Google Maps is no longer a flat map • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map

#171

Post by timoto » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

gefh wrote: post #105

dudus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I particularly like the transition when zoomed out and toggling the Globe button.

Thanks, I delayed the release to squeeze that in :)

A breath of fresh air, being able to visualise our place in the world as it truly is.

I think it's all fantastic, extremely fast, smooth, love the inertia on spin, the camera movement or simulation of is great, occlusion of objects nicely done.

Would like to see an example with clustering.

Is it possible to add elevation data ?

Is it possible to access this mode in the API to use the webgl version ?

Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map

#172

Post by astrodust » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

gefh wrote: post #106

deathanatos wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At low zoom levels. Given the behavior of the poles (they're not viewable; the south is also a black hole…), I suspect that there's a very smoothly done transition to web mercator for the higher zoom levels.

Correct. At high zooms, the trig required in the spherical math becomes inaccurate, so we fade back to simple web mercator.

Cartography wouldn't be able to use all these cheap tricks if the poles were habitable territory.

Can you imagine the distortion on a map of a small town located at the pole if Mercator was used?

Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map

#173

Post by sdinsn » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

szatkus wrote: post #88

sdinsn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the map either (and I'm in US).

I see it in Europe. Probably affected by your browser and/or extensions.

It works on Chrome. Did they disable it for FF?