GDAL-RASTER-TILE(1)

NAME
gdal-raster-tile - Generate tiles in separate files from a raster dataset

Added in version 3.11.

SYNOPSIS

            Usage: gdal raster tile [OPTIONS] <INPUT> <OUTPUT>

            Generate tiles in separate files from a raster dataset.

            Positional arguments:
              -i, --dataset, --input <INPUT>                                   Input raster datasets [required] [not available in pipelines]
              -o, --output <OUTPUT>                                            Output directory [required]

            Common Options:
              -h, --help                                                       Display help message and exit
              --json-usage                                                     Display usage as JSON document and exit
              --config <KEY>=<VALUE>                                           Configuration option [may be repeated]
              -q, --quiet                                                      Quiet mode (no progress bar or warning message) [not available in pipelines]

            Options:
              -f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT>              Output format (default: PNG)
              --co, --creation-option <KEY>=<VALUE>                            Creation option [may be repeated]
              --tiling-scheme <TILING-SCHEME>                                  Tiling scheme. TILING-SCHEME=raster|WebMercatorQuad|WorldCRS84Quad|WorldMercatorWGS84Quad|GoogleCRS84Quad|PseudoTMS_GlobalMercator|GlobalGeodeticOriginLat270|LINZAntarticaMapTilegrid|APSTILE|CBMTILE|NZTM2000 (default: WebMercatorQuad)
              --min-zoom <MIN-ZOOM>                                            Minimum zoom level
              --max-zoom <MAX-ZOOM>                                            Maximum zoom level
              --min-x <MIN-X>                                                  Minimum tile X coordinate
              --max-x <MAX-X>                                                  Maximum tile X coordinate
              --min-y <MIN-Y>                                                  Minimum tile Y coordinate
              --max-y <MAX-Y>                                                  Maximum tile Y coordinate
              --no-intersection-ok                                             Whether dataset extent not intersecting tile matrix is only a warning
              -r, --resampling <RESAMPLING>                                    Resampling method for max zoom. RESAMPLING=nearest|bilinear|cubic|cubicspline|lanczos|average|rms|mode|min|max|med|q1|q3|sum (default: cubic)
              --overview-resampling <OVERVIEW-RESAMPLING>                      Resampling method for overviews. OVERVIEW-RESAMPLING=nearest|bilinear|cubic|cubicspline|lanczos|average|rms|mode|min|max|med|q1|q3|sum
              --convention <CONVENTION>                                        Tile numbering convention: xyz (from top) or tms (from bottom). CONVENTION=xyz|tms (default: xyz)
              --tile-size <TILE-SIZE>                                          Override default tile size
              --add-alpha                                                      Whether to force adding an alpha channel
                                                                               Mutually exclusive with --no-alpha
              --no-alpha                                                       Whether to disable adding an alpha channel
                                                                               Mutually exclusive with --add-alpha
              --output-nodata <OUTPUT-NODATA>                                  Output nodata value
              --skip-blank                                                     Do not generate blank tiles
              --metadata <KEY>=<VALUE>                                         Add metadata item to output tiles [may be repeated]
              --copy-src-metadata                                              Whether to copy metadata from source dataset
              --aux-xml                                                        Generate .aux.xml sidecar files when needed
              --kml                                                            Generate KML files
              --resume                                                         Generate only missing files
              -j, --num-threads <NUM-THREADS>                                  Number of jobs (or ALL_CPUS) (default: ALL_CPUS)
              --parallel-method <PARALLEL-METHOD>                              Parallelization method (thread, spawn, fork). PARALLEL-METHOD=thread|spawn|fork

            Advanced Options:
              --if, --input-format <INPUT-FORMAT>                              Input formats [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
              --oo, --open-option <KEY>=<VALUE>                                Open options [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]

            Advanced Resampling Options:
              --excluded-values <EXCLUDED-VALUES>                              Tuples of values (e.g. <R>,<G>,<B> or (<R1>,<G1>,<B1>),(<R2>,<G2>,<B2>)) that must beignored as contributing source pixels during (average) resampling
              --excluded-values-pct-threshold <EXCLUDED-VALUES-PCT-THRESHOLD>  Minimum percentage of source pixels that must be set at one of the --excluded-values to cause the excluded value to be used as the target pixel value (default: 50)
              --nodata-values-pct-threshold <NODATA-VALUES-PCT-THRESHOLD>      Minimum percentage of source pixels that must be set at one of nodata (or alpha=0 or any other way to express transparent pixelto cause the target pixel value to be transparent (default: 100)

