Vector Tiles¶

A high-performance library for encoding and decoding Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) in Java. It bridges the gap between raw Protocol Buffers data and usable Java objects (JTS Geometries).

Capabilities¶

MVT v2.1 Compliance: Full support for layers, features, and values.
JTS Integration: Direct conversion between MVT geometry commands and JTS Geometry objects.
Zero-Copy Decoding: Optimized parsing strategies to minimize object allocation during reads.

Installation¶

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.tileverse.vectortiles</groupId>
    <artifactId>tileverse-vectortiles</artifactId>
</dependency>

Usage¶

Decoding¶

Convert raw MVT bytes (e.g., from a PMTiles archive or network request) into a structured Java object.

import io.tileverse.vectortile.mvt.VectorTileCodec;

byte[] rawBytes = ...; // your MVT data

var codec = VectorTileCodec.getDefault();
var tile = codec.decode(rawBytes);

for (var layer : tile.getLayers()) {
    System.out.println("Layer: " + layer.getName());

    for (var feature : layer.getFeatures()) {
        // Access JTS Geometry directly
        org.locationtech.jts.geom.Geometry geom = feature.getGeometry();
        Map<String, Object> props = feature.getAttributes();
    }
}

Encoding¶

Create MVTs from scratch using JTS geometries.

import io.tileverse.vectortile.mvt.VectorTileBuilder;

var builder = VectorTileBuilder.create();
var layer = builder.layer("buildings");

layer.feature()
     .id(123)
     .geometry(jtsPolygon)
     .attribute("height", 50)
     .attribute("type", "residential");

byte[] encoded = codec.encode(builder.build());