OGC Services

DroneDB Registry exposes every published dataset through a complete suite of OGC web services. This lets you load Hub datasets directly into QGIS, ArcGIS, MapServer, GeoServer, OpenLayers, MapLibre and any other client that speaks the standard OGC protocols.

The services are served per-dataset under /orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/ and discover the same GeoRaster and Vector entries that you see in the web viewer.

Supported standards

Standard	Version	Endpoint root	Notes
WMS	1.1.1 & 1.3.0	`/wms`	Multi-layer compositing, transparent backgrounds, NDVI/NDRE/NDWI/EVI/SAVI styles
WFS	2.0.0 (1.1.0 alias)	`/wfs`	GeoJSON + GML output, BBOX filtering, paging via `count`/`startIndex`
WMTS	1.0.0	`/wmts`	XYZ tile pyramid backed by the per-dataset MVT cache for vectors and COG for rasters
WCS	2.0.1 (1.1.x & 1.0.0 negotiable)	`/wcs`	GeoTIFF + PNG/JPEG `GetCoverage`, `ACCEPTVERSIONS` negotiation
OGC API – Features	1.0	`/ogcapi`	JSON landing page, conformance, collections, items
OGC API – Tiles	1.0	`/ogcapi/collections/{id}/tiles`	Vector (MVT `pbf`) and raster (`png`) tiles
Vector Tiles (Mapbox)	-	`/mvt/{hash}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf`	Direct tile pyramid, also used by the built-in viewer

All endpoints share the same authentication: Basic auth, JWT bearer tokens, or share-link tokens accepted by the rest of Registry. Public datasets work anonymously.

Quick start

Pick a public dataset hosted on Hub, e.g. https://hub.dronedb.app/orgs/demo/ds/example, and replace {base} below with that base URL.

WMS GetCapabilities

curl '{base}/wms?service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities&version=1.3.0'

WMS GetMap

curl '{base}/wms?service=WMS&request=GetMap&version=1.3.0' \
     --data-urlencode 'layers=odm_orthophoto.tif' \
     --data-urlencode 'styles=NDVI' \
     --data-urlencode 'crs=EPSG:3857' \
     --data-urlencode 'bbox=1110000,4900000,1130000,4920000' \
     --data-urlencode 'width=512' \
     --data-urlencode 'height=512' \
     --data-urlencode 'format=image/png' \
     -G -o ndvi.png

Supported STYLES:

Style	Formula	Use case
(default)	true-color RGB rendering	natural-color orthophotos
`NDVI`	`(NIR − Red) / (NIR + Red)`	vegetation health
`NDRE`	`(NIR − RedEdge) / (NIR + RedEdge)`	crop stress, late-season chlorophyll
`NDWI`	`(Green − NIR) / (Green + NIR)`	water bodies
`SAVI`	`((NIR − Red) / (NIR + Red + 0.5)) × 1.5`	sparse vegetation
`EVI`	`2.5 × (NIR − Red) / (NIR + 6×Red − 7.5×Blue + 1)`	dense canopies

Spectral indices require a multispectral GeoRaster (≥3 bands using the DroneDB convention R=1, G=2, B=3, RedEdge=4, NIR=5).

WFS GetFeature (GeoJSON)

curl '{base}/wfs?service=WFS&request=GetFeature&version=2.0.0' \
     --data-urlencode 'typeNames=contours.gpkg' \
     --data-urlencode 'count=500' \
     --data-urlencode 'bbox=9.18,45.46,9.20,45.48,EPSG:4326' \
     --data-urlencode 'outputFormat=application/json' \
     -G > features.geojson

MVT tile

curl '{base}/mvt/{hash}/14/8550/5824.pbf' -o tile.pbf

Where {hash} is the entry hash returned by /orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/list.

QGIS step-by-step

1 – Add a WMS connection

Open Layer → Add Layer → Add WMS/WMTS Layer…
Click New, then fill in:
- Name: My DroneDB Hub
- URL: https://hub.dronedb.app/orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/wms
- For private datasets, expand Authentication and add a Basic auth or bearer-token configuration.
Click OK → Connect. The dataset layers (one per GeoRaster / Vector entry) appear in the tree, with all available STYLES.
Select the desired layer + style and click Add.

