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MapLibre renderer

Choose View → Rendering engine → MapLibre to use GeoLibre's default renderer. MapLibre GL JS is bundled with every GeoLibre distribution, requires no account or access token, and is available for both the primary map and every split pane.

MapLibre has the broadest feature and plugin compatibility in GeoLibre. New projects use it unless primaryRenderer says otherwise, and an omitted viewKind in a secondary pane also means MapLibre.

Supported paths

  • GeoJSON and imported vector data with single, categorized, graduated, rule-based, expression, proportional, heatmap, cluster, pattern, label, and extrusion styling.
  • Raster and image sources, including XYZ, WMS, WMTS, COG/GeoTIFF, image and video overlays, raster PMTiles, and desktop MBTiles.
  • Vector tiles and vector PMTiles or MBTiles, including imported Mapbox styles and ArcGIS vector-tile services.
  • 3D Tiles, I3S, LiDAR and COPC point clouds, Gaussian splats, 3D models, Zarr, NetCDF/HDF, and deck.gl visualization layers through GeoLibre's specialized renderers and overlays.
  • Feature picking, selection, editing, measurement, extent drawing, draggable placement, print and screenshot capture, and the full MapLibre-oriented plugin surface.

See Supported Data Formats and Features for the complete user-facing lists. Individual data sources can still have platform, credential, or network requirements even though the MapLibre engine itself does not.

Map, globe, and terrain

MapLibre supports Mercator and globe projections. Controls → Globe switches the projection, while Controls → Terrain adds elevation to either view. The terrain source can be GeoLibre's global source or a compatible local or remote COG DEM. This globe projection remains a MapLibre style map; choose the Cesium renderer for a native 3D globe and Cesium-native scene formats.

Basemaps and plugins

The shared Basemaps panel provides keyless styles as well as optional provider styles configured through Settings → Environment Variables. Provider keys belong to those services and are not a requirement of MapLibre itself.

Plugins default to MapLibre support when their manifest omits engines. MapLibre-specific plugins can access the native map through app.getMap(); portable plugins should instead use the renderer-neutral or shared Style-Spec APIs described in the Plugin API.

Architecture and license

MapController is the MapLibre implementation of MapEngine. packages/map/src/layer-sync.ts reconciles project layer records with native sources and style layers, while specialized controls register protocols or shared overlays for formats that MapLibre does not draw directly. The reusable headless surface is published as @geolibre/map.

MapLibre GL JS and GeoLibre are open source under permissive licenses. See the architecture for the shared engine model and Acknowledgements for project and license links.