mercator

Mercator provides access to gridded earth data through an API, delivering earth model output as tiles that can be decoded in any WebGL shader. It offers global datasets including weather forecasts, ocean state, air quality, and elevation, presented in formats such as PNG pyramids, Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFFs, value-encoded textures, and pre-colored previews. These formats enable integration with a variety of mapping and visualization tools and are designed to fit different technical stacks.

The platform supports direct use with mapping libraries and frameworks such as MapLibre, Mapbox, Leaflet, OpenLayers, and deck.gl. Users also have the option to employ their own custom renderers, as the tiles serve as the primary contract for data delivery. Mercator's SDK is open and ships under a permissive license, allowing developers to integrate the service into their own workflows without lock-in. The SDK can be incorporated into codebases with coding agents like Claude Code and Cursor.

Mercator's catalog is structured in a STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog)-shaped format, using standard catalog.json, collection.json, and item.json files, making it compatible with tools like pystac, QGIS, or any STAC client. The full catalog includes 24 datasets covering atmospheric forecasts, ocean state, CAMS air quality, and GEBCO bathymetry, all accessible through the same tile-based delivery contract. For example, the 10-metre wind dataset encodes eastward and northward wind components as two 16-bit fixed-point fields per pixel within PNG tiles.

Pricing is structured with a free tier allowing up to 10,000 tiles per month, with paid data access available beyond that limit. The open SDK and permissive licensing model further support flexibility for developers building geospatial applications. Mercator is intended for users who need to integrate global earth data into mapping, visualization, or analysis platforms, leveraging standard formats and open integration options.