README.md

MBUtil

MBUtil is a utility for importing and exporting the MBTiles format, typically created with MapBox TileMill.

Before exporting tiles to disk, see if there's a MapBox Hosting plan or an open source MBTiles server implementation that works for you - tiles on disk are notoriously difficult to manage.

Installation

Git checkout (requires git)

git clone git://github.com/mapbox/mbutil.git
cd mbutil
./mb-util -h

# then to install the mb-util command globally:
sudo python setup.py install
# then you can run:
mb-util

Python installation (requires easy_install)

easy_install mbutil
mb-util -h

Usage

~〉mb-util -h
Usage: mb-util [options] input output

    Examples:
    Export an mbtiles file to a directory of files:

    $ mb-util world.mbtiles tiles # tiles must not already exist

    Import a directory of tiles into an mbtiles file:
    $ mb-util tiles world.mbtiles # mbtiles file must not already exist

Options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  --scheme=SCHEME  Tiling scheme of the tiles. Default is "xyz" (z/x/y),
                   other options are "tms" which is also z/x/y
                   but uses a flipped y coordinate, and "wms" which replicates
                   the MapServer WMS TileCache directory structure "z/000/000/x/000/000/y.png"''',

Export an `mbtiles` file to files on the filesystem:

    mb-util World_Light.mbtiles adirectory

Import a directory into a `mbtiles` file

    mb-util directory World_Light.mbtiles

Requirements

• Python >= 2.6

Metadata

MBUtil imports and exports metadata as JSON, in the root of the tile directory, as a file named metadata.json.

{
    "name": "World Light",
    "description": "A Test Metadata",
    "version": "3"
}

Testing

This project uses nosetests for testing. Install nosetests and run

nosetests

See Also

• node-mbtiles provides mbpipe, a useful utility.

License

BSD - see LICENSE.md

Authors

• Tom MacWright (tmcw)
• Dane Springmeyer (springmeyer)
• Mathieu Leplatre (leplatrem)