Comparison to leafmap?

[cboettig]

Excited to see anymap and the streamlined integration of MapLibre-GL!

Curious how you see how anymap relates to leafmap? (Other users might wonder this too, maybe a blurb in the docs or README might be helpful?)

Do you see anymap as a successor in some way to leafmap, or complementing it? Specifically, do you see the kind of external rendering in interactive web apps (e.g. leafmap's methods such as .to_streamlit() or .to_gradio() ) as in scope for anymap as well, or does that remain in leafmap, while focusing purely on the jupyter notebook experience here? If leafmap is to remain the go-to for those uses, do you see the maplibre functionality from here eventually replacing the py-maplibregl dependency in leafmap?

[giswqs]

Great question! The MapLibre backend (and other backends) in Leafmap relies on various Python packages, making it challenging to implement bidirectional communication functionality, especially since it requires modifying JavaScript. For instance, the MapLibre Python package currently lacks support for clearing drawn features from the map and for split-map mode. I’ve opened several issues on the repository highlighting these challenges, as each feature necessitates changes to the JavaScript source code, which can be quite complex due to the intricate setup of the package. You can find those issues here.

AnyMap addresses these limitations effectively. By building directly with JavaScript, we eliminate the middleman, allowing us to implement bidirectional functionality more easily and cleanly. Additionally, AnyMap is lightweight and free from heavy dependencies. We will also support exporting the map to other platforms like Streamlit, Gradio, and Solara.

Leafmap and AnyMap will coexist, with Leafmap focusing on analytical capabilities and AnyMap prioritizing visualization. We may integrate AnyMap as a backend for Leafmap once it matures.

[cboettig]

Fantastic! This is just what I was hoping you would say! Do you have an examples demo'ing anymap's bidirectional interactions with any of the streamlit/gradio/solara/shiny interfaces? Or is that still pending development?

[giswqs]

Here is a Solara example. Note that layer control is newly added functionality in AnyMap.

import solara
from anymap import MapLibreMap

class Map(MapLibreMap):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(**kwargs)
        super().add_basemap("Esri.WorldImagery")        

@solara.component
def Page():
    with solara.Card():
        Map().element()

Page()

[giswqs]

Here is a demo deployed on Hugging Face. Give it a try.

https://giswqs-solara-maplibre.hf.space/anymap

https://huggingface.co/spaces/giswqs/solara-maplibre