Best Practices

This section covers best practices for using compression and choosing between Simple (GeoJSON) and FlexiblePolyline formats when interacting with the API, providing guidance on optimizing performance, bandwidth, and data handling.

Compression

To enhance the performance and efficiency of your applications when interacting with our API, it is recommended to enable compression for responses, especially when dealing with large text-based payloads. You can activate compression by including the Accept-Encoding header in your API requests, specifying your preferred compression method. We support gzip and deflate for their compression capabilities, with gzip typically offering better compression ratios.

When to Enable Compression

Large Responses

Enable compression for large text-based responses to reduce bandwidth usage and improve load times.

Network Constraints

If your application operates over limited bandwidth or high-latency networks, compression can enhance data transfer efficiency.

How to Use Compression Effectively

Set the Accept-Encoding Header

Include Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate in your HTTP requests to inform our API that you support these compression methods. The method to enable and handle compression varies by AWS SDK and programming language. For example, the AWS SDK for Java v1 uses the withGzip method in the ClientConfiguration class to enable gzip, while the AWS SDK for Go requires adding specific middleware for compression handling. For other SDKs, please refer to the AWS SDK Reference Guide for detailed instructions.

Handle Decompression Properly

Ensure your client application can correctly decompress the responses based on the Content-Encoding header returned by our API.

Test and Monitor

Regularly evaluate the impact of compression on your application's performance, balancing the benefits of reduced payload sizes against any additional CPU overhead from decompression processes.

Polyline

Best practices for choosing between Simple (GeoJSON) and FlexiblePolyline formats when interacting with our API, to optimize both performance and usability of your geospatial data.

Use Simple (GeoJSON) Format

Readability and Standardization

Use when you require a widely recognized and human-readable format for ease of debugging and interoperability with various geospatial tools.

Precision

Choose Simple format when your application needs high precision for coordinates, as GeoJSON maintains full decimal precision without loss.

Smaller Datasets

Simple format is ideal when working with smaller sets of coordinate data where the size reduction benefits of compression are minimal.

Use FlexiblePolyline Format

Data Size Reduction

FlexiblePolyline is ideal when you need to minimize the amount of data transmitted, especially for large lists of coordinates, by leveraging lossy compression techniques.

URL Safety

FlexiblePolyline provides a compact, URL-safe string that can be used directly in query parameters without additional encoding.

Performance Optimization

FlexiblePolyline helps reduce the payload size, leading to faster data transfer and lower bandwidth usage, making it crucial for high-performance applications or those operating over constrained networks.