Enabling The Vector Tile Output FormatΒΆ

This Section will teach you how to enable the mapbox vector tiles output format for a specific layer.

  1. Navigate to the GeoServer Welcome Page.

  2. Go to the Layers link at the left-hand menu and click on the topp:states.

    ../_images/enabling1.png

    Selecting the “topp:states” layer

  3. Select the Tile Caching tab and, if not enabled already, check the box labeled Create a cached layer for this layer.

    ../_images/enabling2.png

    Showing the Tile Caching tab

  4. Check the box labeled application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile

    ../_images/enabling3.png

  5. Save your changes to the layer.

  6. You can check that the vector tiles are now available for the topp:states layer in the Tile Layers link at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

    ../_images/enabling4.png

    Showing the GeoServer Tiled layers

  7. In the Tile Layers page, find the topp:states layer and from its preview options select EPSG:900913 / pbf. This will open a preview of the layer in vector tiles with a basic style.

    ../_images/enabling5.png

    Open the preview for the states vector tiles

    ../_images/enabling6.png

    The vector tiles preview of the states layer

These tiles are generated on the fly when you move around the map. It’s also possible to create the tiles in advance via a seeding operation, see the GeoWebCache Integration tutorial for instructions on how to do that.
In the next section we’ll limit the visibility of specific features for different scales using SLD and CSS styling.