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The tiles aren't static raster images, but they're still tiles, made of vector data. You can see them while it's loading. This allows Google to cache the files
by rspeer 9y ago
The tiles aren't static raster images, but they're still tiles, made of vector data. You can see them while it's loading. This allows Google to cache the files they serve.
And when you pan a Google Map, you're panning a flat Web Mercator projection. If it were a projection of the globe, then everything that's already been rendered would have to be adjusted by imperceptible subpixels to account for the curvature of the Earth.
- robbrown451 9y agoWell if it vector data, the "tiles" can simply be a region of a sphere. That alone is not a reason for Mercator. There may be efficiencies of panning a flat projection, but that is becoming a smaller and smaller issue as devices get more capable. Also, even when in "map mode", you will often notice that google maps is doing more than that. Go to a place where there are tall buildings (I'm looking at downtown san francisco) and you can see the perspective shift on the buildings as it pans.