At pbf speeds, decoding is usually no longer a bottleneck, but bandwidth might be when comparing with gzipped JSON. Also, one of the primary advantages of pbf is being able to decode partially and lazily (and adjust how things are decoded at low level), which is very important in use cases like vector maps.
> At pbf speeds, decoding is usually no longer a bottleneck, but bandwidth might be when comparing with gzipped JSON.
we were streaming a few hundred float datapoints spread across a dozen(ish) flat arrays over websocket at 20-40hz and needed to decode the payload eagerly. plain JSON was a multi-factor speedup over pbf for this case. but it's fully possible i was holding it wrong, too!
even when your "bottleneck" is rendering/rasterization (10ms), but your data pipe takes 3ms instead of 1ms, it's a big effect on framerate, battery, thermals, etc.
i'm a big fan of your work! while i have you here, would you mind reviewing this sometime soon? ;)
