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Show HN: Global 3D topography explorer

118 points by jessekv 2y ago

I made a web app to generate 3D models of real places on earth from land cover and elevation data. Click anywhere on the map to get a polygon, and then click "generate". It should work at most scales, but if your watershed or region selection is too large, the result can be less exciting because it's so flat. As a warning, the 3D models can sometimes be too much for my phone. It's nicer on desktop. I'm still working better on mobile support. The land cover data I'm using gives a cool effect, but at some point I'd like to add in global imagery and clouds. The backend is a Python thread running on an old Lenovo Thinkcentre in my closet, so if it goes down, this is why. (I also sometimes need to restart it when the network card stops working... I really should figure out why sometime.) If you find a really cool island or watershed, let me know and I can add it to the "favorites".

jessekv 2y ago
Update: Thanks for all the interest! I've run out of monthly credit at map tiler, so I'm going to have to tinker a bit with the explorer view. Edit: Switching to protomaps for now.
ekianjo 2y ago
I see you use glb files. Any way to convert them into something that can work with GDAL?
- jessekv 2y ago
  All the data started out as geotif, the final glb output is just for the web view. For GDAL it would be easier to go back to the original geotif than to extract the data from the glb.
petargyurov 2y ago
Nice, what was the motivation? The Amazon made my poor unplugged M1 stutter. > The backend is a Python thread running on an old Lenovo Thinkcentre in my closet I love that, however, RIP in advance ;)
- jessekv 2y ago
  > what was the motivation Sort of a Christmas present to myself, always wanted to visualize the world this way. I've sunk hours just clicking around on the catchment selector. But I'd like to get to this sort of experience one day: https://xkcd.com/941/ https://xkcd.com/941/ > RIP in advance Yes, I also wanted to see what asyncio could take ;)
cozzyd 2y ago
Which DEM are you using? MERIT-DEM? It seems to exceed SRTM's coverage, but be smaller than ASTER's coverage (except it does include the Northernmost island in Greenlan which I think falls outside 83 N). You might consider adding BEDMAP2 or REMA to cover Antarctica...
- jessekv 2y ago
  It's AW3D30 and MERIT-DEM. AW3D30 has Antartica, but I don't have catchment or island polygon data there yet.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    yes, Antarctica is slightly complicated by the need to use a different coordinate system to get reasonable results.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    Speaking of catchment, lakes behave in a strange way to me. Is this an artifact of them somehow being divided up into river catchment zones? This sliver of Lake Michigan shows only the Chicago River (and it's wrong anyway, since the Chicago river flows the wrong way :) ) . https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=41.8869&lng=-87.5356&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=41.8869&lng=-87.5356&mod... I would naively expect clicking on a lake would show the sum of all watersheds going into it. Ok, Lake Michigan is weird due to the canals (and strangely the Des Plaines river is shown there, maybe it's confused by that) but even very straightforward endorheic lakes seem divided up https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=40.0780&lng=-119.5641&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=40.0780&lng=-119.5641&mo...
    - jessekv 2y ago
      Yes, these inaccuracies come from using a (global) DEM for catchment delineation. It also behaves strange in river deltas, when multiple branches of the river show up. I'd like it to render a whole endorheic basin with one selection of a lake, but currently it splits the lake into two or more, e.g. https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4299&lng=35.4724&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4299&lng=35.4724&mode... and https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4136&lng=35.4702&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4136&lng=35.4702&mode...
Karawebnetwork 2y ago
I wish there was a way to select multiple catchments at once, because using "region" for Canada or the US selects the entire country and not individual states. A favorite of mine to look at is October Revolution Island and its glaciers.
- jessekv 2y ago
  > I wish there was a way to select multiple catchments at once Me too. > October Revolution Island Unfortunately my land cover data does not reach there either :(
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
chefandy 2y ago
Cool work!
ata_aman 2y ago
That's sweet, I'm planning to implement something like this on my project[1] as well (also a Christmas gift to myself). Right now it spits out points but regions and polygons is on my to-do list. Suggestion: make the map cover the entire browser window/remove the black borders, it gives it a more HD feel and it makes it immersive. [1] https://godview.ai https://godview.ai
- diggan 2y ago
  Doesn't it end up being kind of a shameless plug and less of a "here is something similar" when your own thing isn't at all similar and shares no functionality with what OP posted?
  - ata_aman 2y ago
    I mean, not really? It's not like I make money from it, it's completely open-source and free to use. I gain nothing besides sharing similar work to OPs which I found interesting.
maxloh 2y ago
Taiwan renders pretty good for me: https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=23.9339&lng=121.0158&mode=country https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=23.9339&lng=121.0158&mod... Do you consider open-sourcing the code behind it?
folli 2y ago
Nice! I'm working on something similar but aimed at visualizing GPS tracks, e.g. for hiking and biking: https://cubetrek.com/view/6638 https://cubetrek.com/view/6638 Let's share some notes, if you're interested! Code is open source: https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek/ https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek/
- jessekv 2y ago
  Thanks! You inspired me to try babylon.js. You may also recognize the background image. I'd love to compare notes.
- pedalpete 2y ago
  Nice, I'm the founder of Ayvri (acquired) we were doing 3d virtual scenes for lots of different use cases. The Tor des Geants used our 3D map for their event one year, it was one of my favorites to see in 3D. The publicly available stuff is gone now, but there's still a grainy poor resolution video showing what we used to do. https://ayvri.com/ https://ayvri.com/
- wilson090 2y ago
  Oh cool, I made something similar but for making a styled graphic rendering of a ride/run/trek: https://riderender.wilsonspearman.com/ https://riderender.wilsonspearman.com/ also open-sourced: https://github.com/wilson090/ride-render https://github.com/wilson090/ride-render
entropie 2y ago
Is it maybe possible to download object files or something like that (that I can convert to stl)?
- jessekv 2y ago
  Not sure- I'm generating the glb on-demand from the raw DEM data with numpy. What interests you about STL?
  - entropie 2y ago
    Id like to (3d) print topo maps and most online tools are either not for europe or just bad. Your comment is very helpfull. I might figure it out myself.
    - cozzyd 2y ago
      QGIS has a plug-in for this. I've toyed with writing my plug-in for a colorful 3D format for 3D printing purposes though.
      - entropie 2y ago
        That worked better than excpected. Thanks for the heads up.
diggan 2y ago
It would be great if one could select multiple "Catchments", since "Region" seems to select a whole country, while Catchment is dividing the island I'd like to capture into three pieces, one of which is huge and the others kind of small. Made a small demonstration of the problem here: https://imgur.com/a/tyudJvW https://imgur.com/a/tyudJvW Another thing that would be awesome is if we could download the .glb files via a link/button in the visualizer, instead of having to manually grab the download link from the developer tools :)
- samstave 2y ago
  Add FluidX3d and then you can have Cursor layer over an actual fluid dynamics to the catchments and determine how the Sphinx was eroded... Jokes aside, do it for wind flow layers as well. https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D
trhway 2y ago
While Russia (in the "best" traditions of USSR) has recently, as a response to Ukrainian drones, outlawed detailed Russian topographic data _inside_ Russia.
stevage 2y ago
I was hoping to be able to visualise a mountain peak, but watersheds doesn't work for that.
archsurface 2y ago
Lovely. Need a compass point image added.
miljkovicjovann 2y ago
Really nice P.S don't try viewing Everest :)

