Overview of the Utility Library

  • The Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library is an open-source library providing advanced features for your maps.

  • This library offers utilities for marker clustering, quadtrees, KML parsing, GeoJSON rendering, heatmaps, custom markers, and geometry operations.

  • The library includes a demo app demonstrating the use of each class.

  • Access the Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library and its documentation on GitHub.

Select platform:AndroidiOS

Looking for advanced features to add to your maps? TheMaps SDK for iOS Utility Library on GitHub is an open-source library of classes that are useful for a range of applications. The GitHub repository includes the utility classes and a demo app that illustrates the use of each class.

The utilities

A map with clustered markers in the default style

Marker Clustering

TheGMUClusterManager helps you manage multiple markers at different zoom levels. This means you can put a large number of markers on a map without making the map hard to read. When a user views the map at a high zoom level, the individual markers show on the map. When the user zooms out to a lower zoom level, the markers gather together into clusters, to make viewing the map easier.

For details, see the documentation on theMarker Clustering.

No image for this utility.

Quadtree

A quadtree is a data structure that's useful for finding points near a single point, by searching inside an area surrounding the point of interest.

For details, see the documentation on theQuadtree.

A map with KML data

KML

KML is a popular format for rendering geographic data such as points, lines, and polygons. TheGMUKMLParser lets you parse and render geographic data in the KML format.

For details, see the documentation on theKML.

A map with a GeoJSON layer

Import GeoJSON onto your map

You can store features inGeoJSON format and use this utility to render them as a layer on top of a map. Render geographic data in the GeoJSON format usingGMUGeoJSONParser in conjunction withGMUGeometryRenderer.

For details, see the documentation on theGeoJSON.

A map with a heatmap showing location of police stations

Heatmaps

Heatmaps make it easy for viewers to understand the distribution and relative intensity of data points on a map. Rather than placing a marker at each location, heatmaps use color and shape to represent the distribution of data.

For details, see the documentation on theHeatmaps.

A map with custom markers showing images

Custom markers

Use the delegateGMUClusterRendererDelegate onGMUDefaultClusterRenderer to customize the properties of a marker before and after it is added to the map.

A map showing the disatance between to coordinates

Geometry utilities

A set of Swift spherical geometry utility functions of theGMSGeometryUtils module of the Maps SDK for iOS. Use these extensions to perform many types of geometric operations, including:

  • Determine the great circle distance between coordinates
  • Determine if a coordinate is inside a polygon
  • Determine if a coordinate lies on or near a path within a specified tolerance
  • Determine the area of this polygon
  • many others

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Last updated 2025-11-21 UTC.