Pipeline for SDO_UTIL.GET_VECTORTILE

[Mganjirad]

Hi everyone,
I'm currently exploring Oracle Spatial's SDO_UTIL.GET_VECTORTILE function, which generates MVT (Mapbox Vector Tile) binary output based on Google/TMS schemes.
The feature works well — Oracle can produce valid vector tiles. But I’m trying to understand:

1. What is the officially intended way to serve these tiles?
   Unlike GeoServer, PostGIS (pg_tileserv), or Tegola — which expose /z/x/y.mvt over HTTP — Oracle only returns the binary tile data. There is no built-in web endpoint, so the developer must create a delivery layer manually.

My Proposed Pipeline
I’m considering using .NET (ASP.NET Core) as a lightweight Tile Server, with the following structure:

Leaflet / MapLibre → ASP.NET API → Oracle (SDO_UTIL.GET_VECTORTILE) → response as application/x-protobuf

Something like :

[HttpGet("tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.mvt")]
public IActionResult GetTile(int z, int x, int y)
{
    // Execute GET_VECTORTILE via Oracle.ManagedDataAccess
    return File(tileData, "application/x-protobuf");
}

My Questions

• Is this the “expected” usage pattern Oracle had in mind?
• Or is there an internal mechanism (e.g., ORDS, MapViewer, some built-in HTTP layer) that I’m missing?
• Do you recommend building a custom tile server layer (.NET / Node / Python), or is there an Oracle-native way to expose tiles directly?
• How should caching be handled?
• Is SDO_UTIL.ENABLE_VECTORTILE_CACHE sufficient on its own?
• Or should an external cache (Redis / CDN / filesystem) be added on top?

I’d love to establish a clear, end-to-end best-practice pipeline for consuming Oracle Spatial vector tiles in modern web map clients like Leaflet, MapLibre or OpenLayers, without requiring GeoServer or PostGIS.
Any guidance, real-world examples, or architectural recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

[alexkeh]

@dlapp Can you or a colleague answer these vector tile questions?

[dlapp]

Hello Mohammad,

The internal mechanism is ORDS. Create a handler that returns the mediatype header and vector tile with :z/:x/:y parameters as in this example:

SELECT 'application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile' as mediatype,
    SDO_UTIL.GET_VECTORTILE(
     TABLE_NAME=>'LOCALITIES',
     GEOM_COL_NAME=>'GEOM', 
     TILE_ZOOM=>:z, 
     TILE_X=>:x, 
     TILE_Y_PBF=>:y,
     ATT_COL_NAMES=>sdo_string_array('NAME','LANGUAGE')
     ) 
FROM dual

and consume for example in MapLibre like this

map.addSource('localities', {
         type: 'vector',
         tiles: [
            "https:/<ORDS URI>/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf"
           ] 
  });

For caching, SDO_UTIL.ENABLE_VECTORTILE_CACHE is intended to be sufficient on its own.

I'll be glad to elaborate and discuss further as needed.

Regards,
David