Tiles or maps on request

WMS and WMTS look alike but work differently. A WMS draws a new image for the requested extent on every request. A WMTS serves pre-made tiles from a fixed grid. For aerial imagery and other heavy raster layers, that difference decides speed, scalability and cost. For national or regional data a second choice comes on top: the tile grid itself.

  • WMS for flexible extents, styles and querying
  • WMTS for fast, cacheable tiles with many users
  • Any coordinate system (EPSG) as the tile grid, including Web Mercator
  • OGC Tiles as the more modern successor to classic WMTS
3500km mobile mapping

WMS or WMTS: which one when

Choose a WMS when you need flexibility: an arbitrary extent, dynamic styles or the ability to query an object. Choose a WMTS when many people browse a large, relatively fixed dataset at once, such as aerial and orthophotos. The tiles are pre-made and cache well, so server load barely grows with the number of users. That is why GEORIZON publishes raster data as WMTS, and also offers OGC Tiles and WMS.

Viewer met BGT-lijnen over een luchtfoto en een laaginstelling

The tile grid and your coordinate system

A WMTS works with a tile matrix set: a fixed division of the map into zoom levels and tiles. It defines the coordinate system, the origin, the tile size and the scale at each level. For national or regional data you preferably use a grid in the coordinate system your organisation works in, so your layer lines up without reprojection with your base maps and registers. Web Mercator (EPSG:3857) is the common choice for web maps, but many countries and regions have their own grid. GEORIZON can deliver tiles in the tile matrix set of any coordinate system. Always check the exact values in the capabilities document of the service.

Luchtfoto met de gereden trajectorie van een meetrit in kleur

Why the grid matters

Anyone serving data in a different coordinate system than the one users work in forces every user to reproject, which costs accuracy and speed, and may rule out a viewer that does not support the grid. Choose the tile matrix set that fits your users first, and check that your web viewer supports it. If you need more than one grid, the same data can be published in several.

Questions about tile grids and coordinate systems

Not sure which grid fits your use? Ask your question and we will help you think it through.

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