File Formats Supported by SingleTileImageryProvider

Support
#1

I’m working on an application that needs to be able to run disconnected and serve up a very small number of tiles. It looks like I should be able to do this using SingleTileImageryProvider layers for this, but I can’t find any information on what file formats are supported. I know png files work, but what other formats can be used? Do TIFF or geoTIFF work? Thank you.

–Dale

#2

The Browser is the one that actually performs the imagery loading, so Cesium itself does not have any direct control over which formats are supported. GIF/PNG/JPG are going to be the most common ones, but here’s a fairly exhaustive list on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers#Image_format_support

TIFF and geoTIFF are not supported by the major browsers (with Safari being an exception, but I haven’t tried it). Since Cesium can render Canvas elements as well, you can technically use third-party JavaScript loaders for various unsupported formats, like TIFF.

If you have a geoTIFF, normally the correct way to visualize it is to tile it up with a tool like MapTiler or gdal2tiles and then serve it up as a TMS resource. Of course this strategy is only possible if you have the imagery ahead of time.

#3

Matthew,

Thank you. We would have the imagery ahead of time. I’m new at this, so I’ll have to look into how to use a TMS resource, but it sounds like we have a couple of options now.

–Dale

#4

NASA has a bunch of public imagery layers that you can download and run through the gdal tools to have a pretty decent base layer. They don’t tend to get better than 250m so you’re not going to be able to have a really high resolution if you zoom close to the ground, but it’s a good starting point.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484.

I’m thinking about putting together a blog post about getting started with imagery for non-GIS professionals, but that is a long way off before it’s ready. It’s still percolating in my mind.

#5

Mike,

Thanks for your input. If and when you get your blog post done, I’ll be interested in reading it.

–Dale