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Comment by lawdawg | Hacker News Reader

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lawdawg

Google Maps are vector based as well...

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> Google Maps are vector based as well...

src: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-maps-is-now-av...

Not on my cell phone.

I think you're mistaken. They are on Android so it seems odd they wouldn't be.

The ability to zoom to arbitrary levels with no pixellation seems to imply it most definitely is vector.

On iOS it appears they're a mixture of bitmap tiles and vector text. I definitely see pixelation of roads at certain zoom levels.

Can you give steps to reproduce? I was looking specifically at road outlines and they seemed like they were definitely vector.

Satellite views are obviously bitmap.

I don't have an iOS device, but here are my steps to reproduce on Android. Open a map. Turn on airplane mode. Zoom in. See pixels

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png

The pixellation here is your phone waiting to download the higher-res vector tile. While it waits for the higher-res tile it draws a bitmap representation of the lower-res tile "above" it.

Surely if it's vector done right they can draw the lower detail vector tile at the higher bitmap res?

No because the amount of detail will change at each zoom level. Smaller roads and a higher number of local details appear.

They're not infinitely vectors. They're still tiles. If they were to use the zoomed in tile, when zoomed out, even with vectors, you'd get something unrecognizable.

It's the same reason that fonts and icons are brought up when people espouse the "vectors will save everything"! They do a lot of nice things but for something like Google Maps, I can't imagine how they'd implement "true vectors" in a practical phone-applicable way.

No, they're vectors, intelligent vectors that add and remove features at different zoom levels.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/google-maps-is-now-av...

I am using an Android device. And I do clearly see pixelation when I zoom in, before the new tiles load.

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png

Which version of the Maps app are you using?

I don't see these blurred pixels on my phone, but note that this kind of rendering can also happen with a vector based map: The application has to convert the vector information to a bitmap anyway, for a given zoom level. When zooming in, it is possible that the app shows a zoomed-in version of this bitmap while it is generating a new one in the background.

By the way, it is not necessary to answer every single comment with a link to your screenshot. It is annoying to see the same thing repeated 5 times when reading the thread.

I'm using 6.14.1.

I answered all the relevant replies individually because I thought that would make those people more likely to see it. Sorry for annoying you.

Well now you have five answers like mine :)

Same version here though the UI looks very different. I can actually reproduce what you describe but only at low zoom levels, which makes sense: the temporary display of a bitmap at the wrong zoom level is more apparent when the phone needs more time to render a lot of vector data (there is less data to render when zoomed-in).

Curiously, I wonder what they do then because they definitely have the vector data in the backend. Google Maps for Android has been vector based for 1.5 to 2 years now.

I'm using google maps for android. When I zoom in, I can clearly see the pixelation of the tiles before the new tiles load. The google play store doesn't show any updates for the app. Where are you getting your information?

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png

I have this on an old HTC phone. The UI is totally different, I think they have different layout controls for the "newness" of the phone. Having said that, it's possible the vector data is still being used, but renders to bitmap when zooming for some reason. I can't recall this happening on my S2 though (dead now, can't test)

But we're talking about the new Google Maps app for iOS, which is not the same as Google Maps for Android (its a newer ground-up design with different features.)

Perhaps you need to install the App we're all talking about then. It's most definitely vector based.

I thought we were talking about the Google Maps app. Because that's what I'm talking about.

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png

Well, for starters, you're not using an iPhone and that's not what the Google Maps app for iOS looks like.

Regardless, your screenshot shows no evidence that the maps aren't vector based. You simply don't have the high-resolution data for that area and Google's UI is showing that to you by burring it. Apple Maps doesn't blur, it just doesn't show you any details. I like knowing that there is information I am missing, the blur is handy.

Which means you must be using it in a browser, on a Java phone/blackberry, or in iOS 5. Try the new iOS app or an Android phone.

I'm using the maps app on and Android phone. When I zoom in, I see the pixelation before the new tileset loads.

Here's a screenshot I took after I enabled airplane mode: http://i.imgur.com/wc5Ie.png

It's definitely vector-based. What you're seeing is that the vector tile gets rendered to a bitmap for display. If you zoom in quickly, rather than re-render the bitmap over and over, it just scales the pre-rendered bitmap. When the new zoomed-in tile loads, then it re-renders that tile.

Also, even though it's vector-based, there's still different tiles for different zoom levels. For example, with different levels of detail.

The new app is vector based and has turn by turn directions.

Google refused Apple access to both of those features in the original "Maps" app (in iOS <= 5), but they conveniently included them in their new Google Maps app. :)

Google refused to allow Apple access because Apple was unwilling to allow more Google branding and Latitude support. It was a breakdown in negotiations, not either side being selfish.

This comment is clearly unbiased (and correct), which makes it all the more annoying that your comment (elsewhere in this thread) about Google's early troubles with search in their own app store has been being voted down.

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