Abstract: Aiming to solve the problem of the long preprocessing time when visualizing real-time high resolution remote sensing images with bigfile formats (GB level), a real-time generation method using self-adaptive pyramid tiles is proposed in this paper. Relying on operation continuity and span level, user operations are divided into different modes. On basis of the demands for various resolutions, tiles with different LODs, are generated, in an adaptive way and are dynamically selected and scheduled in order, so tiles of images at higher resolution are rendered in a timely way. This method satisfies the need for 'What You See Is What You Get' browsing of a scene in real time, regarded as a challenge in traditional methods, including advanced generation of a pyramid in disk or memory caches. Experiments with ZY-3 satellite images show the validity of this method.