Mapbox GL for the Web
mapbox.com
mapbox.com
I think that's a mistake — Leaflet is solid and is the foundation on which a lot of extensions are built, to the point where my impression is that it's pretty much the de facto JS-based map widget these days.
While the new library looks decent, I don't see the point of creating a brand new library rather than extending Leaflet, other than to force clients to couple tightly to Mapbox's API, tile server etc.
It makes a lot of sense because this library is vastly different from usual slippy maps — fluid continuous zoom & rotation, extremely powerful visualization and interactivity potential, no DOM constraints — fitting it into the Leaflet API which was designed for simple image tile-based maps would be very limiting.
On the other hand, Mapbox GL JS is a very complicated technology under the hood, it is much heavier, with more code, lots of algorithms, serious backend technology to support it etc. So there's a place for both libraries — Leaflet remaining the go-to super-simple, friendly and lightweight library for most maps, while GL JS being an experimental ground for maps of the future with unlimited potential.
Also, Mapbox GL JS + Leaflet integration plugin is coming soon. Stay tuned :)
Admittedly our gender balance could be a lot better, but I think that's a bit harsh.
Also, it's very different — with OL3, you just have GL rendering usual server-rendered image tiles with some simple vector data overlays, while Mapbox GL JS renders OSM vector data on the client.
I guess some of the old dusty GIS Enterprise Solutions, now _slowly_ have to start worrying about competition in such form (I know you can't compare it to a full Featured GIS, as a map is only a component of many many things that are required to be usefull). Current solutions are way behind and the moment when it comes to the presentation and manipulation of data (imho). They will have to up their game significantly to stay relevant.
Certainly in terms of government systems, I think companies sell to people who will never use the system. Procurement people who worry about getting locked in by Mapbox just like they were with ESRI. Government IT people who want to host everything locally. Sadly in that kind of a sale, user experience doesn't matter so much as it should.
Am I the only one who gets poor performance?
When I drag around the first map quickly, I get about 5 FPS, and the "chrome" process on my system jumps to 100% CPU usage (running Chrome 35.0.1916.153). The same with Firefox Nightly (33.0a1), although the FPS is higher here (10-15 FPS). My CPU is an eight-core AMD FX-8320.
Edit: Just found the native version. A bit heavy on dependencies but basically what I was asking for. :)
Currently my approach is to make the line a little thicker and then apply the anti-aliasing in the frag shader. Similar to GPU Gems "Fast Prefiltered Lines." But it gets tricky with end caps, round joins, etc.
Just this mean, we can style a raw vector map from mapbox without applying styles? I'm not able currently style maps with a huge number of point on vector mapbox due to the tile processing limit. I am able to host the vector file though. Being able to directly style raw vector files on the client really opens the doors to a realm of possibilities.
Note that Mapbox GL is a collaborative effort of a big talented team — a lot of people worked on this, I'm only a minor part.
What about support for mouseovers? Is that possible? Something we can expect soon?
http://i.imgur.com/DNBt4AM.png
It feels like the text pops in and out as large zones, and the zones are unloading themselves before the whole zone is offscreen, sometimes leaving large areas blank.
For reference, the upper image was produced by panning. The area on the right had been showing text, but it vanished as it got near the edge of the screen.
Great job with this! Coming from Google Maps and similar, the smooth motion is mesmerizing, especially labels staying level as you rotate. And tile loading/pop-in is much quicker than what I get from Google.