Could a subclass of ImageTiledLayer return a vector tile?

[NathanMellor]

The SDK may be expecting an image here. 

I wonder about this for cases we might want to use vector tiles that are not from ArcGIS. 

[dotMorten_esri]

No vectors are not supported. these must be images 

[NathanMellor]

I would like to request that a similar provision be made for vector tiles as is made for raster tiles. Consider this a feature request. 

[dotMorten_esri]

What types of vector tile formats might that be? 

[NathanMellor]

I believe they would be PBF, just like you use internally. 

Subclassing ImageTiledLayer would allow you to display third party tiled servers for images, or formats such as MBTiles that are local.

Based on what you told me above, I can't do this for vector tiles.

If my vector tile provider doesn't use ArcGIS Server, I would have to ask them for a full copy of their tiles instead of streaming it from them. 

[dotMorten_esri]

PBF is just a transfer format, not the entire spec. We use PBF for transferring the vector tiles using the vector tile layer, so in that sense it's already supported with no need to subclass - you just have to package the data in the way expected and then transfer via PBF.

[NathanMellor]

I take that to mean "all PBF isn't equal". 

There are reasons I am asking. 

For example, if I wanted to license content from opentilemaps.com . . .

I couldn't do it online, because they don't use an Arcgis server to host as far as I know.

I couldn't do it offline, because they don't provide it in .vtpk format.   

We question whether we are a large enough business to recreate a worldwide map like openmaptiles.com. 

So we would need to find a tile vendor that is a loyal ArcGIS user. 

OR

Figure out the cost of hiring people and servers to recreate a tiled map from OpenStreetMap data. 

What are the ArcGIS Vector Basemaps missing? Contours, for one thing. Hiking and walking trails, for another. These two things are very important to my user base. 

[chrishibler1]

My organization has the same need. OSM data is perfect for us, but trying to consume it from the .NET SDK is proving challenging. Support for consuming the vector, pbf tiles they package in mbtiles format would be very useful.

[dotMorten_esri]

Open Street Map is now available as a vector base map: New OpenStreetMap Vector Basemap Available 

var layer = new ArcGISVectorTiledLayer(new Uri("https://basemaps.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/OpenStreetMap_v2/VectorTileServer"))