            Publication Options:
              --webviewer <WEBVIEWER>                                          Web viewer to generate. WEBVIEWER=none|all|leaflet|openlayers|mapml|stac (default: all) [may be repeated]
              --url <URL>                                                      URL address where the generated tiles are going to be published
              --title <TITLE>                                                  Title of the map
              --copyright <COPYRIGHT>                                          Copyright for the map
              --mapml-template <MAPML-TEMPLATE>                                Filename of a template mapml file where variables will be substituted

DESCRIPTION

gdal raster tile generates a directory with small tiles and metadata, following the OGC WMTS Specification. Simple web pages with viewers based on OpenLayers and Leaflet are generated as well - so anybody can comfortably explore your maps on-line and you do not need to install or configure any special software (like MapServer) and the map displays very fast in the web browser. You only need to upload the generated directory onto a web server.

It generates PNG files by default, but other output formats can be selected (JPEG, WEBP, GTiff, etc.). Note that not all formats support non-Byte data types. JPEG and WEBP only support Byte. PNG supports Byte and UInt16. GeoTiff can support all data types.

It can also use a tiling scheme fully adapted to the input raster, in terms of origin and resolution, when using the raster tiling scheme. In that scheme, tiles at the maximum zoom level will have the same resolution as the raster.

Starting with GDAL 3.12, gdal raster tile can be used as the last step of a pipeline.

PROGRAM-SPECIFIC OPTIONS

    --aux-xml
        Generate .aux.xml sidecar files when needed

    --add-alpha
        Whether to force adding an alpha channel. An alpha channel is added by default, unless the source dataset has a nodata value and the output format supports it.

    --copy-src-metadata
        Whether to copy metadata from source dataset into output tiles.

    --convention xyz|tms
        Tile numbering convention:

        •   xyz (default): from top, as in OGC Web Map Tiling Specification (WMTS)

        •   tms: from bottom, as in OSGeo Tile Map Service (TMS) Specification.

    --output-nodata <NODATA>
        Output nodata value.

    -i, --input <INPUT>
        Input raster dataset [required]

    --kml
        Generate Google Earth SuperOverlay metadata. Not compatible with tiling schemes with non-power-of-two zoom levels.

    --max-x <MAX-X>
        Maximum tile X coordinate, at maximum zoom level. Can be set to restrict the tiling process.

    --max-y <MAX-Y>
        Maximum tile Y coordinate, at maximum zoom level. Can be set to restrict the tiling process.

    --max-zoom <MAX-ZOOM>
        Maximum zoom level to generate. If not specified, this will be determined by comparing the resolution of the input dataset with the closest resolution in the list of tile matrix of the tile matrix set.

    --metadata <KEY>=<VALUE>
        Add metadata item to output tiles [may be repeated]

    --min-x <MIN-X>
        Minimum tile X coordinate, at maximum zoom level. Can be set to restrict the tiling process.

    --min-y <MIN-Y>
        Minimum tile Y coordinate, at maximum zoom level. Can be set to restrict the tiling process.

    --min-zoom <MIN-ZOOM>
        Minimum zoom level to generate. If not specified, equal to --max-zoom.

    --no-alpha
        Disable the creation of an alpha channel.

    --no-intersection-ok
        Whether the dataset extent not intersecting the tile matrix is only a warning. Otherwise, by default, an error will be emitted if that occurs.

    -j, --num-threads <value>
        Number of jobs to run at once. Default: number of CPUs detected.

    -o, --output <OUTPUT>
        Output directory [required]

        The directory will be created if it does not exist, but its parent directory must exist.

    --overview-resampling nearest|bilinear|cubic|cubicspline|lanczos|average|rms|mode|min|max|med|q1|q3|sum
        Resampling method used to generate zoom levels lower than the maximum zoom level. Defaults to the value of --resampling is not specified.

