Evaluation SDKs (software development kits) allow you to try out CartoType before you buy a license. You will be able to create a test application and  find out whether CartoType is the right solution for you. The evaluation SDKs have a few restrictions, including placing a watermark on every map, but provide access to the complete API (application programming interface) and all features including graphics-accelerated rendering.

The CartoType evaluation SDKs (software development kits) are provided for evaluation only, excluding any commercial use. For commercial licensing please contact us.

By clicking on any of the links on this page, or by using the SDK material or demonstration programs, or source code, however acquired, you accept the terms of the CartoType Evaluation License and you also accept that neither CartoType Ltd, nor any owners, shareholders or officers of CartoType Ltd, or any other contributors to, authors of or maintainers of the CartoType system, are liable for any damage, direct or consequential, caused by downloading, installing or using the SDK, or by any programs built using the SDK, and that the SDK is not warranted fit for any particular use and is for evaluation use only and may not be used for any commercial purpose.

To uninstall any of these SDKs, all you need to do is delete the files from your computer.

Sample Maps

To save download time, the SDKs contain only a single sample map. It is of the Isle of Wight, an island off the southern coast of England, chosen because of its good mix of features: urban, rural, and coastal. Please contact us if you need a map of any particular area for evaluation purposes.

Sample Code

The source code for most of our demonstration programs is available in public GitHub repositories in the account https://github.com/CartoType.The code for the current release is here: https://github.com/CartoType/CartoType-Public. The code is supplied under the permissive MIT license.

Release notes

The current version of the CartoType SDK is release 8.6. It was released on 8th August 2023.

The current build is 8.6-84-g7efc08bdc, uploaded on 3rd October 2023.

Changes since initial release of 8.6

--- 8.6.17 ---
updated the Android build system to work with the latest Android Studio (Giraffe)
fixed #173: UWP SDK crashes with access violation in in the renderer
fixed #183: range calculation crashes
text index and street index are no longer read if requested text index levels are -1: fixes #156: map of Britain and Ireland takes 9Gb RAM
--- 8.6.31 ---
IMPORTANT: fixed #184: release 8.6 is slower than 8.4
--- 8.6.57 ---
fixed #189: enabling and disabling maps does not work
makemap creates urban areas more accurately; fixes #192
the standard style sheet now draws urban areas after land layers
--- 8.6.66 ---
fixed #83: seabed texture not drawn when graphics acceleration is turned off
improved order of layers in CTM1 files for better search relevance
fixed #195: 3D buildings were not drawn
--- 8.6.71 ---
repeating textures now have their own vertex array: fixes #194
wetland hachure color is now ncsblue
fixed #196: route colours should not be made darker in night mode
English names are now generally drawn on a separate line, using a forced line break, apart from minor and mid-level roads; and English names have now been added for some layers where they were not used.
added CALLBACK macro (_stdcall) needed for WinHttpSetStatusCallback to compile in 32-bit build
updated to the version of the naett library used by the mainline
added a rule for contour shapefiles: *.contours.shp
added a contour layer to the standard style sheet
fixed a typo in standard import rules: height attrib imported from contour shapefiles should be H, not _H
fixed #199: the /split option in makemap did not copy string attributes
removed unneeded function MapObject::Split after fix to #199
fixed #203: Android apps crash on two-finger gesture at edges of display
--- 8.6.84 ---

The Android SDK

The Android SDK allows you to use CartoType with the Android operating system. You use the CartoType Android API, which gives you access to all the features of CartoType: loading maps, adding your own objects to the map, panning, zooming, address searching, routing and navigation.

Download link: Android SDK

The SDK is a ZIP file of about 22Mb. It contains a folder called cartotype_android_sdk_evaluation containing the following folders:

libs: an .AAR (Android archive) called cartotype.aar, which is the CartoType library. Add it to your Android Studio project as a dependency.

font: standard fonts; for simple CartoType use you need load only DejaVuSans.ttf

map: sample maps

style: the standard style sheets; you should load standard.ctstyle with the sample map

doc: licenses and acknowledgments for third-party libraries

Android demo program with source code

CartoTypeMaps is a full-featured sample program for CartoType on Android. It's provided as an Android Studio project, and includes the handling of user gestures for panning, zooming and rotation, routing using different profiles, turn by turn navigation, finding placenames and addresses, night mode, and perspective mode. You can set the start or end of a route using a long press. Other features are available from the menus. CartoTypeMaps is ready to run. Just download the code or use git to clone the repository (git clone https://github.com/CartoType/CartoType-Public.git). Then load the project src/demo/android_demo/CartoTypeMaps into Android Studio, connect an Android device or simulator, and select Run 'app' from the Run menu.

You can also download a prebuilt version: CartoTypeMaps as an APK file (235Mb download). You can install it on your Android phone or tablet. It comes with a map of London and the surrounding area. You can easily load other maps if you prefer.

The iOS SDK

The iOS SDK allows you to build CartoType apps for the iPhone and iPad. It is supplied as a .dmg file (Apple Disk Image) containing the file CartoType.framework. You use the CartoType iOS API, written in Objective C, which gives you access to all functionality.

Note: in order to avoid linker errors when using the -ObjC flag, you need to have at least one ".cpp" (C++) or ".mm" (Objective C++) source file in your own project, even if it's an empty one. If your project has ".m" (Objective C) and ".h" files only you will get linker errors because Xcode won't know that there is both C++ and Objective C code in the project.

Download link: iOS SDK

This is a 45Mb download containing the header files and compiled libraries for the simulator and device targets as a zip file. A sample map, style sheet, fonts, and tools including makemap, the map building program, are also included. It contains SDKs for both iOS on a device and and iOS on a simulator. The SDKs are in the ios folder and are delivered as .xcframework files, one for CartoType and one for the MetalANGLE graphics library. When you create an app you will need to add both the CartoType and the MetalANGLE frameworks to your app. Then you need to make sure that they are shipped with the app: select your app in Xcode, then select your build under TARGETS, then Build Phases -> Embed Frameworks, then add both CartoType.xcframework and MetalANGLE.xcframework, and tick 'Code Sign On Copy'.

(If you are upgrading to a new version of the CartoType iOS SDK, you may sometimes find that Xcode does not recognize new Objective C headers or classes. You can usually fix this problem by closing your project, opening the organizer from the Xcode Window menu, select your project, then click on 'delete' opposite 'derived data'. Then close Xcode, reopen your project, clean it and rebuild. Thanks to TigerCoding for this tip from StackOverflow.)

iOS demo program with source code

You can also download the source code and project files for a full-featured sample app with fast hardware-accelerated rendering, handling of user gestures for panning, zooming and rotation, routing using different profiles, turn by turn navigation, finding placenames and addresses, night mode, and perspective mode. You can set the start or end of a route using a long press. Other features are available from toolbar buttons.

iOS sample project

To build and run the app, open the project in Xcode on a Macintosh and add the CartoType iOS SDK to it. If you are a licensee you can use your licensed CartoType SDK instead of the evaluation version; change the call to the license() function in AppDelegate.swift so that it supplies your license key. You will need to sign the app using your Apple developer certificate.

You can then run it in the simulator or on an iOS device.

The C# (.NET) SDK

This SDK allows you to use CartoType with the .NET framework. You can use any .NET language, such as C#, VB.NET or C++/CLI. You can build a complete application using CartoType in just a few lines of code, as shown in the C# demo program included with the SDK. The .NET SDK (documented here) gives you access to all CartoType features, including map, style sheet and font loading, route calculation, navigation and address searching. It also gives access to graphics acceleration using OpenGL ES 2.0.

Download link: .NET SDK

This is a 44Mb zipped file containing a .NET DLL built for the Intel x64 platform and a C# demonstration program that uses the CartoType DLL, with its source code and data files. An XML documentation file is also supplied. As long as it is kept in the same place as the DLL it will provide tool-tip help for some of the functions.

Note: if you have trouble adding the DLL to your project, in particular if you get a message starting "could not load file or assembly ... CartoTypeWrapper.DLL", please try the following fixes: (i) right-click on CartoTypeWrapper.dll in Windows Explorer and click on 'Properties' in the context menu, then, if you see the text 'This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer', click 'Unblock' to the right of that text; (ii) if that doesn't work try installing, or re-installing, the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2019 (please google that phrase to find the current download link).

