Terra Draw - Bring drawing feature to all map applications

Drawing on a web map looks simple

Until you have to build it.

• Click to add a vertex, drag to move it, snap it to its neighbour
• Keep the geometry valid while the user is still drawing
• Undo, redo, select, delete
• Then do it all again on the next mapping library

Every map library had its own answer

Leaflet.draw, leaflet-freedraw, mapbox-gl-draw... different APIs, different
behaviour, different bugs — and your drawing code is locked to one map.

Terra Draw

An open source TypeScript library for drawing on web maps, created by
James Milner about four years ago.

One drawing engine, many maps.

npm install terra-draw

Goals

• Cross map library support
• Custom modes
• Deep styling control
• Zero dependencies

How it fits together

Adapter talks to the map · Modes own the interaction · Store holds
the GeoJSON.

One API, many maps

Swap the adapter, keep everything else.

Modes do the drawing

• point, linestring, polygon, marker, polyline
• rectangle, angled-rectangle, circle, sector, sensor
• freehand, freehand-linestring
• select — move, rotate, scale, delete
• ...or write your own

Set up in a few lines

import { TerraDraw, TerraDrawPolygonMode } from 'terra-draw';
import { TerraDrawMapLibreGLAdapter } from 'terra-draw-maplibre-gl-adapter';

const draw = new TerraDraw({
  adapter: new TerraDrawMapLibreGLAdapter({ map }),
  modes: [new TerraDrawPolygonMode({ snapping: true })]
});

draw.start();
draw.setMode('polygon');

The data is just GeoJSON

draw.on('finish', (id) => {
  const snapshot = draw.getSnapshot();
  const feature = snapshot.find((f) => f.id === id);
  console.log(JSON.stringify(feature));
});

getSnapshot() / addFeatures() — load, save and round-trip your features
with anything that speaks GeoJSON.

Undo / redo

Common in every drawing application, one of the most requested features — and
hard to get right.

A two-part system

• Drawing undo / redo, which works inside a single mode
• Session undo / redo, which works across modes
• Use them together, or either one on its own

draw.undo();
draw.redo();

Styling improvements

New ways to style your geometries — style callbacks receive the feature, so
colour, width and opacity can depend on your own properties.

line mode now supports dashed lines, with a new lineStringDash style property.

Polyline mode

Lines that can be closed into polygons: start drawing a line and finish it as
an area, without switching mode.

Multiple instances of the same mode

Register one mode twice with different configurations — for example two polygon
modes with different styling and validation.

New drawing interactions

Click and drag support: drag out a rectangle or a circle in one gesture instead
of clicking corner by corner.

But you still have to build the UI

Terra Draw gives you the drawing engine — the buttons, the mode switching and
the map controls are yours to write.

One line to add the control

npm install @watergis/maplibre-gl-terradraw

Then, just one line of code to add the control to your MapLibre map:

import { MaplibreTerradrawControl } from '@watergis/maplibre-gl-terradraw';

map.addControl(
  new MaplibreTerradrawControl({ open: true }),
  'top-left'
);

Measure control

MaplibreMeasureControl adds distance and area labels to the geometries as
you draw them.

Routing with the Valhalla control

Draw a line, get a route back — the isochrone and routing controls turn drawn
geometry into an API request.

An example - UNDP's GeoHub

UNDP's GeoHub uses the plugin for drawing and measuring.

Contributing

• Lend a star on GitHub
• If you find a bug, post a clear reproducible issue
• Discuss issues on the tracker, and raise pull requests
• Let's chat after the talk if you are interested!

Links and resources

• Terra Draw — https://terradraw.io · https://github.com/JamesLMilner/terra-draw
• Plugin — https://terradraw.water-gis.com
• Workshop material - https://workshops.terradraw.water-gis.com

Try it yourself

The FOSS4G 2026 workshop runs through all of this in the browser, with a live
editor on every page:

Terra Draw workshop - https://workshops.terradraw.water-gis.com/workshops/foss4g2026/

No install, no build step — edit the code and the map updates.