[Xastir] What is the advantage of one map type over another?

[Jason KG4WSV]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Michael Picco <mpicco at calwisp.net> wrote:
> The RPi has a 16GB flash and is running a version of Debian, so storage
> shouldn't be an issue.

Depends on what type of map, the level of detail, and the area you
wish to cover.

To give you an extreme example, when OSM servers first became
available, I thought to myself, "hey, self, these maps are cool.  Why
don't you cache them so you can use them during balloon chases and
when travelling?"

so I started caching maps.  I was after TN, AL, north GA, and the FL
panhandle.  At all (7?) zoom levels.  After several days (going slow
on purpose trying not to violate OSM server ToS and not be a
server-hogging jerk) I had a couple hundred gigabytes of raster maps -
and I was nowhere near finished.

Vector maps take much less space than raster maps (in general).  They
also require more computation to render.

Raster maps require more storage, and more IO time (more data to move
from storage to memory).  They take a bit of CPU time, due to the
re-projection required.

-Jason
kg4wsv