deck.gl is one of the most popular open-source visualization libraries, designed and optimized for visual analysis of large geospatial datasets.
It was originally developed within Uber, but it later transitioned into an open-source project. Since then it has been maintained by a large group of contributors under the vis.gl and the OpenJS Foundation communities, including CARTO as part of the Technical Steering Committee.
Since deck.gl is built on top of pure Javascript/Typescript, it can be integrated into any Javascript application, regardless of the framework used (React, Angular, Vue…). deck.gl is GPU-powered, meaning it uses WebGL2/WebGPU, modern and powerful technologies to leverage all the GPU resources in your computer to create graphics on the web.
Moreover, it provides a wide range of visualization options (layers) for all types of geospatial data, and its layered approach makes it compatible with a lot of different base maps and other integrations.
CARTO and deck.gl
With deck.gl and CARTO you can create highly scalable applications that visualize location data in many different ways, connecting directly to data in your data warehouse.
deck.gl powers all map visualizations within the CARTO platform, and it is a requirement for those looking to build map-centric apps with CARTO.
Inside deck.gl we maintain the @deck.gl/carto submodule that provides a range of sources, layers and functions that allow you to easily access and consume the geospatial datasets from your data warehouse. Sources used in CARTO + deck.gl can be vector, raster or spatial indexed data.
Thanks to the power of CARTO dynamic tiling or by using pre-generated tilesets from CARTO, there are no limits to the size of the data you can use in your application, with no ETLs needed.