Developer

Vector Tiles

Service version: 1
Last edit: 2024.11.18
TomTom Orbis Maps

Important notes:

Purpose

The Map Display API Vector Tiles endpoint serves data on zoom levels ranging from 0 to 22.

  • For zoom level 0, the entire earth is displayed on a single tile.
  • At zoom level 22, the world is divided into 244 tiles. See the Zoom Levels and Tile Grid.

The TomTom Orbis Maps Vector Tiles endpoint delivers geographic map data packaged in a vector representation of squared sections called vector tiles.

  • Each tile includes pre-defined collections of map features (points, lines, road shapes, water polygons, building footprints, etc.) delivered in one of the specified vector formats.
  • The format of the tile is formally described using the protobuf schema.
  • The content of the tiles and meaning of each tile layer is described in the tile layers description.

Tiles Layers and Styles

The TomTom Orbis Maps Vector Tiles endpoint supports the following tile layers: basic. The vector data consists of layers with their own names and geometry. The client determines how to present this data to the end user, for example which colors to use for which features.

  • The basic vector tiles contain mapping data such as polygons, road shapes, borders, labels, and road icons.

Tiles Resolution

Visible geometry is stored as coordinates in the range 0-4095. Coordinate 0,0 is defined as the top-left corner of the tile.

Request data

HTTPS method: GET

For ease of viewing and identification:

  • Constants and parameters enclosed in curly brackets {} must be replaced with their values.
  • Please see the following Request parameters section with the required and optional parameters tables for these values. The generic URL format is as follows.

URL format

get
Request URL
https://{baseURL}/maps/orbis/map-display/tile/{zoom}/{X}/{Y}.{format}?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}&view={view}
get
Request curl command
curl 'https://{baseURL}/maps/orbis/map-display/tile/{zoom}/{X}/{Y}.{format}?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}&view={view}'

Request parameters

The following elements are used in calls to generate all vector tile layers.

Required parametersDescription

baseURL
string

The base URL for calling TomTom services.
Values:

zoom
integer

Zoom level of the tile to be rendered.
Value: 0..22

X
integer

The x coordinate of the tile on a zoom grid.
Value: 0..2 zoom -1

Y
integer

The y coordinate of the tile on a zoom grid.
Value: 0..2 zoom -1

format
string

The format of the response.
Value: pbf

key
string

An API Key valid for the requested service.
Value: Your valid API Key.

Optional parametersDescription

apiVersion
integer

A version of the api to call. If the parameter is set, it will overwrite the value stored in TomTom-Api-Version header.
Value: The current version is 1.

layer
string

Layer of the tile to be rendered. Default set to basic.
Value: basic

view
string

A geopolitical view.
Default value: See the following Default view mapping section.
Other values:

  • Unified

  • IN

  • PK

  • AR

  • Arabic

  • KR

  • RS

  • MY

  • CL

  • DZ

  • PH

  • BN

  • TW

  • MA

  • TR

  • IL

  • VN

HTTP request headers

The following table lists HTTP request headers of particular interest to clients of the Map Display API Vector Tiles endpoint.

Required headersDescription

TomTom-Api-Version
integer

Contains a version of the API to call.
Value: The current version is 1.

Optional headersDescription
Accept-Encoding

Contains the content encoding (usually a compression algorithm) that the client is able to understand.
Value: gzip

If-None-Match

Contains an identifier for a specific version of resource. The server will send back the requested resource with a 200 HTTP status code, only if it doesn't have an ETag matching the given one.
Value: <string>

Tracking-ID

Specifies an identifier for the request. It can be used to trace a call.

  • The value must match the regular expression '^[a-zA-Z0-9-]{1,100}$'.
  • An example of the format that matches this regular expression is a UUID (e.g., 9ac68072-c7a4-11e8-a8d5-f2801f1b9fd1).
  • For details check RFC 4122.
  • If specified, it is replicated in the Tracking-ID response header.

Value: <string>

Default view mapping

Default view is recognized based on the country the request came from.

CountryDefault view
India

IN
Other available views: None

Pakistan

PK
Other available views: Unified, IN, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Argentina

AR
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates

Arabic
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Korea

KR
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Serbia

RS
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Malaysia

MY
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Chile

CL
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Algeria

DZ
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Philippines

PH
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Brunei

BN
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Taiwan

TW
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, MA, TR, IL, VN

Morocco

MA
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, TR, IL, VN

Türkiye

TR
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, IL, VN

Israel

IL
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, VN

Vietnam

VN
Other available views: Unified, IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL

Others

Unified
Other available views: IN, PK, AR, Arabic, KR, RS, MY, CL, DZ, PH, BN, TW, MA, TR, IL, VN

Host Name Cycling

Most web browsers have a default limitation on the number of active connections that can be allowed to each host.

