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A fellow HNer and I started making high resolution terrain maps using LiDAR data. We've got maps of the Cascades and my home state of Vermont. We're software

by mparr4 6y ago

A fellow HNer and I started making high resolution terrain maps using LiDAR data. We've got maps of the Cascades and my home state of Vermont. We're software guys. We've got a custom website but we're using Shopify for our checkout. We'd love feedback on the maps, the website, or anything at all!

Ave 6y ago
The maps are really cool. How are you guys managing to find customers given that the product is fairly niche?
- mparr4 6y ago
  Thanks, glad you like them. We're figuring that out right now. We've got a FB ad campaign going and have gotten a few sales, but this line just went live on Wednesday. Our original maps (released at the end of March) were all of Vermont ski mountains and with ski season cut short by the pandemic, we think we missed the boat timing wise. Our main priorities right now are expanding our geographic reach so that more people can find something that they like. We've got a few more series in the works that we should have up within the month that will greatly expand our offerings. Then... FB ads, content marketing, target blogs and relevant traditional media? Maybe try and get prints in visitors centers, lodges, hotels, etc?
  - DenisM 6y ago
    I would try REI and wta.org and follow the trail from there.
macintux 6y ago
Wouldn't these more properly be labeled "relief" maps vs "elevation"? Regardless of the terminology, they look stunning. Definitely appeal to the map geek in me.
- mparr4 6y ago
  Yes, that would absolutely be the proper name. For us I think it was just a matter of familiarity, does the lay person know what a "relief" map is? It's more descriptive, but potentially at a cost of understanding.Though maybe we should be targeting the demographic who knows what a "relief" map is though... Unsure, just making this up as we go along!
jeffbee 6y ago
These look great and I'm sure my display isn't even doing justice to them. I imagine you are producing these on-demand, so I wonder if it's possible to allow customers choices like lighting direction and ink color. The Mt. Shasta one for example is illuminated from the north which is interesting but not realistic.
- mparr4 6y ago
  Thanks, Jeff. There's a weird trick that our brains play on us when the light comes from somewhere other than the north, the ridges and valleys look inverted. There's been some research on this and the consensus is that sunlight coming from the northwest is best for making the terrain appear "natural". If you rotate the map 180, you'll see what I mean. The deep gully coming down Shastina looks like a ridge, for example. While we are printing these on-off, there is a fair bit of work involved in generating the source images: generating hillshade layers, photoshopping the results, etc, so I'm afraid we can't do custom lighting and colors right now.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Interesting. It seems like metastable illusions would be a problem for any lighting direction when the object is cone-shaped.
mtnGoat 6y ago
are you using headless? if so, how is that going and was it worth the work?
- mparr4 6y ago
  We are not, we've got a full-on shopify site that we put on a subdomain, update the cart via the storefront API, and our checkout link takes you to the shopify checkout. Headless, AFAIK, is a higher pricing tier. We're just sorta hacking the standard plan.
ArtWomb 6y ago
Love Vermont. Makes me want to head up to Sunset Ridge for a hike ;) By coincidence, I happened to be researching algorithms for generating 3D meshes from height maps for procedural terrain generation. While it looks like the classical Delaunay trianglization remains the best strategy. I wonder if the high fidelity of next gen sensor data will uncover new techniques. Most PCG techniques employ pretty noisy maps and never quite look "real". Fast Polygonal Approximation of Terrains And Height Fields (1995) http://mgarland.org/files/papers/scape.pdf http://mgarland.org/files/papers/scape.pdf
- mparr4 6y ago
  Ha. I'll see you up on Sunset Ridge! Very cool stuff. I'll give that paper a read.
deleted 6y ago
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by mparr4 6y ago

Ave 6y ago

The maps are really cool. How are you guys managing to find customers given that the product is fairly niche?

mparr4 6y ago
Thanks, glad you like them. We're figuring that out right now. We've got a FB ad campaign going and have gotten a few sales, but this line just went live on Wednesday. Our original maps (released at the end of March) were all of Vermont ski mountains and with ski season cut short by the pandemic, we think we missed the boat timing wise. Our main priorities right now are expanding our geographic reach so that more people can find something that they like. We've got a few more series in the works that we should have up within the month that will greatly expand our offerings. Then... FB ads, content marketing, target blogs and relevant traditional media? Maybe try and get prints in visitors centers, lodges, hotels, etc?
- DenisM 6y ago
  I would try REI and wta.org and follow the trail from there.

macintux 6y ago

Wouldn't these more properly be labeled "relief" maps vs "elevation"? Regardless of the terminology, they look stunning. Definitely appeal to the map geek in me.

mparr4 6y ago
Yes, that would absolutely be the proper name. For us I think it was just a matter of familiarity, does the lay person know what a "relief" map is? It's more descriptive, but potentially at a cost of understanding.Though maybe we should be targeting the demographic who knows what a "relief" map is though... Unsure, just making this up as we go along!

jeffbee 6y ago

These look great and I'm sure my display isn't even doing justice to them. I imagine you are producing these on-demand, so I wonder if it's possible to allow customers choices like lighting direction and ink color. The Mt. Shasta one for example is illuminated from the north which is interesting but not realistic.

mparr4 6y ago
Thanks, Jeff. There's a weird trick that our brains play on us when the light comes from somewhere other than the north, the ridges and valleys look inverted. There's been some research on this and the consensus is that sunlight coming from the northwest is best for making the terrain appear "natural". If you rotate the map 180, you'll see what I mean. The deep gully coming down Shastina looks like a ridge, for example. While we are printing these on-off, there is a fair bit of work involved in generating the source images: generating hillshade layers, photoshopping the results, etc, so I'm afraid we can't do custom lighting and colors right now.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Interesting. It seems like metastable illusions would be a problem for any lighting direction when the object is cone-shaped.

mtnGoat 6y ago

are you using headless? if so, how is that going and was it worth the work?

mparr4 6y ago
We are not, we've got a full-on shopify site that we put on a subdomain, update the cart via the storefront API, and our checkout link takes you to the shopify checkout. Headless, AFAIK, is a higher pricing tier. We're just sorta hacking the standard plan.

ArtWomb 6y ago

Love Vermont. Makes me want to head up to Sunset Ridge for a hike ;) By coincidence, I happened to be researching algorithms for generating 3D meshes from height maps for procedural terrain generation. While it looks like the classical Delaunay trianglization remains the best strategy. I wonder if the high fidelity of next gen sensor data will uncover new techniques. Most PCG techniques employ pretty noisy maps and never quite look "real". Fast Polygonal Approximation of Terrains And Height Fields (1995) http://mgarland.org/files/papers/scape.pdf http://mgarland.org/files/papers/scape.pdf

mparr4 6y ago
Ha. I'll see you up on Sunset Ridge! Very cool stuff. I'll give that paper a read.

deleted 6y ago

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