Raster Tile

Raster tiles are small, square image files—typically 256×256 or 512×512 pixels—arranged in a hierarchical grid that covers the globe at multiple zoom levels. At each zoom levelZoom LevelA zoom level is a discrete scale step in a web mapping tile system that determines the amount of geographic detail di... the map is divided into more tiles at higher resolution, forming a pyramid structure. When a user pans or zooms, only the visible tiles are requested from the server, enabling fast and bandwidth-efficient map display. The slippy map tileMap TileA map tile is a pre-rendered image segment of a map at a specific zoom level, typically 256x256 or 512x512 pixels. Ma... convention, popularized by OpenStreetMapOpenStreetMapOpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative, open-source mapping project that creates a free, editable map of the world. B..., uses a simple z/x/y URL pattern to fetch individual tiles. Tile servers such as MapServer, GeoServerGeoServerGeoServer is an open-source server for sharing geospatial data, implementing OGC standards like WMS, WFS, and WCS to ..., and cloud-hosted services like MapboxMapboxMapbox is a robust platform that equips developers with tools to create highly customizable, interactive maps for web... and Google Maps generate and cache these images. Raster tiles can represent styled vector dataVector DataVector data represents geographic features as discrete points, lines, and polygons with associated attribute informat... rendered on the server, satellite or aerial imageryAerial ImageryAerial imagery involves photographs taken from planes or drones, offering detailed views of Earth's surface. It is a ..., or derived products like hillshadeHillshadeHillshade simulates the illumination of a terrain surface by a hypothetical light source, creating a shaded relief im... and land-cover classifications. While raster tiles are fast to display and universally supported, they have limitations compared to vector tiles. They cannot be restyled on the client, offer no feature-level interactivity by themselves, and require significant storage when pre-rendering many zoom levels. Despite this, raster tiles remain essential for imagery basemaps, terrain visualization, and legacy systems. Formats like MBTilesMBTilesMBTiles is an open specification for storing tiled map data in a single SQLite database file. It provides a portable,... bundle tiles into a single SQLite database for offline use and efficient hosting.