Html Canvas Intelligent Drawing
canvas, html, javascript
Solution
See my previous response to a related question: What is the fastest way to move a rectangular (pixel) region inside a HTML5 canvas element
Just draw the entire canvas in a div that has overflow:hidden and implement panning as re-positioning the top and left of the canvas within that div. It is much faster. And don't worry about drawing canvases tens of thousands of pixels wide/tall, I've successfully used this on very-very large and complex HTML and SVG elements.
Problem
I'm currently implementing a HTML canvas based webapp that features panning. Is there a way to use an auxiliary buffer to hold the presently visible area so when I pan I don't have to redraw the whole canvas and only have to draw the newly visible areas?