Map Clustering Is Not My Favorite

[evakhoury]

https://blog.greg.technology/2026/06/12/map-clustering-is-not-my-favorite.html

[chrismandelics]

Same here. I ran into a similar situation mapping municipal data (https://wwwww.buffalo.mandelics.com/w5/around-buffalo.html) plus I needed to be able to click a point and see the event(s) behind it.

I ended up doing a form of clustering:

- at low and medium zoom: quantize events into a grid, take each cell's centroid, and make more populous circles bigger on a logarithmic scale - clicking lists all relevant events - double-clicking zooms in a level - at high enough zoom, break up the multi-event circles by displacing them along a hexagonal spiral

I still get some overlaps from nearby centroids and overlapping hexes, but generally every point can be reached without infinite zoom.