    --parallel-method thread|spawn|fork
        Added in version GDAL: 3.12

        Parallelization method:

        •   thread uses multi-threading, i.e. parallelized tasks are run within the same process.

        •   spawn launches child gdal sub-processes. spawn can achieve better "scaling", but requires the gdal binary to be available. GDAL will try to locate it, but you can also set the GDAL_PATH configuration option to point to the directory where the gdal binary is located.

        •   fork is a variant of spawn, using the system call fork, without executing the the gdal binary. Such method is not available on Windows. On Unix systems where it is available, this method is not recommended to be used on multithreaded processes, especially the ones where other threads are doing GDAL operation, since it can potentially cause deadlocks.

    If --parallel-method is not specified, GDAL will automatically decide which of the method is the most appropriate, opting for spawn if the gdal binary can be located and a sufficient number of tiles per job are generated, and otherwise falling back to fork on Linux, MacOSX or FreeBSD (if no other thread is running), and otherwise to thread.

    -r, --resampling nearest|bilinear|cubic|cubicspline|lanczos|average|rms|mode|min|max|med|q1|q3|sum
        Resampling method used to generate maximum zoom level, and also lower zoom levels if --overview-resampling is not specified. Defaults to cubic.

    --resume
        Generate only missing files. Can be used when interrupting a previous run to restart it.

    --skip-blank
        Do not generate fully blank/transparent tiles.

    --tile-size <PIXELS>
        Width and height of a tile, in pixels. Default is 256 for default tiling schemes. Setting it to a higher value enables generating higher DPI tile sets.

    --tiling-scheme <TILING-SCHEME>
        Tile cutting scheme. Defaults to WebMercatorQuad (also known as Google Maps compatible).

        The following base profiles are available:

        •   raster: CRS = CRS of raster, tile size = 256 pixels, raster coverage at all zoom levels.

        •   WebMercatorQuad: CRS = EPSG:3857 ("WGS 84 / Pseudo-Mercator"), tile size: 256 pixels, whole world coverage at zoom level 0, one single tile at zoom level 0.

        •   WorldCRS84Quad: CRS = EPSG:4326 ("WGS 84"), tile size: 256 pixels, whole world coverage at zoom level 0, two side-by-side tiles at zoom level 0

        •   WorldMercatorWGS84Quad: CRS = EPSG:3395 ("WGS 84 / World Mercator"), tile size: 256 pixels, whole world coverage at zoom level 0, one single tile at zoom level 0. This can be seen as a variant of WebMercatorQuad except that it is fully conformal on the WGS84 ellipsoid.

        •   GoogleCRS84Quad: CRS = EPSG:4326 ("WGS 84"), tile size: 256 pixels, whole world coverage at zoom level 0, one single tile at zoom level 0 whose first and last 64 lines are blank (the top origin of the tile is a pseudo latitude of 180 degree, and its bottom -180 degree).

        •   PseudoTMS_GlobalMercator: CRS = EPSG:3857 ("WGS 84 / Pseudo-Mercator"), tile size: 256 pixels, whole world coverage at zoom level 0, 2x2 tiles at zoom level 0. This is equivalent to WebMercatorQuad, but with the zoom level shifted by one.

        •   LINZAntarticaMapTileGrid: LINZ Antarctic Map Tile Grid (Ross Sea Region). See tms_LINZAntarticaMapTileGrid.json

        •   APSTILE: Alaska Polar Stereographic-based tiled coordinate reference system for the Arctic region. See tms_MapML_APSTILE.json

        •   CBMTILE: Lambert Conformal Conic-based tiled coordinate reference system for Canada. See tms_MapML_CBMTILE.json

        •   NZTM2000: LINZ NZTM2000 Map Tile Grid. See tms_NZTM2000.json

    Additional tiling schemes are discovered from tms_XXXX.json files placed in the GDAL data directory.

  Advanced Resampling Options

    --excluded-values=<EXCLUDED-VALUES>
        Comma-separated tuple of values (thus typically "R,G,B"), that are ignored as contributing source pixels during resampling. The number of values in the tuple must be the same as the number of bands, excluding the alpha band. Several tuples of excluded values may be specified using the "(R1,G1,B2),(R2,G2,B2)" syntax. Only taken into account for average resampling. This concept is a bit similar to nodata/alpha, but the main difference is that pixels matching one of the excluded value tuples are still considered as valid, when determining the target pixel validity/density.

