On behalf of the Koordinates team, I’m excited to announce the release of the first Koordinates data APIs. For a long time developers have been asking about accessing the geodata at Koordinates directly within their applications, and we now have a supported API that allows just that.

What is this for? The geodata APIs gives you access to the vector and grid (raster) data held at Koordinates.com or in Koordinates Enterprise instances. You can find vector features within a radius of a specified location, or query grid values at a location. Each query can span multiple layers. The most obvious uses of this would be to have a clickable map that queries different layers, or passing a geocoded address to find out related information about a site.

How does it work? The Koordinates geodata APIs have two endpoints:

• Vector Query allows a user to query one or more vector layers, and find features near a given point. The features are returned with their attributes, distance from the query location, and optionally geometry. You can get results as GeoJSON, JSON with Google-Maps encoded geometries, and GML.
• Raster Query allows a user to query one or more grid layers (eg. an elevation model), and find values for each band at a given point. Currently you can get results as JSON.

Both APIs are accessible via simple HTTP requests, and can also use JSONP-style callbacks so they can be accessed in-browser from a website. To get started with the API, get a key from the API Access tab of your user dashboard, and dive into our documentation. Also check out the developer demos site for some examples.

What’s the catch? Users can access any free and public layers, as well as their own private layers. Commercial layers aren’t available via the API yet. The data returned via the APIs is available under the same license that is displayed on the layer page for downloads. If you want to hit the APIs more than 10,000 times a day, give us a heads-up and we’ll gladly make sure that your users get a great experience.

Where can this go? This is all just getting started. We want to encourage application developers to use geodata in useful ways, without needing to have lots of local copies. Look out for access to layer and metadata records soon, and get in touch if you would like to be an advance tester.

We’re eager to get your feedback, help you with any issues you may encounter, and hear your ideas for features. Please use our API support forum to keep in touch.

Thank you in advance, and happy coding!