New mapping service...

[Ed McNierney]

Camden -

The Google maps are serving pre-generated map image tiles at all zoom
scales.  This is much the same thing Microsoft TerraServer has been
doing since 1998, and it works fine as long as the user has no control
over the map display (other than zoom and pan).  You simply pre-generate
a zillion image tiles and display the ones you need.  TopoZone v1 did
the same thing in 1999, although we've been a MapServer application for
a while (since we moved to offering more than simple zoom/pan of one
data set).

The dragging/panning model depends entirely on the server/network
ability to keep serving more image tiles to fill in the edges as you
move.  The results get a little hard to use when the dragging keeps
starting/stopping due to network delay.

But Sean's right - if you'd like to pan across a set of prebuilt image
tiles, it's just some JavaScript in your browser.  In fact, YOU'VE got
the code on your computer already <g>.

        - Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242  

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Camden Daily
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 10:25 AM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] New mapping service...

$1 to the first person who can get that slick click-and-drag panning
working in Mapserver.