Added in version 3.11.1.

    --excluded-values-pct-threshold=<EXCLUDED-VALUES-PCT-THRESHOLD>
        Minimum percentage of source pixels that must be set at one of the --excluded-values to cause the excluded value, that is in majority among source pixels, to be used as the target pixel value. Default value is 50(%)

Added in version 3.11.1.

    --nodata-values-pct-threshold=<NODATA-VALUES-PCT-THRESHOLD>
        Minimum percentage of source pixels that must be at nodata (or alpha=0 or any other way to express transparent pixel) to cause the target pixel value to be transparent. Default value is 100 (%), which means that a target pixel is transparent only if all contributing source pixels are transparent. Only taken into account for average resampling.

Added in version 3.11.1.

  Publication Options

    --webviewer none|all|leaflet|openlayers|mapml|stac
        Web viewer to generate. Defaults to all. Those web viewers are created at the root of the output directory.

        stac generates a stacta.json file, following the Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog Tiled Assets specification, and that can be opened by the STACTA driver.

    --url
        URL address where the generated tiles are going to be published.

    --title <TITLE>
        Title of the map.

    --copyright <COPYRIGHT>
        Copyright for the map.

  MapML options

MapML webviewer can only be generated if --convention is set to the default value xyz.

The following profiles are supported:

    •   WebMercatorQuad: mapped to OSMTILE MapML tiling scheme

    •   GoogleCRS84Quad: mapped to WGS84 MapML tiling scheme

    •   APSTILE: from the tms_MapML_APSTILE.json data file

    •   CBMTILE: from the tms_MapML_CBMTILE.json data file

The generated MapML file in the output directory is mapml.mapl

Available options are:

    --mapml-template <filename>
        Filename of a template mapml file where variables will be substituted. If not specified, the generic template_tiles.mapml file from GDAL data resources will be used

The --url option is also used to substitute ${URL} in the template MapML file.

STANDARD OPTIONS

    --co, --creation-option <NAME>=<VALUE>
        Many formats have one or more optional creation options that can be used to control particulars about the file created. For instance, the GeoTIFF driver supports creation options to control compression, and whether the file should be tiled.

        May be repeated.

        The creation options available vary by format driver, and some simple formats have no creation options at all. A list of options supported for a format can be listed with the --formats command line option but the documentation for the format is the definitive source of information on driver creation options. See Raster drivers format specific documentation for legal creation options for each format.

    --if, --input-format <format>
        Format/driver name to be attempted to open the input file(s). It is generally not necessary to specify it, but it can be used to skip automatic driver detection, when it fails to select the appropriate driver. This option can be repeated several times to specify several candidate drivers. Note that it does not force those drivers to open the dataset. In particular, some drivers have requirements on file extensions.

        May be repeated.

    --oo, --open-option <NAME>=<VALUE>
        Dataset open option (format specific).

        May be repeated.

    -f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT>
        Which output raster format to use. Allowed values may be given by gdal --formats | grep raster | grep rw | sort

        Defaults to PNG.

RETURN STATUS CODE

The program returns status code 0 in case of success, and non-zero in case of error (non-blocking errors emitted as warnings are considered as a successful execution).

EXAMPLES

  Example 1: Generate PNG tiles with WebMercatorQuad tiling scheme for zoom levels 2 to 5.

            gdal raster tile --min-zoom=2 --max-zoom=5 input.tif output_folder

  Example 2: Retile a raster using its origin and resolution

            gdal raster tile --tiling-scheme raster input.tif output_folder

  Example 3: Creating a tiled dataset, compatible of the Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog Tiled Assets specification, using Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF metatiles of dimension 4096x4096.

            gdal raster tile --format COG --tile-size 4096 input.tif output_folder

  Example 4: Mosaic on-the-fly several input files and tile that mosaic.

            gdal raster pipeline ! mosaic input*.tif ! tile output_folder

AUTHOR
Even Rouault <even.rouault@spatialys.com>

COPYRIGHT
1998-2026