  • This means if map tiles are being loaded via the api.tomtom.com host name, they will be loaded one at a time.
  • A trick that can be used to get around this limitation is to cycle through the hosts we have created as aliases.
    • These host names are:
      • a.api.tomtom.com
      • b.api.tomtom.com
      • c.api.tomtom.com
      • d.api.tomtom.com
  • By cycling through these four different host names, the web browser will be tricked into retrieving four map tiles at a time rather than just one.
  • This will significantly speed up the performance of map rendering.

For instance, if four map tiles are being requested at zoom level one, you would request the first one as:

https://a.api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/map-display/tile/1/0/0.pbf?key={Your_API_Key}

The second would be:

https://b.api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/map-display/tile/1/0/0.pbf?key=Your_API_Key

and so on up until d.api.tomtom.com. When more than four tiles are being requested, start back again at a.api.tomtom.com.

Response data

The Map Display API Vector service endpoint, for a single request, returns a binary response body which must be deserialized by client code generated by the Google Protocol Buffers compiler. The following response examples use a simple textual representation of the serialized binary vector tile data to illustrate the response content.

Response examples

Example

Whole world at zoom = 0, basic layer.

RequestResponse
https://api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/map-display/tile/0/0/0.pbf?key={Your_API_Key}
1layers:4
2water:
3  version: 2
4  extent: 4096
5  features: 1069
6  keys: 2
7  values: 3
8land_cover:
9  version: 2
10  extent: 4096
11  features: 2983
12  keys: 2
13  values: 6
14boundaries:
15  version: 2
16  extent: 4096
17  features: 4
18  keys: 4
19  values: 3
20carto_labels:
21  version: 2
22  extent: 4096
23  features: 5
24  keys: 4
25  values: 8

Error Response

The Map Display API Vector service endpoint for an invalid request returns a response body in XML or JSON format. The XML format is returned by default. To have an error response returned in JSON format, application/json has to be specified in the Accept HTTP request header.

Error response field structure

FieldDescription

detailedError
object

Main object of the error response.

code
string

One of a server-defined set of error codes.

message
string

A human-readable description of the error code.

Error response example

JSON format
1{
2  "detailedError": {
3    "code": "BAD_REQUEST",
4    "message": "Invalid tile position arguments"
5  }
6}
XML format
1<errorResponse description="Invalid tile position arguments" errorCode="400" version="1.0.54-mascoma">
2  <detailedError>
3    <code>BAD_REQUEST</code>
4      <message>Invalid tile position arguments</message>
5  </detailedError>
6</errorResponse>

HTTP response codes

CodeMeaning & possible causes
200

OK

304

Not Modified: The tile has not been modified. This code is returned when the If-None-Match request header is used and its value matches the ETag of the requested tile.

400

Bad request: Probably malformed syntax.

  • The combination of layer and query parameters is not supported.

  • Zoom n is out of range 0 <= zoom <= 22: The requested zoom level is out of the possible range.

  • x n is out of range [0, m ]: The requested x coordinate is out of the possible range (the value of m will vary depending on the zoom level).

  • y n is out of range [0, m ]: The requested y coordinate is out of the possible range (the value of m will vary depending on the zoom level).

403

Forbidden:

  • The supplied API Key is not valid for this request.

  • The requested view is not available in the country from where the request was sent.

429

Too Many Requests: Too many requests were sent in a given amount of time for the supplied API Key.

500

Internal Server Error : There is a problem with the TomTom Orbis Maps Vector Tile service.

503

Service currently unavailable.

HTTP response headers

The following data table lists HTTP response headers of particular interest to clients of the Map Display API Vector Tile service.

HeaderDescription
Access-Control-Allow-Origin

The Map Display API Vector Tiles endpoint allows cross-origin resource sharing (CORS).
Value: * Universal.

Cache-Control

Contains directives for a caching mechanism.
Value: max-age=<decimal number>

Content-Encoding

Indicates which encodings were applied to the response body.
Value: gzip

Content-Length

Contains information about the size of the response body.
Value: <decimal number>

Content-Type

Indicates the media type of the resource returned.
Value: image/pbf

Date

Contains the date and time at which the message was originated.
Value: <http-date>

ETag

Contains an identifier for a specific version of resource.
Value: W/"2fdbd61f30456"

Expires

Contains the date after which the response is considered outdated.
Value: <http-date>

Transfer-Encoding

Specifies the form of encoding used to safely transfer the response to the user. If this header is specified, the Content-Length header will be absent.
Value: chunked

Tracking-ID

An identifier for the request. If the Tracking-ID header was specified in the request, it is replicated in the response. Otherwise, it is generated automatically by the service. For details check RFC 4122.
Value: <string>