The zip file creates a single directory called CartoTypeDemo when unzipped.

Useful locations

The CartoType .NET DLL

• release version: CartoTypeDemo\windows\bin\x64\Release\CartoTypeWrapper.dll
• debug version: CartoTypeDemo\windows\bin\x64\Debug\CartoTypeWrapper.dll

Visual Studio solution and project files:

• CartoTypeDemo\windows\CartoTypeDemo.sln
• CartoTypeDemo\windows\CartoTypeDemo.csproj

Data files

• sample map: map\isle_of_wight.ctm1
• standard style sheet: style\standard.ctstyle
• standard font: font\DejaVuSans.ttf

The DLLs used for graphics acceleration, libEGL.dll and libGLESvs.dll, are in the same locations as the .NET DLLs. They need to be accessible to any application using the CartoType .NET SDK.

Extra fonts are also to be found in the style and font folders. It's always a good idea to load DroidSansFallback as well as any other fonts, because it provides characters for many non-Latin scripts.

The CartoType .NET DLL will not run on non-Intel platforms because the CartoType library is compiled into native code from C++.

The Windows SDK

This SDK (documented here) supports CartoType development for desktop versions of Windows from Windows XP through Windows 8.
The CartoType Windows SDK supports development using standard Windows, or using the Qt framework.

Download link: Windows SDK

This is a 108Mb zipped file containing the CartoType header files and debug and release mode libraries for desktop Windows, built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 for the x64 platform.

The zip file creates a single directory called CartoType when unzipped.

Useful locations

Libraries and executables

• release version: CartoType\bin\17.0\x64\Release\cartotype.lib
• debug version: CartoType\bin\17.0\x64\Debug\cartotype.lib
• tools to build maps, etc. (makemap, mapinfo, encrypt_file): CartoType\bin\17.0\x64\Release

There are also directories with the same names but with DLL appended: CartoType\bin\17.0\x64\ReleaseDLL, etc. They contain libraries linked to the C++ runtime library as a DLL, not statically. These libraries can be used with Qt. To build for Qt you will also need to link to CartoTypeQtMapRenderer.lib, which is also supplied. Qt is supported for the x64 builds only. See CartoType and Qt for detailed instructions on using Qt to build and run the sample Maps App.

Headers

• CartoType\src\main\base; you need include only one header file, cartotype.h, to use the CartoType C++ API

Visual Studio solution and project files for the demonstration program

• CartoType\src\demo\windows_demo\windows\CartoTypeDemo.sln

Data files

• sample map: CartoType\map\isle_of_wight.ctm1
• standard style sheet: CartoType\style\standard.ctstyle
• standard font: CartoType\font\DejaVuSans.ttf

Another style sheet and extra fonts are also to be found in the style and font folders.

The Linux SDK

The C++ SDK (documented here) supports development for Linux (Ubuntu and other x11 versions) on 64-bit Intel platforms.
The Linux SDK supports developments using various GUI frameworks including Qt.

Download link: Linux SDK

This is a 23Mb zip file containing a folder called cartotype-linux-sdk, which contains the following folders:

bin: the release-mode evaluation CartoType library, and the makemap tool for creating maps, and the other tools mapinfo and encrypt_file, and (for Qt builds) the Qt map graphics-accelerated map renderer library libCartoTypeQtMapRenderer.a and other libraries needed for Qt builds.

font: standard fonts; for simple CartoType use you need load only DejaVuSans.ttf

header: the C++ header files; you need to include only header file, cartotype.h, to use CartoType

map: a sample map

style: the standard style sheet; you should load standard.ctstyle with the sample map

Linux SDK notes

• The CartoType Linux library is built for 64-bit Intel platforms.
• You may need to add the option -lpthread to the linker options, otherwise you might get a linker error for pthread_create.
• Set the compiler option +std=c++14, because CartoType uses C++14.
• If you get linker errors mentioning types in the std namespace, the cause is probably that the CartoType Linux Library is compiled using GCC 5.1 or later, and you are using GCC 4.9 or earlier.