WMTSstyle

WMTSstyle refers to the styling mechanism used within the Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) framework to describe how a given tile layer should be rendered. In WMTS, map data is served as tiles, and styling determines color, symbolization, and labeling applied when tiles are generated. The WMTS Capabilities document lists, for each Layer, one or more Style entries. Each Style has an identifier (a unique string used in requests), a title and abstract for human readers, and a boolean isDefault indicating the default style if no style is supplied. Some implementations also provide an optional LegendURL.

A client selects a style by including the style parameter in GetTile requests (and related operations). If omitted, the server applies the default style. Styles can be implemented directly in the server as rendering rules, or they can reference external styling formats such as a Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) or Symbology Encoding (SE). WMTS does not mandate a single styling format; support varies by server implementation. Some servers expose Style entries that link to SLD documents, enabling richer symbolization while still serving pre-rendered tiles for performance.

Benefits of WMTSstyle include the ability to present multiple visual interpretations of the same tile source, enabling dynamic viewing options for different user needs or themes without changing the underlying data. Limitations arise because styling is defined and enforced by the WMTS server; client-side styling is not standardized across servers. In practice, WMTSstyle is the set of available styles advertised by a WMTS service and selectable via the style parameter.