I would define a tile as a slice of geometries, not whole features.
The difference with Tileless' approach, is that they load whole features from the database and don't split them into tiles. So if a feature extends outside the current view, they would load the whole geometry rather than the intersection of the tile's extent and the geometry.
Vector tiles are optimized for concurrent downloads and browser / CDN caching and doing a good job of that.
There are no tiles. All geometry is loaded and rendered directly from an SQLite database on every render.
Geometry is stored as TWKB (Tiny Well-Known Binary) to reduce storage and transport size. During decoding, they do clever work using aggregate functions and reusing buffers across rows to reduce allocations.
There is real potential in the tech, but unfortunately little momentum behind it.
> TilelessMap is an open, offline-first mapping engine designed for critical field use,
such as forestry, emergency services, and humanitarian work.
Built with C and optimized for mobile performance, TilelessMap enables full local map
rendering without relying on cloud infrastructure — even in areas with poor or no
internet connectivity.
They have an Android app with maps of Yellowstone, Sweden and Norway.
Libre Office is a well known and big project with a large non-technical user base who can make use of some great documentation. As an editor the project might be relevant to yourself too. https://www.libreoffice.org/community/docs-team/
The difference with Tileless' approach, is that they load whole features from the database and don't split them into tiles. So if a feature extends outside the current view, they would load the whole geometry rather than the intersection of the tile's extent and the geometry.
Vector tiles are optimized for concurrent downloads and browser / CDN caching and doing a good job of that.