5 ms·

Was new to me, but it seems "slippy map" is open-streetmap's terminology for a generic zoomable-pannable web map view, here used to refer to any such UI - wheth

Was new to me, but it seems "slippy map" is open-streetmap's terminology for a generic zoomable-pannable web map view, here used to refer to any such UI - whether backed by OSM or google or bing or whoever's map data. Feels like a weird word choice to me, when 'map' was right there, but who are we to judge.

th0ma5 5y ago
This is a very old term used to try to describe the Google Maps interface to people who never used an octree multidirectional scrolling and zooming image collection.
- boomlinde 5y ago
  I would have guessed that they use quadtrees for this, splitting each non-leaf node into quadrants of more detailed maps as you zoom in.
  - incanus77 5y ago
    It's a quadtree of sorts, but is typically done via map projection (web mercator) math so that each tile is replaced by four tiles at the next highest (more zoomed-in) zoom level. Number of tiles to cover the world at zoom z = 4^z
michaelt 5y ago
Before Google Maps came out, online maps all looked like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20060428160705/http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&ukwidth=289&ukheight=301&scale=%0D%0A2000000&lang=&overviewmap=GB_over&db=&g.x=211&g.y=242 https://web.archive.org/web/20060428160705/http://www.multim... and this: https://web.archive.org/web/20050528023529/http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?addr=LGA https://web.archive.org/web/20050528023529/http://maps.yahoo... View the map a single tile at a time, no dragging the map, no moving by less than a tile, no zooming with the mousewheel, every move and zoom a full pageload. (You'll also notice the older maps are much higher contrast than Google Maps - the older maps being modelled on printed paper maps)
- tyingq 5y ago
  >every move and zoom a full pageload That seems expected, since XMLHttpRequest wasn't really broadly standard until 2003/4 or so. Mapquest and other incumbents didn't move fast enough to use it.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    But you could use Javascript to replace one image with another - or to move elements around the page in response to the mouse. (Back in those days common usage was limited to trivial things like making buttons change colour on mouseover)
    - tyingq 5y ago
      I don't know that would be enough to deal with panning and zooming a tile based map, at least not without some severe hackery.
- jameshart 5y ago
  Such maps presumably still had the issue of ocean tiles.

th0ma5 5y ago

This is a very old term used to try to describe the Google Maps interface to people who never used an octree multidirectional scrolling and zooming image collection.

boomlinde 5y ago
I would have guessed that they use quadtrees for this, splitting each non-leaf node into quadrants of more detailed maps as you zoom in.
- incanus77 5y ago
  It's a quadtree of sorts, but is typically done via map projection (web mercator) math so that each tile is replaced by four tiles at the next highest (more zoomed-in) zoom level. Number of tiles to cover the world at zoom z = 4^z

michaelt 5y ago

Before Google Maps came out, online maps all looked like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20060428160705/http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&ukwidth=289&ukheight=301&scale=%0D%0A2000000&lang=&overviewmap=GB_over&db=&g.x=211&g.y=242 https://web.archive.org/web/20060428160705/http://www.multim... and this: https://web.archive.org/web/20050528023529/http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?addr=LGA https://web.archive.org/web/20050528023529/http://maps.yahoo... View the map a single tile at a time, no dragging the map, no moving by less than a tile, no zooming with the mousewheel, every move and zoom a full pageload. (You'll also notice the older maps are much higher contrast than Google Maps - the older maps being modelled on printed paper maps)

tyingq 5y ago
>every move and zoom a full pageload That seems expected, since XMLHttpRequest wasn't really broadly standard until 2003/4 or so. Mapquest and other incumbents didn't move fast enough to use it.
- michaelt 5y ago
  But you could use Javascript to replace one image with another - or to move elements around the page in response to the mouse. (Back in those days common usage was limited to trivial things like making buttons change colour on mouseover)
  - tyingq 5y ago
    I don't know that would be enough to deal with panning and zooming a tile based map, at least not without some severe hackery.
jameshart 5y ago
Such maps presumably still had the issue of ocean tiles.