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!

Please Follow or visit our Facebook Page for the latest Koordinates developments.

New announcements are also made via Twitter: twitter.com/koordinates

Following on from our search upgrade of three weeks ago, we’ve added better support for region-based searches.

Searches for “San Francisco geology” will now return layers which cover California and are relevant to the San Francisco region. And a search for “California transport” will return layers for the San Francisco region which are relevant to the all-of-California level.

You can now embed layer maps within your own webpages. Just copy-and-paste the ‘embed’ code visible on a layer page into your blog post.

The example embedded below is a Californian hillshade layer, otherwise known as a “terrain” layer.

California Hillshade (30m) on Koordinates

Wordpress.com update: Blogs hosted on Wordpress.com unfortunately filter out all iFrames, therefore the embed code won’t work for any blog with an address like ‘myblog.wordpress.com’. We’ve filed a support request for Wordpress to add support for embedding Koordinates maps, like they recently added for Google Maps.

A workaround for Wordpress MU is discussed here (h/t Dave Moskovitz).

A big problem with downloading and purchasing GIS data over the Internet is the size of the files to be downloaded.

Koordinates tackles this problem by:

• giving you a “set area” ability, so you only download or purchase what you’re interested in
• archiving all your data into one ZIP file for easy download
• generating size estimates for your selected layers and area, so you can modify or abort your intended download or purchase, before you commit any time or money

The size estimates are generated ‘on the fly’ based on the layers you’ve added to your Cart and the area you’ve defined. In the example below, the Cadastral Road Network for half of New Zealand is estimated at 37Mb (Zipped).

The size estimate offered in the cart is based on assumptions of Shapefile and GeoJPEG as the download file-type. The Download and Checkout dialogs allow for more precise estimates of download sizes, based on file-type choice. The example below shows Transit Routes and USGS fault-lines for the Bay Area of California.

The default size estimate in the Cart: 22MB of Shapefiles

File-type set to MapInfo TAB: 14MB

File-type set to KMZ: 15MB

File-type set to DWG w/ GIS attributes: 110MB

Koordinates currently has a 1.5Gb-per-Zip download and purchase limit based on the estimated size. The DWG file-type has a lower download limit of 100Mb worth of vectors.

Commercial layers on Koordinates can now be sold with breakpoint (or tiered) pricing.

Buyers of such layers pay less per area (or feature) the more they buy.

How does it work?

The seller of a layer adds ‘breakpoints’ at which cheaper prices apply. Breakpoints are cumulative, so the total sale charge is the total of (Breakpoint 1 to Breakpoint 2) plus (Breakpoint 2 to Breakpoint 3) plus (Breakpoint 3 to Breakpoint 4), depending on which breakpoints apply.

Example

Imagine a commercial layer covering 80,000 Ha.

The seller of the layer decides on these breakpoints:

Which looks like this when the seller creates the breakpoints in Koordinates:

These breakpoints then equal the following sale quotes for some example purchase areas:

Koordinates now features enhanced search, which searches through the layer title, description, supplier, category, geotags and other relevant information.

Searching for “Auckland contours” will give you results like this:

We’re still working through some issues for certain region-based searches and hope to have them resolved soon.

Some new ways to follow Koordinates on Twitter:

• Koordinates blog posts, status updates and customer service: koordinates
• New Koordinates layers for the US: koordinatesus
• New Koordinates layers for NZ: koordinatesnz

And our personal Twitter accounts:

• Ed: edcorkery
• Rob: amatix

Koordinates has a variety of Atom feeds available for new layers. The feeds are split into categories, geographic areas and suppliers.

Some useful examples:

• All new layers – feed
• New layers for New Zealand – feed
• New layers for Ollivier & Co – feed
• New topographic layers – feed
• New layers for Land Information New Zealand – feed
• New layers for the USA – feed

You can also mix categories, geographic areas and suppliers, for example:

• New cadastral layers for New Zealand – feed
• New boundaries from Land Information New Zealand – feed

Generally every page listing layers on Koordinates has an associated feed, except for search results.

Koordinates has added some new file formats to our download file format list:

• MapInfo TAB. The default file format for Pitney Bowes MapInfo.
• CSV (Comma Separated Values). A text format commonly used by spreadsheet software.
• TIFF/GeoTIFF – a very common high-quality image format, commonly used for aerial and satellite imagery.

They join our existing formats:

• Shapefile. The most common GIS file format, originally designed by ESRI.
• DWG. A common CAD format, which supports linked imagery.
• JPEG/GeoJPEG. A common imagery format.
• KML. The Google Earth format, commonly supported by other software.
• KMZ. The compressed Google Earth format, not commonly supported by other software.

You can read an explanation of the Koordinates download system here.