OpenGIS Web Map Tile Service Implementation Standard

Overview

Full name	OpenGIS Web Map Tile Service Implementation Standard
Version	V1.0.0
Amendments	None
Corrigenda	None
Published by	OGC
Languages	English
Online overview	http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wmts
Type of standard	OpenGIS Implementation Specification Application level
Related standard(s)	ISO 19119:2016, Geographic information – Services ISO 19142:2010, Geographic information – Web Feature Service OpenGIS Catalogue Service Implementation Specification
Application	The OGC WMTS provides a complementary approach to the Web Map Service (WMS) for tiling maps. WMS focuses on rendering custom maps and is an ideal solution for dynamic data or custom styled maps (combined with the OGC Style Layer Descriptor (SLD) standard). WMTS trades the flexibility of custom map rendering for the scalability possible by serving of static data (base maps) where the bounding box and scales have been constrained to discrete tiles. The fixed set of tiles allows for the implementation of a WMTS service using a web server that simply returns existing files. The fixed set of tiles also enables the use of standard network mechanisms for scalability such as distributed cache systems.
Conformance classes	Client test module Server test module
Implementation benefits	With WMS (ISO 19128) custom maps can be rendered for dynamic data or custom styled data. OGC WMTS trades the flexibility of custom maps for the scalability possible by serving static data (base maps) more efficiently. The main benefit of using WMTS is that tiles can be rendered server-side and then cached client-side. This reduces waiting time and bandwidth limitations. OGC WMTS is used to accelerate and optimize map image rendering and delivery.
Products	GeoWebCache 1.5.3 is one example of an implementation of OGC WMTS.