It you have a data format or readers that support tiles, you may have to create the tiles and tile loaders in a specific start method. Here is an example used in the shapefile data source:

public void start() throws Exception
{
// construct a tiled shape tile loader
  IlvShapeFileTileLoader tileLoader = new IlvShapeFileTileLoader(shp, dbf,shx, idx);
  tileLoader.setCoordinateSystem(getCoordinateSystem());
tileLoader.setFeatureRenderer(getFeatureRenderer());
// create a threaded tile loader to load the shape data on a background thread.
  IlvTiledLayer tiledLayer = (IlvTiledLayer)getInsertionLayer().
     getManagerLayer();
  IlvThreadedTileLoader threadedLoader = new IlvThreadedTileLoader(tileLoader,
     true);
tiledLayer.setTileLoader(threadedLoader);
...
// for each tile known by the tile loader
  for (int i = ...) {
    for (int j = ...) {
      // Compute projected tilebounds, ie the bounds of the tile in the manager coordinates
      IlvRect r = IlvMapUtil.computeTransformedBounds(...);
      Point2D.Double ul = new Point2D.Double(r.getX(), r.getY());
      Point2D.Double lr = new Point2D.Double(r.getX() + r.getWidth(), r.getY() + r.getHeight());
tiledLayer.getTileController().addTile(new IlvMapFreeTile(ul, lr,
   tiledLayer.getTileController(), i, j));
    }
  }
}