In Neptune 3, a built-in application called "com.pelagicore.map" is included as the navigation application that uses MapBox GL plugin as the backend.

Qt Location Mapbox GL Plugin Overview

This geo services plugin allows applications to access Mapbox location-based services using the Qt Location API. The use of these services is governed by the Mapbox Terms of Service. An access token is required to use these services. Data is provided by OpenStreetMap and others.

See MapBox GL Plugin Documentation for more information.

The appearance and behavior of vector maps can be customized by creating custom map styles. This can be done with tools like Mapbox Studio. The style url is needed by the plugin to load the desired style of the map.

Platform Support

Qt Location Mapbox GL Plugin has the following support for platforms:

• Microsoft Windows (win32) – Supported, requires MinGW 5.0+
• Linux X11 – Supported, requires GCC 4.9+
• macOS – Supported
• Android – Supported
• Embedded Linux – Supported, requires GCC 4.9+
• iOS – Supported
• WinRT – Not supported

Application Parameters

There are parameters required by the Mapbox plugin, e.g. access token, url styles, cache directory.

Access Token

To use any of Mapbox’s tools, APIs, or SDKs, the user needs a Mapbox access token. Mapbox uses access tokens to associate requests to API resources with your account. Currently Neptune 3 is using a dedicated access token from QtAuto Mapbox account.

Parameter name: "mapbox.access_token"
Access token: pk.eyJ1IjoicXRhdXRvIiwiYSI6ImNqY20wbDZidzBvcTQyd3J3NDlkZ21jdjUifQ.4KYDlP7UmQEVPYffr6VuVQ

Style URL

Additionally, comma separated, Mapbox style URLs can be added to the available style URLs. Additional styles will be prepended to the supportedMapTypes property of the Map item.

Neptune 3 has two different styles specified and being used. These two are used for Light and Dark theme as part of Neptune 3 feature in changing the UI theme.

readonly property string defaultLightThemeId: "mapbox://styles/qtauto/cjcm1by3q12dk2sqnquu0gju9"
readonly property string defaultDarkThemeId: "mapbox://styles/qtauto/cjcm1czb812co2sno1ypmp1r8"
PluginParameter {
            name: "mapboxgl.mapping.additional_style_urls"
            value: [priv.defaultLightThemeId, priv.defaultDarkThemeId].join(",")
}

Cache Directory

An absolute path to map tile cache directory is used as network disk cache. The default place for the cache is the QtLocation/mapboxgl subdirectory in the location returned by QStandardPaths::writableLocation(), called with QStandardPaths::GenericCacheLocation as a parameter. On systems that have no concept of a shared cache, the application-specific QStandardPaths::CacheLocation is used instead.

This is an ambient cache, meaning it will get populated on the fly until it reaches the size limit, and when that happens, it will evict the least used tiles. This cache can also be used for storing offline tiles, but the offline database must be populated using the offline tool. The offline database will work alongside with the ambient cache in the same file. Make sure to comply with Mapbox Terms of Service before creating an offline database.

Note: The map tile cache file name must be "mapboxgl.db". When using the offline tool, the default output is "offline.db". For using the generated output from the offline tool, you must move this database file to the proper directory, and rename it as "mapboxgl.db". The offline tool also provides the "--output" parameter for specifying the name of the generated output.

Note: Currently, the offline map is only available for some specific area in Munich, Germany (detailed map is only available in light theme due to the allowed maximum size of the offline map cache).

// Offline maps support
PluginParameter { name: "mapboxgl.mapping.cache.directory";

// needs to be an absolute filepath so strip the file:/// protocol;
// several leading slashes don't matter
value: mapPlugin.cacheDirUrl.toString().substring(mapPlugin.cacheDirUrl.indexOf(':')+1) }