Convert lat/lon to pixels and back

Question

I'm using google maps in my application, and I have a webserver with a databse filled with lat/lon values. I want to mark them on the map, but I also want to cluster them together if they are within a certain pixel-distance of eachother.

I figure if I retrieve all my points from the database, I should be able to do something like this (pseudocode):

clusters[];
while(count(points)) {
    cluster[];
    point = points.pop();
    boundingbox = pixelsToBB(point, pixeldistance, zoomlevel);
    query = "select * from database where lat > boundingbox.minlat 
             and lat < boundingbox.maxlat and lng > boundingbox.minlng
             and lng < boundingbox.maxlng";
    for (result in executedquery) {
        cluster[] += result;
        points.remove(result);
    }
    clusters[] += cluster;
}

pixelsToBB(point, distance, zoomlevel) {
    center = convertXY(point, zoomlevel);
    maxlng = convertToLng(center.X, distance, zoomlevel);
    minlng = convertToLng(center.X, -distance, zoomlevel);
    minlat = convertToLat(center.Y, -distance, zoomlevel);
    maxlat = convertToLat(center.Y, distance, zoomlevel);
    return boundingbox(maxlng, maxlat, minlng, minlat);
}

What would my pixelsToBB function need to do with the zoomlevel? OR rather what would my convertToXY, convertToLng and convertToLat need to do? Am I thinking about this the right way, or are there any better ways to do it? I'm not even sure what to search for, so if it's been asked before I'm sorry.

Answer 1

There is example javascript to do this on this page as part of the documentation for the Google maps api. Bear in mind you need to look at the page source to see it. Its not an actual documentation page but rather an example.