gdal_translate \"WMS:url\" file.xml -of WMS<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n- Create a Geopackage from the information in the description file.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
gdal_translate -of GPKG file.xml file.gpkg -co TILE_FORMAT=JPEG<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThat was quite simple, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The larger datasets way<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
If the command takes too much time, it means that it is trying to download too much data and could be caused by downloading higher resolution data than required.
The command might even completely fail if it contains a request for bigger data blocks thant the server allows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is the process to get larger datasets in a simple way. Let’s use a real example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Use
gdal_translate \"WMS:https:\/\/www.gebco.net\/data_and_products\/gebco_web_services\/web_map_service\/mapserv?request=getmap&service=wms&crs=EPSG:4326&format=image\/jpeg&layers=gebco_latest&version=1.1.0\" test.xml -of WMS<\/code><\/li>- Open the test.xml file for editing, here you’ll find the parameters of the WMS. We change the \u00ab\u00a0SizeX\u00a0\u00bb to 3600 and \u00ab\u00a0SizeY\u00a0\u00bb to 1800. By changing these parameters we lower the resolution. It is important to keep proportionality.<\/li>
- Another thing we need to change are \u00ab\u00a0BlockSizeX\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0BlockSizeY\u00a0\u00bb that define the size of the tiles. We change both to 2048.<\/li>
- Finally, use
gdal_translate -of GPKG test.xml test.gpkg -co TILE_FORMAT=JPEG<\/code><\/li>- To make a Geopackage pyramid use
gdaladdo GPKG:test.gpkg:gebco_latest<\/code>. It will replace<\/strong> the Geopackage, if you want to keep the original one, you need to copy it first.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\nNow you have a raster Geopackage that you can use in QField.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Testing raster formats<\/h2>\n\n\n\nPreparing the files<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
As first step we exported our test orthophoto WMS to a plain GeoTIFF using QGIS’ default behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/tiff.png?fit=750%2C617&ssl=1\")
Default parameters used to create the initial tiff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\nFormat<\/th> gdal_translate<\/th> gdaladdo<\/th><\/thead> gpkg JPEG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_JPEG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=JPEG\n<\/td> <\/td> gpkg PNG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG<\/td> <\/td> gpkg PNG_JPEG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG_JPEG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG_JPEG<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> gpkg PNG8<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG8.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG8<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> gpkg WEBP<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_WEBP.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=WEBP<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_JPEG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_JPEG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=JPEG<\/td> gdaladdo GPKG:C:\\test\\test_JPEG.gpkg:test_gpkg_JPEG <\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG<\/td> gdaladdo GPKG:C:\\test\\test_PNG.gpkg:test_gpkg_PNG<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG_JPEG<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG_JPEG.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG_JPEG<\/td> gdaladdo GPKG:C:\\test\\test_PNG_JPEG.gpkg:test_gpkg_PNG_JPEG<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG8<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_PNG8.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=PNG8<\/td> gdaladdo GPKG:C:\\test\\test_PNG8.gpkg:test_gpkg_PNG8<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_WEBP<\/td> gdal_translate -of GPKG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_WEBP.gpkg\u00a0\u00bb -co TILE_FORMAT=WEBP<\/td> gdaladdo GPKG:C:\\test\\test_WEBP.gpkg:test_gpkg_WEBP<\/td><\/tr> JPEG2000<\/td> gdal_translate -of JP2OpenJPEG \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_jpeg_2000.jpg\u00a0\u00bb<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> COG DEFLATE<\/td> gdal_translate \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_cog.tif\u00a0\u00bb -co TILED=YES -co COPY_SRC_OVERVIEWS=YES -co COMPRESS=DEFLATE<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> COG_JPEG<\/td> gdal_translate \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_cog_JPEG.tif\u00a0\u00bb -co TILED=YES -co COPY_SRC_OVERVIEWS=YES -co COMPRESS=JPEG<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> tif<\/td> In QGIS right click on the layer > export > save as > (see the details in the picture under the table)<\/td> <\/td><\/tr> MBT<\/td> gdal_translate -of MBTILES \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\ortho_test.tif\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0C:\\test\\test_mbt.mbtiles\u00a0\u00bb<\/td> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\nCreation commands for all the tested formats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nRendering test results<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We have tested many formats, here is a table with the results of the size and rendering speed in QGIS and QField.
To analyze the speed we used qgis_bench.exe -i 10 -p \"C:\\test\\test.qgs\" >> \"C:\\test\\test.log<\/code>.
