Best practices for Amazon Location Service

When working with Amazon Location Service, adhering to best practices ensures your maps are optimized for performance, accuracy, and user experience. This section outlines key considerations for working with static maps, geographical bounds, and GeoJSON data to enhance map functionality and visualization.

Dynamic maps

The following are a few best practices for working with dynamic maps in Amazon Location Service.

Rendering optimization with MapLibre

The following are few features of MapLibre which help optimize rendering for AWS map styles. For more information, see AWS map styles and customization.

Skip validation of style

If you are using the AWS map style, set validateStyle to false. This will turn off load-time style validation, speeding up the initial map load. Style validation is not needed with AWS map styles, because they are pre-validated.

Example

 const map = new maplibregl.Map({
        container: 'map', // ID of the div where the map will render
        style: 'https://maps.geo.${awsRegion}.amazonaws.com/v2/styles/${mapStyle}/descriptor?key=${apiKey}', // Map style URL
        center: [0, 0], // Starting position [lng, lat]
        zoom: 2, // Starting zoom
        validateStyle: false, // Disable style validation for faster map load
    });

Explanation

• validateStyle: true: This enables validation of the map style against the MapLibre GL style specification. If there are any issues in the style, they'll be logged in the console.

• If you set this to false, the map will skip the style validation process, which might result in faster loading, but without error checking.

Pre-warm the map

For single-page applications (SPAs) that may create and destroy the map many times as the user navigates through the app, the pre-warm function can reduce delays in re-creating the map after it has been destroyed.

This feature is only recommended for SPAs.

Static maps

Bounds, bounding box (box)

When working with maps and geographical data, defining the bounding box (bbox) and bounds parameters accurately is crucial, as they determine the geographic area of interest. Any inaccuracies can lead to undesirable results.

Ensure precise bounds

Ensure the specified bounds precisely represent the region you want to display. Even slight inaccuracies can crop or exclude portions of the desired area, defeating the visualization's purpose.

Verify appropriate zoom level

The map's zoom level is automatically calculated based on the specified bounds or bbox. Verify that the resulting zoom level provides appropriate detail and visibility for the entire area of interest. If the zoom is too high or low, the map may fail to convey the desired information effectively.

Check for custom overlay visibility

When using bbox or bounds with custom overlays like GeoJSON features, make sure the features' extent falls within the resulting map image. Features extending beyond the bounds may be clipped or omitted, leading to incomplete or misleading visualizations.

Use padding with bbox

Use the bbox along with the padding parameter to ensure map features near the edges are fully visible and not cut off.

By accurately defining the bbox and bounds parameters, you can ensure your maps represent the desired geographic area correctly, provide an appropriate level of detail, and effectively incorporate custom overlays or data layers.

GeoJSON

When using GeoJSON data, optimizing the query string by minifying the GeoJSON can help you stay within query string limits, especially for large datasets.