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geolibre

R-CMD-check GeoLibre

geolibre brings the full GeoLibre GIS application to RStudio, Quarto, R Markdown, and Shiny. It is an htmlwidgets interface to GeoLibre’s project format and embed bridge.

Open the live interactive map example to try the R widget directly in your browser.

Installation 

# Once released on CRAN:
install.packages("geolibre")

# Development version:
install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("opengeos/geolibre-r")

Quick start 

library(geolibre)

points <- list(
  type = "FeatureCollection",
  features = list(list(
    type = "Feature",
    properties = list(name = "Washington, DC"),
    geometry = list(type = "Point", coordinates = c(-77.0369, 38.9072))
  ))
)

geolibre(map_only = TRUE) |>
  add_geojson(
    points,
    name = "Places",
    style = list(fillColor = "#dc2626", circleRadius = 8)
  ) |>
  set_view(center = c(-77.0369, 38.9072), zoom = 10)

sf

add_sf() transforms data to WGS 84 before sending GeoJSON to the browser.

library(sf)

nc <- st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package = "sf"), quiet = TRUE)

geolibre() |>
  add_sf(nc, "North Carolina counties")

Remote rasters

Remote Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs are read directly by GeoLibre in the browser. The server must support CORS and HTTP range requests.

geolibre() |>
  add_raster(
    "https://example.org/visual.tif",
    name = "Satellite image",
    bands = c(1, 2, 3)
  )

Project files 

map <- geolibre() |> add_geojson(points)
save_project(map, "example.geolibre.json")

restored <- geolibre(load_project("example.geolibre.json"))

The saved file uses GeoLibre’s portable .geolibre.json format and can be opened in the web or desktop application. save_project() saves the state held by the R widget. In Shiny, browser-side changes are also available as input$<outputId>_project.

Shiny 

library(shiny)
library(geolibre)

ui <- fluidPage(
  geolibreOutput("map", height = "80vh"),
  actionButton("reset", "Reset view")
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  map <- reactiveVal(geolibre(map_only = TRUE))
  output$map <- renderGeolibre(map())

  observeEvent(input$reset, {
    next_map <- set_view(map(), center = c(0, 20), zoom = 2)
    map(next_map)
    update_geolibre(geolibre_proxy("map"), next_map)
  })

  observeEvent(input$map_project, {
    message("GeoLibre now has ", length(input$map_project$layers), " layers")
  })
}

shinyApp(ui, server)

Self-hosted GeoLibre

Use app_url per widget or set a session-wide option:

options(geolibre.app_url = "https://gis.example.org/")

The deployment must expose the GeoLibre web app and support its ?embed=1 project bridge.

Current scope

  • GeoJSON and sf vector layers
  • Remote COG/GeoTIFF raster layers
  • Camera control
  • GeoLibre project import and export
  • R Markdown, Quarto, RStudio Viewer, and Shiny support
  • Configurable hosted or self-hosted GeoLibre application

The package intentionally does not bundle GeoLibre’s large web distribution. This keeps the R package small and lets maps use the latest compatible hosted application. Offline bundling can be added as an optional distribution later.