2 – Add a WFS connection

Open Layer → Add Layer → Add WFS Layer…
New → URL https://hub.dronedb.app/orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/wfs
Set Version to 2.0.0 and Max number of features to e.g. 5000.
Click Connect; select one or more typeNames and click Add.

QGIS will use BBOX filtering automatically as you pan/zoom.

3 – Add an OGC API – Features connection

Layer → Add Layer → Add WFS Layer…
New → expand OGC API – Features and set URL to https://hub.dronedb.app/orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/ogcapi.
Connect; the JSON landing page exposes one collection per vector entry.

4 – Add an XYZ tile layer (MVT)

Browser → right-click XYZ Tiles → New Connection…
URL template: https://hub.dronedb.app/orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/mvt/{hash}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf (replace {hash} with the entry hash; leave {z}/{x}/{y} literal).
Set Min/Max zoom to 0/18 and OK.

OpenLayers (Vue 3)

import VectorTileLayer from 'ol/layer/VectorTile.js';
import VectorTileSource from 'ol/source/VectorTile.js';
import MVT from 'ol/format/MVT.js';

const layer = new VectorTileLayer({
  declutter: true,
  source: new VectorTileSource({
    format: new MVT(),
    url: `${baseApi}/mvt/${entryHash}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf`,
    minZoom: 0, maxZoom: 18, overlaps: false,
  }),
  style: myStyleFunction,
});

MapLibre GL JS

map.addSource('ddb', {
  type: 'vector',
  tiles: [`${baseApi}/mvt/${entryHash}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf`],
  minzoom: 0,
  maxzoom: 18,
});
map.addLayer({ id: 'ddb-poly', type: 'fill', source: 'ddb',
               'source-layer': 'default', paint: { 'fill-color': '#36c' } });

WMTS

WMTS exposes the per-dataset tile pyramid both as KVP (GetCapabilities / GetTile) and as a RESTful tile template.

GetCapabilities

curl '{base}/wmts?service=WMTS&request=GetCapabilities&version=1.0.0'

Use SECTIONS to request a subset of the capabilities document, e.g. &SECTIONS=Contents.

RESTful tiles

{base}/wmts/1.0.0/{layer}/{style}/{tileMatrixSet}/{z}/{y}/{x}.{ext}

{ext} is validated by the route and only the following are accepted:

Extension	Media type	Layer kind
`pbf`	`application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile`	vector
`png`	`image/png`	raster
`jpg` / `jpeg`	`image/jpeg`	raster

WebP is not a supported WMTS tile format - requesting .webp returns 404 Not Found (the route does not match) rather than a tile, because the underlying tile generator only emits PNG/JPEG for rasters and MVT for vectors.

{layer} may be percent-encoded when it contains a path separator (e.g. folder%2Ffile.shp).

KVP GetTile

curl '{base}/wmts?service=WMTS&request=GetTile&version=1.0.0' \
     --data-urlencode 'layer=odm_orthophoto.tif' \
     --data-urlencode 'style=default' \
     --data-urlencode 'format=image/png' \
     --data-urlencode 'tileMatrixSet=WebMercatorQuad' \
     --data-urlencode 'tileMatrix=14' \
     --data-urlencode 'tileRow=5824' \
     --data-urlencode 'tileCol=8550' \
     -G -o tile.png

WCS

GetCapabilities & version negotiation

WCS supports three protocol generations and negotiates the version per request:

VERSION (WCS 1.0 / 1.1 style) - an exact match is used, otherwise the highest supported version less than or equal to the requested one.
ACCEPTVERSIONS (OWS Common 2.0 style, comma-separated) - the first version in the client's preference order that the server also supports is selected (client-driven order, not server-highest).
When neither is supplied, the server advertises its highest version (2.0.1).

If no requested version can be satisfied the server returns an ows:ExceptionReport with code VersionNegotiationFailed.

# Ask for 1.1.x first, fall back to 2.0.1
curl '{base}/wcs?service=WCS&request=GetCapabilities&acceptversions=1.1.1,2.0.1'

GetCoverage

curl '{base}/wcs?service=WCS&request=GetCoverage&version=2.0.1' \
     --data-urlencode 'coverageId=dsm.tif' \
     --data-urlencode 'format=image/tiff' \
     --data-urlencode 'subset=E(1110000,1130000)' \
     --data-urlencode 'subset=N(4900000,4920000)' \
     -G -o dsm.tif

format accepts image/tiff (GeoTIFF), image/png and image/jpeg.

