Styling Layers
The Style panel on the right edits the appearance of the layer selected in the Layers panel. Vector and raster layers each get their own set of controls.
Vector styling
For vector layers the Style panel covers fill, stroke, points, labels, and 3D extrusion:
- Fill: fill color and fill opacity for polygons.
- Stroke: line color and width for lines and polygon outlines.
- Points: circle radius for point layers.
- Labels: text field or expression, color, size, halo, placement, scale range, and data-defined overrides. Turning labels on selects a conventional name field automatically when one exists.
- 3D extrusion: turn polygons into extruded blocks, with a height field, height scale, base height, and color. Advanced expressions are available for both height and color.
You can also set a per-style minimum and maximum zoom so a style only applies within a zoom range.
Point renderer (heatmap and clustering)
For point-only GeoJSON layers — whether dropped on the map, produced by a tool, or loaded through Add Vector Layer in the geojson render mode — the Style panel adds a Point renderer control:
| Renderer | Description |
|---|---|
| Single symbol | One circle per point (the default). |
| Heatmap | A density surface colored from cold to hot. Adjust Heatmap radius (the kernel size in pixels) and Heatmap intensity. |
| Clustered | Group nearby points into bubbles labeled with the count; zooming in splits them apart. Adjust the Cluster radius (in pixels) and the Cluster max zoom above which points stop clustering. Individual (unclustered) points keep the layer’s circle style. |
The renderer choice is saved with the project.
Style type (data-driven styling)
The Style type control chooses how feature values map to color:
| Style type | Description |
|---|---|
| Single symbology | One uniform style for every feature. |
| Graduated | Classify a numeric field into classes with a color ramp. Choose the field, the number of classes, a classification scheme (such as equal interval or quantile), and a colormap. |
| Categorized | Assign a color per unique category value of a field. |
| Expression | Drive styling with a custom MapLibre expression for full control. |
For graduated and categorized styles, MappView generates the class breaks or category stops and shows them in the panel, where you can fine-tune individual colors before applying.
Advanced MapLibre paint expressions
Expand Advanced MapLibre paint to drive fill opacity, stroke color, stroke opacity, stroke width, or point radius with feature attributes and camera zoom. Each channel opens the same typed Expression Builder used by filters and labels. MappView validates the expression’s result type at authoring time, again when a project is loaded, and before it reaches MapLibre; an invalid value falls back to the matching literal control.
Saved projects and Style Manager entries retain these expressions. Mapbox GL style JSON imports and exports them on their native paint properties. QGIS QML and OGC SLD cannot represent arbitrary MapLibre expressions, so those exporters use the literal fallback values and show a compatibility warning.
!!! tip “Choropleth maps” To make a choropleth, select Graduated, pick a numeric attribute, choose a colormap, and click Apply style type. See the Your First Map tutorial.
Raster styling
For raster layers the Style panel exposes image adjustments:
- Brightness (minimum and maximum)
- Saturation
- Contrast
- Hue rotation (in degrees)
These let you tune the look of GeoTIFF, COG, and tile-based raster layers without changing the underlying data.
Legends and colorbars
To display a legend or a continuous colorbar on the map, open them from the Controls menu. They reflect the styling you set here.