zoomstufen

Zoomstufen are discrete levels of magnification used in digital displays and software to view content at varying scales. They determine how much of a scene is shown and how much detail becomes visible. The term appears in cartography, web mapping, image viewers and photography. In many systems the zoomstufen are represented by integers, while some applications support continuous, fractional zoom for smoother transitions.

In tile-based web maps, such as OpenStreetMap or Google Maps, the world is divided into a grid of tiles. At zoom level z there are 2^z tiles per side, so the total number of tiles grows dramatically with higher zoom. Consequently, increasing the zoom level reduces the geographic extent shown and increases detail. Typical widely-used zoom ranges in consumer maps are 0 to 19 or 0 to 21, though the exact range depends on data availability and the provider.

Zoomstufen in software are usually defined as discrete steps, but some viewers offer fractional or continuous zoom to interpolate between levels. Each step corresponds to a different map scale or image resolution, and data or imagery may be unavailable at certain levels. Performance and bandwidth considerations often influence which zoom levels are supported by a service.

In photography and image editing, zoom can refer to optical zoom, achieved by adjusting the lens, or digital zoom, which enlarges the image by cropping and interpolation. Optical zoom typically moves through predefined focal-length settings (zoom steps), whereas digital zoom yields varying magnification without changing the lens. The term Zoomstufen thus spans both imaging and display contexts, reflecting the balance between field of view and detail.