Availability of Map Tiles (XYZ/Slippy Map Format)

[blockarchitech]

Hi all,

This may be the wrong place to post this - but I'm not sure where else this would go 😄
Let me know if there's a more well-suited place to post or send this to.

I'm hoping to find an official NWS endpoint for radar map tiles in a standard XYZ / "slippy map" format.

I vaguely recall a previous NWS service that offered this, using a URL structure similar to this:
http://ridgewms.srh.noaa.gov/tc/tc.py/1.0.0/N0Q_0/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

However, this service appears to be deprecated, and I haven't been able to find a direct replacement. I've also looked into the NCEP OpenGeo Geoserver, but for a simple application like my own, it seems far more complex than what I'm hoping to find.

For context, my goal is to implement a TileProvider for a mapping library (like the Google Maps Android SDK). The Iowa State University IEM project provides exactly the kind of endpoint I'm looking for:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cache/tile.py/1.0.0/nexrad-n0q-900913/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

This URL format integrates perfectly into a standard tile provider implementation:

val radarTileProvider = object : UrlTileProvider(256, 256) {
    override fun getTileUrl(x: Int, y: Int, zoom: Int): URL? {
        val url = "https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cache/tile.py/1.0.0/nexrad-n0q-900913/$zoom/$x/$y.png"
        return try {
            URL(url)
        } catch (e: Exception) {
            null
        }
    }
}

While the Iowa State service works great, my preference would be to source this data directly from NOAA/NWS.

With the launch of radar.weather.gov, is a similar XYZ tile service for radar imagery available or planned for the future?

Thank you!

[blockarchitech]

So, I've went ahead and made my own "proxy server" of sorts which converts the more complex NCEP/WMS API into a slippy map/XYZ format. Here's the code: https://github.com/blockarchitech/wmsproxy

It includes a Dockerfile, so it should be simple to get set up. It appears everything works great n my testing 🙂

While it would be awesome if this functionality was supported by NOAA itself, I think this serves as a good stopgap for now.

[sullynole]

I am not aware of that format. radar.weather.gov uses the opengeo.ncep.noaa.gov tiles.

[scadergit]

"Slippy" simply describes the map behavior to load more tiles as the user pans and zooms around the map.

[scadergit]

@blockarchitech an XYZ layer provides pre-rendered tiles, and the Geoserver provides dynamically generated tiles or WMS, both are used on "slippy" maps. Here is a basic example of a WMS layer from the geoserver you linked to above using the OpenLayers library:

  new TileLayer({
    extent: [-13884991, 2870341, -7455066, 6338219],
    source: new TileWMS({
      url: "https://opengeo.ncep.noaa.gov/geoserver/conus/ows",
      params: { LAYERS: "conus_bref_qcd", TILED: true },
      serverType: "geoserver",
      transition: 0,
    }),
  }),

Happy to help provide more examples as helpful.

[scadergit]

Here is the full example from above: https://codesandbox.io/p/devbox/openlayers-forked-ntnytt?workspaceId=ws_BemitxSLzZoQbgf8vJNKmT

[scadergit]

@blockarchitech I overlooked your update, sorry. The NWS does not provide pre-rendered tiles. I'll chat with a few others Monday to see if I'm overlooking anything, but I'm surprised Google Maps Android SDK doesn't as easily support other tile formats.

[blockarchitech]

No worries. The example you provided is still useful. I'll do more research into alternative tile formats as well, it's possible there's an external library that could help.

I am indeed looking for pre-rendered tiles. I may see if I can write some code to "render" them once I get the tiles from the NOAA API, which could eliminate the middleman.

Thank you!