.setFilter() triggers vector tile requests

[knutole]

Problem

When using .setFilter(), vector tiles that are already loaded get re-requested from server.

Requesting vector tiles when setting filter seems unnecessary and is a bit of a performance killer?

jsbin

See this jsbin for a working example.

Screen dump

Version

Mapbox-gl.js version: 0.14.3

Relevant code:

    var systemapic_access_token = 'pk.8FhhB90ax6KkQmoK0AMePd0R6IlkxM4VAGewsXw8';

    var systemapic = {
        "version": 8,
        "sources": {
            "vector-tiles": {
                "type": "vector",
                "tiles": ["https://dev.systemapic.com/v2/tiles/layer_id-5bff2873-83f3-4aa2-96f5-2e770f76199c/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf?access_token=" + systemapic_access_token],
            },
            "norkart-tiles" : {
                "type" : "raster",
                "tiles" : ["https://proxy-txa.systemapic.com/v2/tiles/norkart/aerial/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpeg?access_token=" + systemapic_access_token],
                "tileSize" : 256
            }
        },
        "layers": [
            {
                "id": "background",
                "type": "raster",
                "source": "norkart-tiles",
                "minzoom": 0,
                "maxzoom": 22
            },
            {
                "id": "sydney",
                "type": "fill",
                "source": "vector-tiles",
                "source-layer": "layer",
                "filter": ["==", "$type", "Polygon"],
                "paint": {
                    "fill-color": "#3887be"
                },
                "interactive" : true
            }

        ]
    };

    var map = new mapboxgl.Map({
        container: 'map', // container id
        center : [-209, -34],
        zoom : 8,
        style : systemapic
    });

    map.on('mousemove', function (e) {

        map.featuresAt(e.point, {
            radius: 5,
            layers : ['sydney']
        }, function (err, features) {
            if (err) return console.log(err);

            if (features.length) {

                // set filter, paint
                map.setFilter('sydney', ["==", "gid", features[0].properties.gid]);

            } else {

                // set filter, paint
                map.setFilter('sydney', ["==", "$type", "Polygon"]);
            }
        });
    });

[knutole]

Could be related to #2174.

[knutole]

Or it this expected behavior? I'm interested because we're trying to implement this functionality for a client, and it's a bit of a "make or break" to get this working.

Would it be possible to used cached vector tiles instead of requesting new tiles, for example?

[lucaswoj]

Thanks for the bug report! This is not expected behavior. We'll take a look soon.

[knutole]

Don't mean to rush anyone, but do you have an ETA for a fix?

[ansis]

Is your browser cache disabled when your console is open? The current implementation makes new xhr request whenever it needs to reparse a tile. This should hit the browser cache pretty much always.

Whenever a change to any layer definition or layout property the entire tile is reparsed. We plan to improve this by recreating only what changed, but there is no current eta for that.

[knutole]

Can confirm this has to do with cache. I was serving vector tiles with no-cache. Amending cache to private, max-age=3600 fixes the problem!

Thanks a lot for the tip! Closing.