Spatial job – create tileset (preview)

Microsoft Fabric Map items (preview) enable users to visualize spatial data and derive insights by integrating both static and dynamic data sources. It uses raw data to create meaningful, actionable spatial information.

In certain cases, static spatial datasets can be extremely large, making smooth rendering on the map challenging. To overcome this, Map offers a specialized tool that converts extensive spatial data, such as GeoJSON files, into high-performance tilesets. Tilesets are commonly used in mapping platforms to visualize large datasets, such as roads, buildings, or environmental features, without overwhelming the system or the user. This conversion into tilesets enables efficient rendering, resulting in a smoother and more responsive mapping experience.

This tutorial shows you how to create tilesets from your source data.

Introduction to tiles and tilesets

Tiles

Tiles are small, square sections of a map that represent geographic data for a specific area and zoom level. Instead of rendering an entire map as a single image, Map divides it into tiles to improve performance and scalability. Each tile contains data such as points, lines, and polygons relevant to its geographic area.

Tilesets

A Map Tileset is a structured collection of tiles that represent geographic data for a larger area—such as a city, country/region, or the entire globe. Each tile contains only the data relevant to its specific location, and tilesets are organized by zoom levels and tile coordinates. This structure allows mapping software to load only the necessary tiles for the current view, significantly improving rendering speed, scalability, and overall performance.

Zoom level range and corresponding view

Zoom levels affect the resolution of map tiles. Lower zoom levels display fewer, larger tiles---meaning each tile covers a broader graphical range. In contrast, higher zoom levels show more, smaller tiles, each covering a smaller graphical area with increased detail. This approach manages both performance and visual accuracy. The table below outlines zoom levels with their associated map views. For more information, see Zoom levels and tile grid in Microsoft Azure Maps.

Prerequisites

• A workspace with a Microsoft Fabric-enabled capacity.

• A map with editor permission.

• A lakehouse is used to store GeoJSON files.

Create a tileset

Select New tileset to open the creation wizard.

Alternatively, you can right-click on a GeoJSON file in lakehouse and then select Create tileset from the popup menu.

Step 1: Connect to a lakehouse and select source files

Start by connecting to at least one lakehouse that contains GeoJSON files. You can choose multiple files to convert into a vector tileset.

Step 2: Configure tileset metadata

Specify the output location and name for your tileset. You can also add a description and copyright details if desired.

Step 3: Configure layer settings

Each file is processed as an individual layer within the tileset.

Next, set the following configuration options:

• Layer name: You can assign a custom name to each layer or use the default name, which matches the file name.

• Zoom level range: Define the minimum and maximum zoom levels for your spatial data visibility. For more information, see zoom level range.

  Note

  Things to keep in mind with configuring zoom levels:

  • Using a wider zoom level range generates more tiles, which can increase processing time.
  • The supported zoom levels range from 5 to 18.

• Feature properties: For GeoJSON datasets, you can choose whether to include all feature properties along with the geometries or only the geometries.

  Note

  Including all feature properties increase the size of the tiles and extend processing time.

Step 4: Review and create tileset

Review the configuration from previous steps, then select Create to start the spatial job.

Monitor the Tileset Creation Job

After starting the tileset creation process, a notification will confirm that the job is in progress. You can select View Tileset Job to see details of all recent runs for this spatial operation in the Map.

Select Go to Monitor to view more job history related to this Map item.

Select the View details icon to display more information about the selected job.

Cancel tileset creation

To cancel the tileset creation, open the Monitor page and select the Cancel icon next to the corresponding job.