creates random colored tiles with random alpha value between 200 and 255 (fully opaque).
func customTileMapLayerOnBitmapRequestedAt(x: Int32, y: Int32, zoom: Int32, completionHandler: ((Data?) -> Void)!) {
    let pixelHeight:Int32 = 256
    let pixelWidth:Int32 = 256
    let bpp:Int32 = 4
    let bitsPerComponent = 8
    let red = UInt8.random(in:0 ... 255)
    let green = UInt8.random(in:0 ... 255)
    let blue = UInt8.random(in:0 ... 255)
    let alpha = UInt8.random(in:200 ... 255)

    var bytes = [UInt8](repeating: UInt8(128), count:Int(pixelHeight * pixelWidth * bpp))

    for i in 0..<pixelHeight {
        for j in 0..<pixelWidth {
            let pixelIndex = i * pixelWidth + j
            let byteIndex = pixelIndex * bpp

            bytes[Int(byteIndex)] = red
            bytes[Int(byteIndex + 1)] = green
            bytes[Int(byteIndex + 2)] = blue
            bytes[Int(byteIndex + 3)] = alpha
        }
    }

    let colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB()
    let bitmapInfo:CGBitmapInfo = CGBitmapInfo(rawValue:CGImageAlphaInfo.premultipliedLast.rawValue)
    guard let provider = CGDataProvider(data: NSData(bytes:bytes, length:bytes.count)
        )
        else {
            completionHandler(nil)
            return
        }

    guard let imageRef = CGImage(
        width: Int(pixelWidth),
        height: Int(pixelHeight),
        bitsPerComponent: bitsPerComponent,
        bitsPerPixel: Int(bpp) * bitsPerComponent,
        bytesPerRow: Int(pixelWidth * bpp),
        space: colorSpace,
        bitmapInfo: bitmapInfo,
        provider: provider,
        decode: nil,
        shouldInterpolate: false,
        intent: .defaultIntent)
        else {
            completionHandler(nil)
            return
    }

    let image = UIImage(cgImage:imageRef)

    completionHandler(image.pngData())
}

Overlay tiles by binding an image to a bounding box area on a map

The following example shows how to overlay tiles by instantiating a GroundOverlayMapLayer and specifying the image and bounding box of the layer.

Swift

let url = URL(string: "https://bingmapsisdk.blob.core.windows.net/isdksamples/us_counties.png")
let boundingBox = MSGeoboundingBox(
    northwestCorner: MSGeoposition(latitude: 50, longitude: -126),
    southeastCorner: MSGeoposition(latitude: 25, longitude: -66))

do{
    let data = try Data(contentsOf: url!)
    groundOverlayLayer = MSMapGroundOverlayMapLayer(
        image:UIImage(data:data)!,
        boundingBox: boundingBox)

    let scene = MSMapScene(location: MSGeopoint(latitude: 40, longitude: -98), zoomLevel: 4)
    self.mapView.setScene(scene, with: .none)
    mapView.layers.add(groundOverlayLayer)
}
catch{
}

Removing overlay tiles from a map

The following example shows how to remove all overlay tiles from a map.

Swift

self.mapView.layers.clear();