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.model.VectorTile;
import io.tileverse.vectortile.mvt.VectorTileCodec;

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

VectorTileCodec codec = new VectorTileCodec();
VectorTile tile = codec.decode(rawBytes);

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

    for (VectorTile.Layer.Feature 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;

VectorTileBuilder builder = new VectorTileBuilder();
builder.layer()
        .name("buildings")
        .feature()
            .id(123)
            .geometry(jtsPolygon)
            .attribute("height", 50)
            .attribute("type", "residential")
            .build();

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

Component view¶

tileverse-vectortiles components

VectorTileCodec handles both encoding and decoding (between MVT bytes and the VectorTile model). VectorTileBuilder is the fluent constructor for VectorTile instances with JTS Geometry payloads.