Mapbox-gl-native: Is there a way to render to off-screen buffer?

Created on 30 Mar 2016 · 11Comments · Source: mapbox/mapbox-gl-native

Is it possible to make 'mapbox-gl-native' to support off-screen rendering?
I'd like to use the generated texture in Unity 3D.

If supporting off-screen rendering requires some patching to 'mapbox-gl-native', will it still be priced by mobile-users count?

apology for cross-posting.

https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-native/issues/1631#issuecomment-202205209

Source

mattak

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All 11 comments

/cc @msirenko

1ec5 on 30 Mar 2016

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Is it possible to make 'mapbox-gl-native' to support off-screen rendering?

Yes! node-mapbox-gl-native does just that, and so does the OS X SDK when you print the view.

1ec5 on 30 Mar 2016

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@mattak We currently support offscreen rendering (which is used by the Node.js bindings) on Linux through GLX rendering to a virtual framebuffer with XVFB, on OS X through CGL and on iOS through EAGL. I'm currently working on adding support for rendering with OSMesa on Linux as well.

mikemorris on 30 Mar 2016

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By the way, if you only need static images of Mapbox-hosted styles and data, you might be interested in the Mapbox Static API, which is included in all Mapbox plans.

1ec5 on 30 Mar 2016

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@mikemorris
My target platforms are Android and iOS.
Is headless view for Android support on the road map?
If there's no plan for it, we'd like to implement it contribute to the project.

@1ec5
We considered static map as well.
However pricing for 'mobile-user count' is better suited for us.

mattak on 30 Mar 2016

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Is headless view for Android support on the road map?

This is something that @tmpsantos is looking at and is tracked in #2150.

tobrun on 30 Mar 2016

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Hey @mattak, Max from the business side here. Apologies if I miss some of the technical nuances here.

Currently, mobile-user count pricing applies only to our native iOS and Android SDKs, as well as a few hybrid platforms https://www.mapbox.com/help/hybrid-app-pricing/ that interact directly with our mobile SDKs. Is this something that would work for your use case?

msirenko on 30 Mar 2016

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@tobrun
Thanks, I will follow the issue.

@msirenko
We are planing on developing a game app for iOS and Android which heavily uses map data.

Because of ecosystems, implementation costs and team resources,
Unity is our choice for time being.
(React, Cordova or Xamarin is not best fit for us.)

We could build the app with Unity and MapBox's static tile api, but estimated running cost for 'map-view pricing' was too steep for us.
Hence we thought the answer to our problem was to implement mapbox-gl-native's offscreen texture rendering.

By the way, Is Qt implementation priced as 'mobile user count'?
Our customization may looks like a Qt's implementation.

mattak on 31 Mar 2016

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:+1:

pine on 31 Mar 2016

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@mattak @pine613 The mobile pricing (MAU) currently does not apply to the Qt implementation. That said, we’re always excited to work with users to meet their specific needs — the folks at [email protected] may be able to help you. よろしくお願いします。:grin: