LuciadRIA was released in 2012 with a 2D map based on a HTML5 Canvas. In 2016, the WebGL-based hybrid 2D/3D map was introduced, leveraging WebGL support in most browsers.

Moving forward, our focus will lie solely on WebGLMap. WebGLMap offers all the capabilities of a non-WebGL Map, and brings much more to the table.

This document announces our plans for phasing out the non-WebGL map, and explains how you can easily modify your application to use the WebGL map.

Phasing out the non-WebGL Map

The non-WebGL Map was deprecated with LuciadRIA 2024.0. The 2025.0 release will be the last release supporting it. In the next major release, LuciadRIA 2026.0, we plan to remove the non-WebGL Map. All maps will be hardware-accelerated.

Switching to WebGLMap in your application

You can switch to WebGLMap by changing the constructor call of your Map. Replace 

import {Map} from "@luciad/ria/view/Map.js";

const map = new Map(domNode, options);

with

import {WebGLMap} from "@luciad/ria/view/WebGLMap.js";

const map = new WebGLMap(domNode, options);

The WebGLMap API is a superset of the Map API, so no further changes are necessary.

See LuciadRIA benefits for the features available to you when you use WebGLMap.

You can find the WebGL system requirements here.

We plan to keep the Map type in the API in 2025.0, as an alias for WebGLMap. That way, you won’t have to update all usages of the Map type to WebGLMap, as an argument type in method signatures for example.

Upgrade considerations

For completeness, we list the upgrade considerations:

Aside from the items listed above, WebGLMap supports everything that a Map can do, and more.

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact the Luciad Product Management team at product.management.gsp@hexagon.com.