118 points by jessekv 2y ago

jessekv 2y ago

Update: Thanks for all the interest! I've run out of monthly credit at map tiler, so I'm going to have to tinker a bit with the explorer view. Edit: Switching to protomaps for now.

ekianjo 2y ago

I see you use glb files. Any way to convert them into something that can work with GDAL?

jessekv 2y ago
All the data started out as geotif, the final glb output is just for the web view. For GDAL it would be easier to go back to the original geotif than to extract the data from the glb.

petargyurov 2y ago

Nice, what was the motivation? The Amazon made my poor unplugged M1 stutter. > The backend is a Python thread running on an old Lenovo Thinkcentre in my closet I love that, however, RIP in advance ;)

jessekv 2y ago
> what was the motivation Sort of a Christmas present to myself, always wanted to visualize the world this way. I've sunk hours just clicking around on the catchment selector. But I'd like to get to this sort of experience one day: https://xkcd.com/941/ https://xkcd.com/941/ > RIP in advance Yes, I also wanted to see what asyncio could take ;)

cozzyd 2y ago

Which DEM are you using? MERIT-DEM? It seems to exceed SRTM's coverage, but be smaller than ASTER's coverage (except it does include the Northernmost island in Greenlan which I think falls outside 83 N). You might consider adding BEDMAP2 or REMA to cover Antarctica...

