I'm currently working on a Web project, which should display tracks of vessels (similar to Marinetraffic).
I have the data of the past track of the vessel (LAT/LON; Course, Speed) saved in a NMEA-file.
Here is the approach that Marinetraffic.com took to visualize its track data:
For me it looks like the track visualization consists of points (the LAT / LON information, displayed here trough an arrow icon), which are connected trough lines. First question: would you agree with that? Or should I approach differently?
Here is my current approach:
With the help of ChatGPT I've managed to build a simple HTML site with JS, which allows to upload a NMEA-file, which will then be displayed on a Leaflet-Map. Second question: Is Leaflet a good Maptool to use? Can you figure out, what Marinetraffic.com is using?
I'm displaying each geographic point I have on the map, and connecting them with a simple line, so they will make a track in the end.
My next step to get a similar view to the Marinetraffic-view, I've provided in the first screenshot. I want to swap the points with arrow-icons, which will be then roated to match the ship's course. However, this brings me into troubles because I have nearly 11400 geographic points displayed on the map. It will lag a lot. So I've looked how Marinetraffic solved this. You can see it here: https://imgur.com/a/yzAEBEf
They use some kind of clustering (?). So if you zoom further away, less points will be displayed, so it doesnt have to load a massive amount of points. If you zoom in, more points will be displayed. I've tried to use the clustering of Leaflet, which works, but I dont like how it displays the amount of "clustered" in a colored circle. Third question: I want that it exactly works like shown in the video. Any ideas how to implement that?
Thanks in advance.