Qgis_bench is a tool that renders a QGIS project a number of times to get performance measurements. The parameter -i is to define the iterations and -p is the project used which contains only the generated raster.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFormat<\/th> Extent [m]<\/th> File size [GB]<\/th> Total_avg<\/th> Total_maxdev<\/th> Total_min<\/th> Total_stdev<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> gpkg JPEG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.4<\/td> 250.242<\/td> 255.781<\/td> 5.539<\/td> 244.984<\/td><\/tr> gpkg PNG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 2.9<\/td> 412.002<\/td> 490.328<\/td> 152.142<\/td> 259.859<\/td><\/tr> gpkg PNG_JPEG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.4<\/td> 250.125<\/td> 256.875<\/td> 6.750<\/td> 245.172<\/td><\/tr> gpkg PNG8<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 1.4<\/td> 283.875<\/td> 296.406<\/td> 12.625<\/td> 271.250<\/td><\/tr> gpkg WEBP<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.3<\/td> 330.238<\/td> 348.109<\/td> 73.534<\/td> 256.703<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_JPEG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.5<\/td> 1.009<\/td> 3.406<\/td> 2.397<\/td> 0.688<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 3.0<\/td> 1.208<\/td> 3.281<\/td> 2.073<\/td> 0.688<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG_JPEG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.6<\/td> 1.491<\/td> 4.344<\/td> 2.853<\/td> 1.016<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_PNG8<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 1.6<\/td> 1.508<\/td> 4.375<\/td> 2.867<\/td> 0.969<\/td><\/tr> gpkg pyramid_WEBP<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 0.4<\/td> 1.333<\/td> 4.906<\/td> 3.573<\/td> 0.766<\/td><\/tr> JPEG2000<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 1.1<\/td> 13.888<\/td> 136.109<\/td> 122.222<\/td> 0.219<\/td><\/tr> COG DEFLATE<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 3.6<\/td> 264.427<\/td> 273.094<\/td> 25.411<\/td> 239.016<\/td><\/tr> COG_JPEG<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 1.0<\/td> 14.778<\/td> 131.172<\/td> 116.394<\/td> 1.734<\/td><\/tr> tif<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 6.4<\/td> 2.367<\/td> 6.734<\/td> 4.367<\/td> 1.672<\/td><\/tr> MBT<\/td> 52’880\/29’230<\/td> 4.4<\/td> 0.469<\/td> 4.641<\/td> 4.171<\/td> 0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>Comparison of file size and rendering speed of different raster formats. \u00ab\u00a0Total\u00a0\u00bb columns are rendering times in [s]. Lower file size is more storage friendly, lower Total_avg is more performant. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAnalysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\nFile size<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Geopackage WEBP (with and without pyramid) has the best result for file size, but<\/s> it is not yet<\/em> <\/s>supported by QField (from 1.6) and is only<\/s> slightly smaller than the JPEG variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPlain GeoTiff, MBTiles, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG – DEFLATE mode) and Geopackages with PNG generate by far the largest file sizes (up to 20x larger) and are thus not recommended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rendering speed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
MBTiles are on average double as fast as JPEG Geopackages with pyramids which in turn are more than double as fast as GeoTIFF and 15x faster than COG.
Geopackages without pyramids are 200 to 400 times slower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Even though MBTiles render faster than the Geopackage pyramid JPEG, they come with an almost 10x bigger storage requirement which makes us say that the best offline raster format supported by QField is Geopackage pyramid JPEG<\/strong> or if you need transparency and slightly smaller files Geopackage pyramid WebP<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf you need transparency before QField 1.6, the best results are achieved with Geopackage pyramid PNG_JPEG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What are we looking for? We would like to use WMS offline on QField. For that, we need to figure out what is the best way to get a raster from a WMS and which format is the most efficient (size and performance). In this post we’ll show you is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":11479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,38,15,19],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-11434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-processing","category-qfield","category-qgis","category-scripts","tag-qgis-org"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Screenshot-from-2020-06-08-13-00-42.png?fit=1224%2C828&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":293,"url":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/2011\/08\/19\/qgis-data-providers-and-map-canvas\/","url_meta":{"origin":11434,"position":0},"title":"QGIS data providers and map canvas","author":"Marco Bernasocchi","date":"19 ao\u00fbt 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After finishing with the gui(see previous post) i started testing the data providers.reading and writing shp files always ends in an app crash. Loading rasters, wms and gpx seems to work but the mapcanvas is never drawn. I have to investigate why. But probably it has to do with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "Android QGIS"","block_context":{"text":"Android QGIS","link":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/category\/gis\/qfield\/android-qgis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13792,"url":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/2023\/06\/20\/prise-en-charge-de-wmts-dans-le-plugin-de-localisation-suisse-de-qgis\/","url_meta":{"origin":11434,"position":1},"title":"Prise en charge de WMTS dans le plugin de localisation suisse de QGIS","author":"Matthias Kuhn","date":"20 juin 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Le plugin QGIS Swiss Locator facilite la vie de nombreux utilisateurs en Suisse en rendant accessibles les nombreuses g\u00e9odonn\u00e9es de swisstopo et opendata.swiss. 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Dank eines F\u00f6rderprojektes der Anwendergruppe Schweiz durfte OPENGIS.ch ihr Plugin um eine\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "Python"","block_context":{"text":"Python","link":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/category\/programming\/python\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/unnamed.png?fit=512%2C341&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15582,"url":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/2025\/06\/03\/qfield-3-6-gondwana-locking-on-greatness\/","url_meta":{"origin":11434,"position":4},"title":"QField 3.6 \u201cGondwana\u201d: Locking on greatness","author":"Mathieu","date":"3 juin 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Building on top of the last release which introduced background tracking, this development cycle focused on polishing functionalities and building on top of preexisting features. The variety of improvements is sure to make our diverse user base and community excited to upgrade to QField 3.6.","rel":"","context":"Dans "QField"","block_context":{"text":"QField","link":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/category\/gis\/qfield\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/splash.png?fit=1200%2C736&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/splash.png?fit=1200%2C736&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/splash.png?fit=1200%2C736&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/splash.png?fit=1200%2C736&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.opengis.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/splash.png?fit=1200%2C736&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1923,"url":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/2015\/12\/01\/qfield-for-android-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":11434,"position":5},"title":"QField for Android 5","author":"Marco Bernasocchi","date":"1 d\u00e9cembre 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It's done, QField runs on any android from 4.0.3 (ICS) with a seamless installing experience. We suggest using at least Android 4.3","rel":"","context":"Dans "Android QGIS"","block_context":{"text":"Android QGIS","link":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/category\/gis\/qfield\/android-qgis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"QField app on Google Play","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/developer.android.com\/images\/brand\/en_app_rgb_wo_45.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbdBtI-2Yq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11434"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12808,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions\/12808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opengis.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}