PyBingTiles

This is a small toolkit in order to deal with Bing Tiles, used i.e. by Facebook for their Data for Good datasets.

Install

Clone this repository, then issue the following command:

python setup.py install

Use

Generate a Shapefile from a bounding box

If you run

python pybingtiles/mkshp.py

you will be asked to enter the latitudes and the longitudes of the upper left and bottom right corners of the bounding box inside of which you would like to define the Bing Tile grid. You will also be asked to insert a level of definition, an integer between 1 and 23 depending on the coarseness of the tile.

You can also have an image produced of the geographic area that you are going to crop in order to be sure of the operation. The script then produces an ESRI Shapefile with the grid squares as Polygons in the area previously defined.

Use conversion functions

You can also import

from pybingtiles.convert import *

and get the conversion functions between Bing Maps Pixels XY coordinates, Bing Maps Tiles XY coordinates, WGS 84 latitudes and longitudes and QuadKeys.

Five functions are available:

• lat_long_to_pixel
• lat_long_to_tile
• pixel_to_lat_long
• tile_to_lat_long
• tile_to_quadkey

Check docstrings for more details.

References

• Bing Maps Tile System - Microsoft