Exactly! The globe is SVG and the animation is a Canvas layered on top. However, I'm still using D3's projection logic to calculate the distortion. Yeah, could save on redoing the distortion calc if just globe rotation changes, but would still need to redo the grid interpolation. So, to keep it easy I just rerun the whole deal.
WebGL would be fun to learn, but AFAIK not supported by mobile browsers yet.
WebGL would be fun to learn, but AFAIK not supported by mobile browsers yet.