r-tmap/tmap

PMTiles support

Closed

#1,229 opened on Mar 3, 2026

View on GitHub
 (16 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)R (120 forks)batch import
Help wanted

Repository metrics

Stars
 (852 stars)
PR merge metrics
 (No merged PRs in 30d)

Description

For quick large interactive maps, PMTiles seems the way to go, thanks to @walkerke for making this possible in R via pmtiles: https://github.com/walkerke/pmtiles

I also found another pmtiles package: https://github.com/nptscot/pmtiles Do these packages do the same @wangzhao0217 and @Robinlovelace ?

How to integrate this in tmap? (@tim-salabim @Nowosad)

I guess that we could regard a pmtiles server as a 'shape'. So

tm_shape(pmtiles_folder) + tm_polygons(fill = "varA")

should work.

Which modes?

  • Certainly mapbox and maplibre because the functionality is already there via mapgl.
  • Leaflet? Is there any R-implementation?
  • "plot" mode? I guess it could be possible to get an sf object from a pmtiles server with a certain bounding box.

Do you know this @walkerke or @tim-salabim ?

I am still very new to pmtiles, so happy to learn about this.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate how tmap handles tile sources and implement a new tile provider class for PMTiles, similar to the existing 'shape' interface.
Tech stack
None
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
RGitbasic knowledge of map tiles
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
60