diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 8aa3568..f7db625 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -2,9 +2,38 @@ PMTiles is a single-file archive format for tiled data. A PMTiles archive can be hosted on a commodity storage platform such as S3, and enables low-cost, zero-maintenance map applications that are "serverless" - free of a custom tile backend or third party provider. +[Demo](https://protomaps.github.io/PMTiles/examples/leaflet.html) - watch your network request log + See also: * [Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs](https://www.cogeo.org) +## Specification + +A detailed specification is forthcoming. PMTiles is a binary serialization format designed for two main access patterns: over the network, via HTTP 1.1 Byte Serving (`Range:` requests), or via memory-mapped files on disk. + +### Design considerations +* Directories are recursive, with a maximum of 21,845 entries per directory. + * *21845 is the total tiles of a pyramid with 7 levels, or 1+4+16+64+256+1024+4096+16384* +* Deduplication of tile data is handled by multiple entries pointing to the same offset in the archive. + +### Details +* The first 512 kilobytes of a PMTiles archive are reserved, and contain the headers as well as a root directory. +* All integer values are little-endian. +* The headers begin with a magic number, "PM" +* 2 bytes: which specify the PMTiles specification version, right now always 1. +* 4 bytes: the length of metadata (M bytes) +* 2 bytes: the number of entries in the root directory (N) +* M bytes: the metadata, by convention a JSON object. +* N * 17 bytes: the root directory. + +### Directory structure + +A directory is a sequence of 17 byte entries. An entry consists of: +* 1 byte: the zoom level (Z) of the entry, with the top bit set to 1 instead of 0 to indicate the data is a child directory, not data. +* 3 bytes: the X (column) of the entry. +* 3 bytes: the Y (row) of the entry. +* 6 bytes: the offset of where the tile begins in the archive. +* 4 bytes: the length of the data. ## License