Satellite tiles

AI-generated Key Takeaways

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• Satellite image tiles are a type of orthophotography providing top-down imagery of the earth, captured by satellite and airborne cameras.

• To request satellite tiles, you need to obtain a session token using your API key, specifying map type, language, and region.

• You can then download individual tiles by making HTTPS GET requests, including the zoom level (z), x and y coordinates, session token, and API key in the URL.

• An example request shows downloading a tile at zoom level 15 with specific coordinates to a local file, with no server response message besides the downloaded tile.

Satellite image tiles are a form of orthophotography. They're images captured by both satellite and airborne cameras, and they deliver top-down (nadir or near-nadir) imagery of the earth.

Getting satellite tiles

You can begin making satellite tile requests after you get a session token. Because the session token applies to the entire session, you don't have to specify the map options with your tile requests.

The following code sample demonstrates a typical session token request for satellite tiles.

 curl 
  
 - 
 X 
  
 POST 
  
 - 
 d 
  
 ' 
 { 
  
 "mapType" 
 : 
  
 "satellite" 
 , 
  
 "language" 
 : 
  
 "en-US" 
 , 
  
 "region" 
 : 
  
 "US" 
 } 
 ' 
  
 \ 
 - 
 H 
  
 'Co 
 ntent 
 - 
 Type 
 : 
  
 applica 
 t 
 io 
 n 
 /jso 
 n 
 ' 
  
 \ 
 "https://tile.googleapis.com/v1/createSession?key= YOUR_API_KEY 
 

You get satellite tiles by making an HTTPS GET request, as shown in the following example.

 curl 
  
 "https://tile.googleapis.com/v1/2dtiles/ z 
/ x 
/ y 
  
?session= YOUR_SESSION_TOKEN 
  
&key= YOUR_API_KEY 
  
" 

Example tile request

Consider the following code example, that requests a single satellite tile at zoom level 15, with x and y coordinates of (6294, 13288).

 curl 
  
 "https://tile.googleapis.com/v1/2dtiles/15/6294/13288  
?session= YOUR_SESSION_TOKEN 
  
&key= YOUR_API_KEY 
" 
  
 -- 
 ou 
 t 
 pu 
 t 
  
 / 
 t 
 mp/example_ 
 t 
 ile.p 
 n 
 g 

There is no response message from the server in this example. Instead, the tile just downloads to a local file.

For information about response message headers, see Pre-Fetching, Caching, or Storage of Content .