Leaflet, WebGL & the Future of Web Mapping

Used by thousands of developers for online interactive maps, Leaflet may be the most popular FOSS4G library ever created. But with exciting new trends like WebGL and client-side vector maps, and new mapping libraries providing functionality similar to Leaflet, some people believe that its days are numbered.

But is Leaflet really going away anytime soon? Can it live in harmony with cutting-edge technologies? How will the web mapping landscape look in the near future? And what are the next big challenges? A talk by the creator and maintainer of Leaflet and core developer of Mapbox GL JS.

Transcript

1. Leaflet, WebGL
   and the future of
   web mapping
   Vladimir Agafonkin
   11.03.15
   

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3. Vladimir Agafonkin
   

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4. by far the most used
   open source map library
   

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16. creating a web map in 2008
    

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17. born against
    all odds
    

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18. no way you could do that
    

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19. You’re wasting time
    

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20. build an OPENLAYERS wrapper
    

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21. born as a protest
    against bloat, clutter
    and complexity
    

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22. top priorities:
    simplicity
    performance
    

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23. feature need
    complexity
    simplify
    

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24. 1.0
    

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28. 0.7
    1.0-dev
    WTF
    yay!
    

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30. Leaflet 1.0 trap,
    episode 1 of many:
    flyover animations
    

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32. arbitrary
    animation curve
    fractional zoom
    

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33. fractional zoom:
    map.setZoom(12.67)
    

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34. arbitrary
    animation curve
    multi-zoom pyramid
    tile loading
    

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36. fractional zoom
    rewrite half of
    Leaflet code
    

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37. code refactoring
    

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38. CSS transitions:
    very fast,
    impossible to control
    precisely, still buggy
    

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39. frame by frame
    animations:
    full control,
    much slower
    

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40. significantly degrade Leaflet
    performance,
    or introduce confusing
    limitations, fragility and
    complexity by having two
    animation systems?
    

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41. sometimes
    browsers
    break
    

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43. sorry guys
    

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44. oh and did I
    mention
    Android?
    

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45. tweaking leaflet animations
    

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46. my map broke
    in IE7!!!
    

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47. tough problems,
    hard choices,
    uncertainty,
    constant stream of
    issues and support
    requests,
    lots of work
    

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48. feeling anxiety
    and guilt
    and pressure
    

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50. open
    source
    burnout
    

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51. vlad adds a feature to leaflet
    

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52. it’s a trap!
    

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53. Vlad
    retreats
    to his
    happy
    place
    

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54. RBush
    

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55. • rbush
    • earcut
    • simpleheat
    • simplify-js
    • geojson-vt
    • pbf
    • geobuf
    • suncalc
    • dead-simple-grid
    • bullshit.js
    

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56. war in ukraine
    

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57. father of
    twin girls
    

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60. 0.7.3 — 1.0
    

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61. sharing the joy of
    successful refactoring
    

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62. animations
    & usability
    

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63. flyover animations
    

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64. much better
    tile loading
    (smoother, less flickering)
    

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65. much better
    panning inertia
    

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66. smoother zoom
    on iOS Safari
    

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67. popup fade out
    animation
    

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68. accessibility
    improvements
    

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69. vectors 2.0
    

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70. Use SVG & Canvas
    on the same map
    

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71. put vectors in
    custom panes
    

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72. huge SVG layers
    performance boost:
    adding ~3x faster,
    takes ~2.5 less memory
    

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73. huge Canvas layers
    performance boost:
    partial redraws,
    faster mouse events
    

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74. Canvas layers
    now retina-enabled
    

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75. solved all problems with
    MultiPolygon & MultiPolyline:
    no longer inherited from
    FeatureGroup
    

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76. Polyline & Polygon
    Centroids
    

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77. TileLayer
    

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78. TileLayer split into
    GridLayer & TileLayer
    

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79. GridLayer is the new
    TileLayer.Canvas
    

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80. Projections
    

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81. No hardcoded
    projection hacks,
    all centralized in CRS
    

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82. CRS defines everything:
    how tiles wrap,
    what are the bounds,
    distance measure, etc.
    

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83. Proj4Leaflet FTW
    

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84. Layers
    

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85. all layers now inherited
    from Layer class
    less code, more consistency,
    good for plugins
    

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86. Custom Pane
    Management
    

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87. ImageOverlay events
    

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88. other performance
    improvements
    

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89. much faster
    Layer construction
    (delegated DOM events and
    other optimizations)
    

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90. huge FeatureGroup
    performance boost
    due to better event
    propagation mechanism
    

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91. much better memory
    footprint for DOM &
    Leaflet events
    

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92. LatLng construction
    8x faster
    

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93. obj.off(event, listener)
    2x faster
    

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94. more stable:
    less freezes
    and race conditions
    

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95. …and many other
    bugfixes and
    improvements
    

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96. best of all?
    it got smaller!
    

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97. Uncompressed: 212.80 KB (-2910 bytes)
    Compressed: 120.17 KB (-2482 bytes)
    Gzipped: 32.79 KB (+18 bytes)
    master vs stable
    

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98. state of 1.0
    

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100. 1.0 beta
     

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101. VLAD TRIES TO FINISH 1.0
     

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102. Leaflet’s neat,
     but Vlad, wouldn’t it be
     awesome to have
     rotation? ^___^
     

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104. Mapbox GL
     

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111. drawing a line
     in WebGL
     

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115. drawing a line
     in WebGL
     is a hard problem
     

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116. drawing a polygon
     in WebGL
     

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117. github.com/mapbox/earcut
     

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118. drawing a polygon
     in WebGL
     is a very hard problem
     

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119. drawing text
     in WebGL
     

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122. placing labels
     in Mapbox GL
     

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126. holy
     f***ing
     sh*t
     

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127. displaying GeoJSON
     in Mapbox GL
     

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129. github.com/mapbox/geojson-vt
     

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130. vlad tries to borrow
     Mapbox GL feature for leaflet
     

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131. Vlad,
     how about adding a
     WebGL renderer to
     Leaflet? ^___^
     

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133. meant to be
     simple
     

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134. Leaflet will remain the
     go-to mapping library:
     dead simple,
     easy to use,
     works on all platforms, 

     tons of plugins,
     huge community,
     everyone knows it
     

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135. meant to be very complex,
     and push the boundaries
     of what’s possible
     Mapbox GL
     

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136. opposite sides
     of spectrum
     

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137. excited to be
     pushing both
     

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