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What is CartoDB?

CartoDB is an open source tool that allows for the storage and visualization of geospatial data on the web.

It was built to make it easier for people to tell their stories by providing them with flexible and intuitive ways to create maps and design geospatial applications. CartoDB can be installed on your own server and we also offer a hosted service at cartodb.com.

If you would like to see some live demos, check out our videos on Vimeo. We hope you like it!

What can I do with CartoDB?

With CartoDB, you can upload your geospatial data (Shapefiles, GeoJSON, etc) using a web form and then make it public or private.

After it is uploaded, you can visualize it in a table or on a map, search it using SQL, and apply map styles using CartoCSS. You can even access it using the CartoDB Maps API and SQL API, or export it to a file.

In other words, with CartoDB you can make awesome maps and build powerful geospatial applications!

What are the components of CartoDB?

A User Interface for uploading, creating, editing, visualizing, and exporting geospatial data.
A geospatial database built on PostgreSQL and PostGIS 2.0
An SQL API for running SQL queries over HTTP with results formatted using GeoJSON and KML
A Map tiler that supports SQL and tile styling using CartoCSS
Authentication using OAuth if required

What does CartoDB depend on?

CartoDB-SQL-API
Mapnik 2.0
NodeJS 0.4.10+
PostGIS 2.0
Postgres 9.1.x
Redis 2.2+
Ruby 1.9.2+
Windshaft-cartodb

How do I install CartoDB?

The installation process is fairly painless, and we have successful installations running on Amazon EC2, Linode, and development machines with OS X and Ubuntu.

Before getting started, go ahead and download CartoDB by cloning this repository:

git clone https://github.com/Vizzuality/cartodb.git

Or you can just download the CartoDB zip file.

Install Ruby

We implemented CartoDB in the Ruby programming language, so you'll need to install Ruby 1.9.2+.

Install Node.js

Components of CartoDB, like Windshaft, depend on Node.js. Basically it's a highly-scalable web server that leverages Google's V8 JavaScript engine.

You can install Node.js and NPM (the Node.js package manager) by following these instructions on Node's GitHub wiki site.

Alternatively, you can install Node.js using brew install node, but NPM has to be installed using the wiki instructions above.

Install PostgreSQL and PostGIS

PostgreSQL is the relational database that powers CartoDB. PostGIS is the geospatial extension that allows PostgreSQL to support geospatial queries. This is the heart of CartoDB!

First you'll need to install a few dependencies.

GDAL is requires for raster support.
GEOS is required for geometry function support.
JSON-C is required for GeoJSON support.
PROJ4 is required for reprojection support.
plpython is required for Python support (e.g., sudo apt-get install postgresql-plpython-9.1)

Next install PostgreSQL 9.1.x and PostGIS 2.0.x.

Finally, CartoDB depends on a geospatial database template named template_postgis. In the example script below, make sure that the path to each SQL file is correct. As of PostGIS r8242 for example, spatial_ref_sys.sql is now located in the root installation directory, instead of in the ./postgis directory:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
POSTGIS_SQL_PATH='pg_config --sharedir'/contrib/postgis-2.0
createdb -E UTF8 template_postgis 
createlang -d template_postgis plpgsql 
psql -d postgres -c "UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate='true' WHERE datname='template_postgis';"
psql -d template_postgis -f $POSTGIS_SQL_PATH/postgis.sql 
psql -d template_postgis -f $POSTGIS_SQL_PATH/spatial_ref_sys.sql
psql -d template_postgis -f $POSTGIS_SQL_PATH/legacy.sql
psql -d template_postgis -f $POSTGIS_SQL_PATH/legacy_compatibility_layer.sql
psql -d template_postgis -c "GRANT ALL ON geometry_columns TO PUBLIC;" 
psql -d template_postgis -c "GRANT ALL ON spatial_ref_sys TO PUBLIC;"

Install Redis from http://redis.io/download or using brew install redis.
Python dependencies:

easy_install pip # in MacOs X pip install -r python_requirements.txt

Note: If compilation fails (it did for gdal module raising a Broken pipe error) try doing "export ARCHFLAGS='-arch i386 -arch x86_64'" first

Setup new hosts in /etc/hosts:

# CartoDB
127.0.0.1 admin.localhost.lan admin.testhost.lan
127.0.0.1 my_subdomain.localhost.lan
# # # # #

Clone the Node SQL API in your projects folder:

git clone git@github.com:Vizzuality/CartoDB-SQL-API.git

Install nodejs dependencies
```
npm install
```

Clone the map tiler in your projects folder:

git clone git@github.com:Vizzuality/Windshaft-cartodb.git

Install nodejs dependencies
```
npm install
```
Clone the CartoDB repository in your projects folder:
```
git clone git@github.com:Vizzuality/cartodb.git
```
Change to cartodb/ folder and rvm will require to create a new gemset. Say yes. If not, you must create a gemset for Ruby 1.9.2:
```
rvm use 1.9.2@cartodb --create
```
Run bundle:
```
bundle install --binstubs
```
Run Redis:
```
cd /tmp
redis-server
```
Run rake cartodb:db:setup EMAIL=me@mail.com SUBDOMAIN=my_subdomain PASSWORD=my_pass ADMIN_PASSWORD=my_pass in cartodb folder
This will configure 2 users. The admin user (admin) and a user of your own. After spinning up all your processes (cartodb, sql api, tiler), you should be able to login.

Every day usage

Check if Redis is running, if not cd /tmp; redis-server
Change to CartoDB directory
Run bin/rake db:reset if you want to reset your data and load the database from seeds.rb file
Run a Rails server in port 3000: rails s
In a separate tab change to Node SQL API and Tiler directories and run node.js: node app.js developement
Open your browser and go to http://admin.localhost.lan:3000 or http://my_subdomain.localhost.lan:3000_
Enjoy!

Contributors by commits###

Fernando Blat (@ferblape)
Javier Alvarez (@xavijam)
Simon Tokumine (@tokumine)
Javier Álvarez Medina (@xavijam)
Alvaro Bautista (@batu)
Fernando Espinosa (@ferdev)
Sergio Alvarez Leiva (@saleiva)
Javier de la Torre (@jatorre)
Andrew W Hill (@andrewxhill)
Javier Arce (@javierarce)
Aaron Steele (@eightysteele)

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