Rasters

Raster data is composed of grids of pixels, where each pixel contains a value representing specific information, such as temperature, elevation, or vegetation indices. These datasets can represent continuous surfaces or sparse data with defined no-data regions. The CARTO platform provides seamless tools for importing, analyzing and visualizing raster sources directly in your data warehouse.

Visualizing rasters

To visualize raster sources, they must first be stored in your data warehouse using the CARTO raster loader. This tool ensures your raster files are properly uploaded and formatted for seamless integration with the CARTO platform. Learn more about preparing and uploading your raster data.

To optimize performance, raster sources should include overviews—lower-resolution versions of the raster data—enabling efficient visualization at different zoom levels. Additionally, if your raster source contains a color interpreter (e.g., palette, grayscale, or RGB), CARTO will automatically apply default styling based on the metadata, making it easier to quickly render the raster on your map.

Note the current limitations and specific requirements for raster sources:

• Raster sources cannot be queried directly through SQL functions, meaning they are not compatible with SQL Editor or SQL Parameters. This is similar to the behavior of pre-generated tilesets.

• Raster sources are currently supported for Google BigQuery, Snowflake and Databricks environments.