What is vector data and vector features
This page explains what the attributes of vector features are and how to utilize them. Vector features usually have two parts: geometry and database attributes.
The limit for vector features varies in a different version of MapTiler Engine. Actual numbers can be seen in the pricing table.
Vector features
Geometry
Geometry is the geographical representation of an object. The most commonly used types of geometries are the points, lines, and enclosed lines - polygons.
Point
Point geometry represents objects, which do occupy single spots, such as lamps, traffic lights, single trees, bus stops, and similar.
Line
Linear objects, such as roads, highways, electric wires, and similar are presented with simple line geometries.
Polygons
Polygons do represent areal objects, like buildings, forests, crop fields, and so on.
Sometimes you have to combine all three geometries in order to get the best representation of an object. For example, you can represent a river stream with linear geometry as well as the area between two banks has to be represented using polygon geometry.
Database attributes
Attribute values are further information about the object, we want to model. They are usually stored in the database table structure. For example, for a road object (which is represented as line geometry), we can add further attribute values, such as road ID, owner, or last date of snow cleaning.
The attributes depend solely on the dataset creator and his needs. Attribute types are also limited (they are derived from database data types). Based on the nature of the data, it can be an integer, floating-point number, short text string (varchar), long text, date, time, and many more. It’s good to be aware of those data types and select them carefully.
Example
Vector feature in our terminology means one node/vertex, one line/edge, or one polygon. It means if you have data with 5 points of interest (POI), 10 roads, and 5 buildings, it is in total 20 vector features.