OGC API – Features & Tiles

The OGC API surface is mounted at /orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}/ogcapi and returns JSON.

Method & path	Purpose
`GET /ogcapi`	Landing page (links to conformance & collections)
`GET /ogcapi/conformance`	Conformance declaration
`GET /ogcapi/collections`	List collections (one per vector layer)
`GET /ogcapi/collections/{collectionId}`	Single collection metadata
`GET /ogcapi/collections/{collectionId}/items`	Features as GeoJSON (`bbox`, `limit`, `offset`)
`GET /ogcapi/collections/{collectionId}/items/{featureId}`	Single feature (GeoJSON)
`GET /ogcapi/collections/{collectionId}/tiles`	Available tile sets for the collection
`GET /ogcapi/collections/{collectionId}/tiles/{tileMatrixSet}/{z}/{y}/{x}`	A single tile

Items are returned with media type application/geo+json. Tiles are returned with the media type matching the layer kind: vector layers serve application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile, raster layers serve image/png.

# Features
curl '{base}/ogcapi/collections/contours.gpkg/items?bbox=9.18,45.46,9.20,45.48&limit=500'

# A vector tile (served as application/vnd.mapbox-vector-tile)
curl '{base}/ogcapi/collections/contours.gpkg/tiles/WebMercatorQuad/14/5824/8550' -o tile.pbf

Endpoint reference

All routes are relative to {base} = /orgs/{orgSlug}/ds/{dsSlug}.

Service	Route
WMS	`GET {base}/wms` (KVP), `GET {base}/wms/p/{folder}` (folder-scoped)
WFS	`GET {base}/wfs`, `GET {base}/wfs/p/{folder}`
WMTS	`GET {base}/wmts`, `GET {base}/wmts/p/{folder}`, `GET {base}/wmts/1.0.0/{layer}/{style}/{tms}/{z}/{y}/{x}.{ext}`
WCS	`GET {base}/wcs`
OGC API	`GET {base}/ogcapi[/conformance
MVT	`GET {base}/mvt/{hash}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf`

Error handling

OGC exceptions follow the version-appropriate envelope. The service is detected from the request path and the protocol version is negotiated per service, so the same error always renders with the correct schema - including authentication and authorization failures, which are emitted by the shared OGC pipeline rather than the generic Registry error page.

Service / version	Envelope
WMS 1.1.1	`ServiceExceptionReport` v1.1.1
WMS 1.3.0	`ServiceExceptionReport` (namespace `http://www.opengis.net/ogc`)
WCS 1.0.0	`ServiceExceptionReport` v1.2.0 (predates OWS Common)
WCS 2.0	`ows:ExceptionReport` (OWS 2.0 namespace)
WFS 2.0 / WMTS 1.0 / WCS 1.1	`ows:ExceptionReport` (OWS 1.1 namespace)

Authentication failures return HTTP 401 with a WWW-Authenticate: Basic challenge and an exception envelope (code AuthenticationFailed) matching the requested service. Datasets that cannot be found return 404 with code NotFound.

Common codes: MissingParameterValue, InvalidParameterValue, LayerNotDefined, OperationNotSupported, InvalidFormat, VersionNegotiationFailed, AuthenticationFailed.

Caching

WMS/WCS responses set Cache-Control: public, max-age=300.
MVT and WMTS tiles set Cache-Control: public, max-age=86400, immutable because they are deterministic build artefacts keyed by entry hash.
The layer catalog (entries enumeration) is cached in Redis for 5 minutes per (org, dataset, folder).

Supported standards​

Quick start​

WMS GetCapabilities​

WMS GetMap​

WFS GetFeature (GeoJSON)​

MVT tile​

QGIS step-by-step​

1 – Add a WMS connection​

2 – Add a WFS connection​

3 – Add an OGC API – Features connection​

4 – Add an XYZ tile layer (MVT)​

OpenLayers (Vue 3)​

MapLibre GL JS​

WMTS​

GetCapabilities​

RESTful tiles​

KVP GetTile​

WCS​

GetCapabilities & version negotiation​

GetCoverage​

OGC API – Features & Tiles​

Endpoint reference​

Error handling​

Caching​

See also​