CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-mapsgoogle-earth
timbo
timbo

Reputation: 14334

Google Earth vs Google Maps for low bandwidth users

I am preparing to develop a mapping app that places semi-transparent tiled images over ocean to show weekly output from satellite data passed through an algorithm. I have worked with Maps placing landmarks before using custom Javascript and have created/modified simple KML files. Some of my users have advised they are on low-bandwidth connections (i.e. Pacific islands) of about 256Kbit.

For these folks, which is going to give better performance? I imagine that GE as a thick client will be generally more responsive and I have heard that some data can be cached, but I also think that Google Maps is likely very highly optimised for performance and is obviously a thin (browser) client.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1569

Answers (2)

Argiropoulos Stavros
Argiropoulos Stavros

Reputation: 9533

You could put expires headers on you kml to enable caching on the browser and as a plus you can implement some kind of around the viewport precaching at connection idle time so they can experience a better performance.

Upvotes: 0

Wyatt Anderson
Wyatt Anderson

Reputation: 9893

If you have the option, why not just provide KML files and let the users use whatever KML-consuming client they wish? That way, you could develop for Google Maps, but if they want to use Google Earth or some other desktop client that may aggressively cache or simply provide map data on-disk, they can use your KML data as an overlay.

Upvotes: 1

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