#2012 fast vector maps using 1950's technology!
Sort of like a tiled geojson vector layer, but using binary formats and
JavaScript ArrayBuffers and DataViews. Inspired by
Vizzuality/CartoDB's Vecnik project, using a very simple format based on OGC WKB. (There is a pure WKB version at tag wellknownbinary.)
The underlying representation of the geometries is described in sister project
readme canvasback. This project takes canvasback's ArrayBuffer based
tile map service and renders them to canvas.
There are maybe a couple ways to do that: two versions are here
in 1) bicsy and 2) widgeon. The former is lightly modified from
mbostock/pixymaps and renders to a single canvas, the latter is
one canvas per tile in a map container element. Fingers crossed for
d3.geom.tile which is also like pixymaps and is in the d3 tracker.
(old) Live examples here: http://wkb.guacamol.es/osmwkb/_design/osmstreets/all.html
Very alpha, will have an interaction component inspired by this: https://github.com/bloomtime/d3map
More examples, heavier than image tiles in general but pretty usably fast, and this is without many well-thought-out PostGIS queries:
OSM points as flowers and roads as chalk on grass:
street map:
Way too many geometries from Eric Fischer's 2010 Locals-Tourists visualizations: (http://flickr.com/walkingsf)
Bunch of OSM polygons, streets, and points in layers: