write_tiff: Write query results to a GeoTIFF file

In vectra: Columnar Query Engine for Larger-than-RAM Data

Write query results to a GeoTIFF file

Description

The data must contain x and y columns (pixel center coordinates) and one or more numeric band columns. Grid dimensions and geotransform are inferred from the x/y coordinate arrays. Missing pixels are written as NaN (or the type-appropriate nodata value for integer pixel types).

Usage

write_tiff(
  x,
  path,
  compress = FALSE,
  pixel_type = "float64",
  metadata = NULL,
  crs = NULL,
  tiled = FALSE,
  tile_size = 256L,
  bigtiff = "auto",
  ...
)

Arguments

x	A vectra_node (lazy query) or a data.frame.
path	File path for the output GeoTIFF file.
compress	Logical; use DEFLATE compression? Default FALSE.
pixel_type	Character string specifying the output pixel type. One of "float64" (default), "float32", "int16", "int32", "uint8", or "uint16".
metadata	Optional character string of GDAL_METADATA XML to embed in the file (tag 42112). Use tiff_metadata() to read it back.
crs	Optional CRS to embed as a GeoKey directory (TIFF tag 34735). Accepts an integer EPSG code, an "EPSG:xxxx" string, or a list with named fields epsg, geographic (TRUE/FALSE), and optionally citation. Codes that are not auto-classified as projected/geographic default to projected; pass geographic = TRUE to override. Use tiff_crs() to read it back.
tiled	Logical; write a tiled GeoTIFF (TIFF tags 322/323/324/325) instead of strips. Default FALSE. Tiled layout enables random-access block reads and is required for Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (COG).
tile_size	Integer; tile edge length in pixels. Must be a positive multiple of 16 (TIFF spec). Either a single value (square tiles) or a length-2 vector c(width, height). Default 256. Edge tiles at the right and bottom of the image are padded to full tile size with the NoData / NaN value.
bigtiff	Controls BigTIFF dispatch. "auto" (default) emits BigTIFF when the expected raw payload would exceed the classic-TIFF 4 GB ceiling, otherwise emits classic TIFF. TRUE forces BigTIFF (magic 0x002B, 64-bit offsets), useful for round-trip tests on small data. FALSE forces classic TIFF — beware that classic TIFF will silently corrupt outputs larger than 4 GB. Tiled BigTIFF is not yet supported.
...	Reserved for future use.

Value

Invisible NULL.

Examples

# Write as int16 with DEFLATE compression and an EPSG:4326 GeoKey
df <- data.frame(x = 1:4, y = rep(1:2, each = 2), band1 = c(100, 200, 300, 400))
f <- tempfile(fileext = ".tif")
write_tiff(df, f, compress = TRUE, pixel_type = "int16", crs = 4326L)
tiff_crs(f)
unlink(f)

vectra documentation built on May 8, 2026, 9:06 a.m.