MapThat – Layer Spy Tool

by David Crowther

The DynamicMaps team at Arkance UK are pleased to announce that in the latest release of our webGIS – MapThat – we have a new Layer Spy Tool.

The tool can be accessed either from the main ribbon bar…

… or from the Map menu using the tool name – Layer Spy.

Once open the Layer Spy tool allows you to define a BaseLayer to see through the Spy Glass.

Simply click in the drop-down lists and choose the BaseLayer you wish to view.

e.g. Google Aerial

Once you have chosen your options press the Go Arrow to open the Spy Glass Tool.

The Spy Glass tool opens and turns your cursor into a Spy Glass allowing you to see through the current MapThat Baselayer to see the chosen Baselayer (Google Aerial) below.

You can then pan and zoom in the map and the Spy Glass reveals the chosen Baselayer for your cursor location.

The Spy Glass tool will work with any WMTS compliant BaseLayer e.g. Google, OpenStreetMap and the OS Maps APIs,… but it will also show Bingtile layers. For example, below we have chosen to use the Spy Glass to compare the OS Maps API BaseLayer against a set of BingTiles for the same location.

And if you want to make more historical comparisons the Spy Glass tool is also WMS (Web Map Service) compliant so you can choose to compare any recent BaseLayer with your Historical Raster Mapping.