Raster output profiles

The GPXZ raster API lets you extract high-resolution raster DEMs for a given bounding box. The output is provided as a GeoTIFF.

While GeoTIFF is a standard format, it’s also a rather complex one that’s still being updated today. As a result, not all tools support all GeoTIFF files.

We just added a output_profile parameter that lets customers specify a compatibility profile for the GeoTIFF’s returned by the /v1/elevation/hires-raster endpoint. Currently three profiles are supported

  • zstd uses the Zstandard GeoTIFF compression setting. GeoTIFFs compresses with Zstandard result in some of the smallest filesizes and fastest read times of any compression algorithm. It’s also by far the fastest compression option to write, resulting in faster response times from the GPXZ API. The only downsize is that older tooling doesn’t always support Zstandard.
  • autocad enables a number of compatability features required to import GeoTIFFs into Autodesk products such as AutoCAD. One of those options however is that rasters are limited to 4GB in size; the GPXZ API will return a 400 status code in if a 4GB+ raster is requested with the autocad profile.
  • default is, well, our default raster profile. It’s what we’ve been using since the launch of the API. It produces a cloud-optimised GeoTIFF that is compatible with most tools while still making use of reasonable compression levels and file sizes.

If you’re having compatibility issues with your tooling, please get in touch and we might be able to add a new profile.