Where can I find the data format of Esri vector tile maps?

Question

I am looking to write a vector tile layer renderer in Java as part of our web application and I need to know the format of the data that are returned from an Esri vector tile map layer. Can someone please direct me to a document or documents that describe this?

Cheers,
Chris Mugdan

ChristopherMugdan · Answer

Hi Amy,

Thanks for the references. I shall peruse them.

What we currently do is request feature layers and their features from ArcGIS Server map services or from Portal/ArcGIS Online then render them based on information we derive from Business Intelligence tools. Our product that connects to ArcGIS server is called "Map Intelligence for ArcGIS". Our web site is www.integeo.com and that will give you a better understanding of what we are doing.

There seems to be more of a demand for vector tile layers recently so we are examining how we can accommodate that spatial data type in our product.

Cheers,
Chris

AmyNiessen · Answer

Not completely sure we understand exactly what you're wanting to do, but here are a few places to start:

First, the technical specifications for vector tiles and styles:

https://docs.mapbox.com/vector-tiles/specification/

https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/style-spec

When it comes to vector tile layers, the specification for the vector graphics in the tiles being streamed to the browser, and the specification for the JSON that's used for applying styling/rendering to these vector graphics are two different specs. At the moment, we're thinking you'd be more interested in the latter, when it comes to what the graphics look like based on rules that you define in this renderer you're designing.

Here's an interesting app that might provide you some examples of how this can be done:

https://gbochenek.github.io/vector-tile-demo-js/https://gbochenek.github.io/vector-tile-demo-js/

And an example of how vector tile styling can be controlled from our JavaScript API, which may or may not help you with your Java implementation, but something else to look through.

https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/layers-vectortilelayer-json/index.html

And a 10-minute hands-on tutorial that gives you a little more hands-on with how the vector tile styling JSON works:

https://developers.arcgis.com/labs/arcgisonline/style-a-vector-basemap/