jessekv 2y ago
It's AW3D30 and MERIT-DEM. AW3D30 has Antartica, but I don't have catchment or island polygon data there yet.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  yes, Antarctica is slightly complicated by the need to use a different coordinate system to get reasonable results.
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Speaking of catchment, lakes behave in a strange way to me. Is this an artifact of them somehow being divided up into river catchment zones? This sliver of Lake Michigan shows only the Chicago River (and it's wrong anyway, since the Chicago river flows the wrong way :) ) . https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=41.8869&lng=-87.5356&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=41.8869&lng=-87.5356&mod... I would naively expect clicking on a lake would show the sum of all watersheds going into it. Ok, Lake Michigan is weird due to the canals (and strangely the Des Plaines river is shown there, maybe it's confused by that) but even very straightforward endorheic lakes seem divided up https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=40.0780&lng=-119.5641&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=40.0780&lng=-119.5641&mo...
  - jessekv 2y ago
    Yes, these inaccuracies come from using a (global) DEM for catchment delineation. It also behaves strange in river deltas, when multiple branches of the river show up. I'd like it to render a whole endorheic basin with one selection of a lake, but currently it splits the lake into two or more, e.g. https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4299&lng=35.4724&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4299&lng=35.4724&mode... and https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4136&lng=35.4702&mode=catchment https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=31.4136&lng=35.4702&mode...

Karawebnetwork 2y ago

I wish there was a way to select multiple catchments at once, because using "region" for Canada or the US selects the entire country and not individual states. A favorite of mine to look at is October Revolution Island and its glaciers.

jessekv 2y ago
> I wish there was a way to select multiple catchments at once Me too. > October Revolution Island Unfortunately my land cover data does not reach there either :(
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

chefandy 2y ago

Cool work!

ata_aman 2y ago

That's sweet, I'm planning to implement something like this on my project[1] as well (also a Christmas gift to myself). Right now it spits out points but regions and polygons is on my to-do list. Suggestion: make the map cover the entire browser window/remove the black borders, it gives it a more HD feel and it makes it immersive. [1] https://godview.ai https://godview.ai

diggan 2y ago
Doesn't it end up being kind of a shameless plug and less of a "here is something similar" when your own thing isn't at all similar and shares no functionality with what OP posted?
- ata_aman 2y ago
  I mean, not really? It's not like I make money from it, it's completely open-source and free to use. I gain nothing besides sharing similar work to OPs which I found interesting.

maxloh 2y ago

Taiwan renders pretty good for me: https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=23.9339&lng=121.0158&mode=country https://topography.jessekv.com/?lat=23.9339&lng=121.0158&mod... Do you consider open-sourcing the code behind it?

folli 2y ago

Nice! I'm working on something similar but aimed at visualizing GPS tracks, e.g. for hiking and biking: https://cubetrek.com/view/6638 https://cubetrek.com/view/6638 Let's share some notes, if you're interested! Code is open source: https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek/ https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek/

jessekv 2y ago
Thanks! You inspired me to try babylon.js. You may also recognize the background image. I'd love to compare notes.
pedalpete 2y ago
Nice, I'm the founder of Ayvri (acquired) we were doing 3d virtual scenes for lots of different use cases. The Tor des Geants used our 3D map for their event one year, it was one of my favorites to see in 3D. The publicly available stuff is gone now, but there's still a grainy poor resolution video showing what we used to do. https://ayvri.com/ https://ayvri.com/
wilson090 2y ago
Oh cool, I made something similar but for making a styled graphic rendering of a ride/run/trek: https://riderender.wilsonspearman.com/ https://riderender.wilsonspearman.com/ also open-sourced: https://github.com/wilson090/ride-render https://github.com/wilson090/ride-render

entropie 2y ago

Is it maybe possible to download object files or something like that (that I can convert to stl)?

jessekv 2y ago
Not sure- I'm generating the glb on-demand from the raw DEM data with numpy. What interests you about STL?
- entropie 2y ago
  Id like to (3d) print topo maps and most online tools are either not for europe or just bad. Your comment is very helpfull. I might figure it out myself.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    QGIS has a plug-in for this. I've toyed with writing my plug-in for a colorful 3D format for 3D printing purposes though.
    - entropie 2y ago
      That worked better than excpected. Thanks for the heads up.

diggan 2y ago

It would be great if one could select multiple "Catchments", since "Region" seems to select a whole country, while Catchment is dividing the island I'd like to capture into three pieces, one of which is huge and the others kind of small. Made a small demonstration of the problem here: https://imgur.com/a/tyudJvW https://imgur.com/a/tyudJvW Another thing that would be awesome is if we could download the .glb files via a link/button in the visualizer, instead of having to manually grab the download link from the developer tools :)

samstave 2y ago
Add FluidX3d and then you can have Cursor layer over an actual fluid dynamics to the catchments and determine how the Sphinx was eroded... Jokes aside, do it for wind flow layers as well. https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D

trhway 2y ago

While Russia (in the "best" traditions of USSR) has recently, as a response to Ukrainian drones, outlawed detailed Russian topographic data _inside_ Russia.

stevage 2y ago

I was hoping to be able to visualise a mountain peak, but watersheds doesn't work for that.

archsurface 2y ago

Lovely. Need a compass point image added.

miljkovicjovann 2y ago

Really nice P.S don't try viewing Everest :)