Automating Maperitive generation and MapBox upload

I recently blogged about integrating MapBox maps within the Smallworld GIS.  I included a video clip that showed how I connected Smallworld to contour and hillshading maps hosted on MapBox.  Those contour and hillshaded maps were created using Maperitive.  In this post, I want to share how I automated the generation and upload of these maps.

If you are familiar with Maperitive you will know that it has had a scripting language for a long time and recently it also introduced Python scripting.  For this post I am still using the old scripting framework.  I imagine it can easily be ported to Python.

The Maperitive script references some custom rulesets that I created to allow me to explicitly style the contour lines.  Following is the code I used to automate map generation and upload.

• contours-white.mrules
• a Maperitive ruleset styling white contour lines with transparent background
• contours.mrules
• a Maperitive ruleset styling brown contour lines with transparent background
• contours.mscript
• the Maperitive commands required to generate brown contours, white contours and hillshading.  Note that color-depth=32.  This is required to allow transparent backgrounds in the tiles stored in the MBtiles database
• create_and_upload.bat
• The batch file that first runs the Maperitive script and then automates upload into MapBox using TileMill.  The upload requires syncAccount and syncAccessToken for your MapBox account.  See http://boulderalfmaps.blogspot.com/2013/01/tilemill-sync-info.html for details about how to do this.

	features
	lines
	contour major : contour[@isMulti(elevation, 100)]
	contour minor : contour[@isMulti(elevation, 20) and not @isMulti(elevation, 100)]
	properties
	map-background-color : #F1EEE8
	map-background-opacity : 0
	font-weight : bold
	font-family : Verdana
	text-max-width : 7
	text-halo-width : 25%
	text-halo-opacity : 0.75
	text-align-horizontal : center
	text-align-vertical : center
	font-stretch : 0.9
	rules
	target: contour*
	define
	line-color : #ffffff
	line-opacity : 0.35
	curved : true
	if : *major
	define
	map.rendering.contour.label : true
	min-zoom : 9
	line-width : 11:0.1;11.9:1;12:2
	font-size : 10
	font-style : italic
	font-weight : normal
	text-halo-width : 35%
	text-halo-opacity : 1
	text-halo-color : #F1EEE8
	else
	define
	min-zoom : 12
	line-width : 1
	draw : contour

view raw contours-white.mrules hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	features
	lines
	contour major : contour[@isMulti(elevation, 100)]
	contour minor : contour[@isMulti(elevation, 20) and not @isMulti(elevation, 100)]
	properties
	map-background-color : #F1EEE8
	map-background-opacity : 0
	font-weight : bold
	font-family : Verdana
	text-max-width : 7
	text-halo-width : 25%
	text-halo-opacity : 0.75
	text-align-horizontal : center
	text-align-vertical : center
	font-stretch : 0.9
	rules
	target: contour*
	define
	line-color : #7f3300
	line-opacity : 0.35
	curved : true
	if : *major
	define
	map.rendering.contour.label : true
	min-zoom : 9
	line-width : 11:0.1;11.9:1;12:2
	font-size : 10
	font-style : italic
	font-weight : normal
	text-halo-width : 35%
	text-halo-opacity : 1
	text-halo-color : #F1EEE8
	else
	define
	min-zoom : 12
	line-width : 1
	draw : contour

view raw contours.mrules hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	change-directory C:\ifactor\products\workspace\Virtual_Earth_Connector\MaperitiveCreateContours\blog
	clear-map
	set-setting name=map.decoration.grid value=False
	set-geo-bounds -5.18793847256578,56.6581368928296,-4.90722891535273,56.7097180989809
	generate-contours
	use-ruleset location=contours.mrules as-alias=contours
	export-bitmap file=cont.png
	// use color-depth=32 so we can make use of the transparency in the ruleset
	generate-mbtiles file=cont.mbtiles color-depth=32 minzoom=1 maxzoom=16
	// we do not need to regenerate the contours. Simply apply a different styling.
	use-ruleset location=contours-white.mrules as-alias=contours-white
	apply-ruleset
	export-bitmap file=cont-white.png
	// use color-depth=32 so we can make use of the transparency in the ruleset
	generate-mbtiles file=cont-white.mbtiles color-depth=32 minzoom=1 maxzoom=16
	clear-map
	set-setting name=map.decoration.grid value=False
	set-geo-bounds -5.18793847256578,56.6581368928296,-4.90722891535273,56.7097180989809
	generate-relief-igor
	use-ruleset location=contours.mrules as-alias=contours
	export-bitmap file=shading.png
	// use color-depth=32 so we can make use of the transparency in the ruleset
	generate-mbtiles file=shading.mbtiles color-depth=32 minzoom=1 maxzoom=16

view raw contours.mscript hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	set MAPERITIVE_EXE=C:/Maperitive/Maperitive.exe
	:: make note of the original directory. That is where the MBTiles will be
	set ORIG_DIR=%~dp0
	:: first create the MBtiles
	cmd %MAPERITIVE_EXE% %ORIG_DIR%contours.mscript
	:: now upload the MBTiles to MapBox. The MapBox web form allows you to upload MBtile files
	:: with max size of 5MB. If you want to upload larger files, you will need to use something
	:: like TileMill's upload feature.
	:: make sure that you are in the TileMill directory so we can use the appropriate node.exe
	cd C:\Program Files (x86)\TileMill-v0.10.1\tilemill
	:: see http://boulderalfmaps.blogspot.com/2013/01/tilemill-sync-info.html
	:: for instructions about how to determine syncAccount and syncAccessToken
	set SYNCACCOUNT=<syncAccount>
	set SYNCACCESSTOKEN=<syncAccessToken>
	:: upload the MBTiles file to your MapBox account.
	:: you will need to specify your own <syncAccount> and <syncAccessToken> values
	node index.js export cont %ORIG_DIR%cont.mbtiles --format=upload --syncAccount=%SYNCACCOUNT% --syncAccessToken=%SYNCACCESSTOKEN%
	node index.js export cont-white %ORIG_DIR%cont-white.mbtiles --format=upload --syncAccount=%SYNCACCOUNT% --syncAccessToken=%SYNCACCESSTOKEN%
	node index.js export shading %ORIG_DIR%shading.mbtiles --format=upload --syncAccount=%SYNCACCOUNT% --syncAccessToken=%SYNCACCESSTOKEN%
	:: finally change back to the ORIG_DIR
	cd %ORIG_DIR%
	:: NOTE: MapBox makes use of the mbtile's (a sqlite file) metadata.name field to label the map
	:: after it is uploaded. Maperitive always sets this field value to "My Map" so after uploading the
	:: MBTiles to MapBox you will need to manually change the map name to something meaningful.
	pause

view raw create_and_upload.bat hosted with ❤ by GitHub