Re:Why Mercator for the Web?
by nemo on Saturday May 30, 2015 @06:32PM
(#9632036)
"It starts with a lie"
Web Mercator is a Mercator projection, so it's not a lie, just slightly imprecise.
"which is admitted in the very end of the post"
The post discusses Web Mercator in the second sentence.
"The most obvious reason to use web-mercator is it is easily computed."
Which the article discusses.
"For me, as a user, it is inconvenient. I almost never care for north to be exactly on top."
Google maps has a lot of users with various use cases. For uses involving directions, conformal maps are better, and the maps are heavily used for that. All engineering decisions are compromises, Google's compromises apparently were the best for their expected use cases.
Web Mercator is a Mercator projection, so it's not a lie, just slightly imprecise.
"which is admitted in the very end of the post"
The post discusses Web Mercator in the second sentence.
"The most obvious reason to use web-mercator is it is easily computed."
Which the article discusses.
"For me, as a user, it is inconvenient. I almost never care for north to be exactly on top."
Google maps has a lot of users with various use cases. For uses involving directions, conformal maps are better, and the maps are heavily used for that. All engineering decisions are compromises, Google's compromises apparently were the best for their expected use cases.