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Maps3D

Maps3D is a web-app to calculate the 3D-model of any place on earth. It allows you to define a rectangular area on a Google Map. The topography is then calculated and rendered as a rotateable, zoomable wireframe model.

![Maps3D Teaser] (http://www.tiefenauer.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/957.png)

You can try out the current state here

If you like the App, drop be a line on my blog

Why is it awesome?

Because it uses your computer’s graphic card to render the 3D-Model. And of course because I made it (or I will make it, that is).

What can I do with it?

A lotof things, amongst others you can…

  • define a rectangular map extract to calculate the profile for
  • set the precision of the profile (i.e. how many points the elevation will be retrieved)
  • rotate/zoom the profile

##What can’t I do with it? Awesome as it may be, there are some things you cannot do with Maps3D. For example, you cannot…

  • define shapes other than rectangular to define the map extract (may be a feature for an upcoming release)
  • show points on the map
  • print the model on a 3D-Printer
  • use the app as a flight simulator

Why this project?

Counter question: Why not? Well, the original reason I made this was that I had to do SOMETHING as a school project. Since I was free to choose and I wanted to learn WebGL, I invented my own project topic.

What technologies did you use?

Here’s the tech-stack:

  • Framework: Backbone.js + Underscore.js
  • Dependency Management: Require.js
  • Unit Testing: QUnit, Sinon.js
  • WebGL: Three.js
  • UI: jQuery, jQuery UI, Twitter Bootstrap

Wouldn’t it be even more awesome, if… ?

There are a lot of extensions to add, for example:

  • Allowing the user to define areas with various shapes (circle, triangle, free-form, …)
  • Caching the elevation data on some sort of backend (to reduce the calls made to the API. If the app gets used heavily enough, I might eventually end up with the full elevation data from Google :-) )
  • Exporting the Data to other formats
  • Saving the meshes
  • Allowing elevation data input other than Google
  • Texturing with Satellite images
  • Simulating avalanches or having a 3D-Model of Godzilla walk over the area and destroy things :-)
  • …

Feel free to fork from my repo :-)

OK enough dirty details! I agree it’s awesome!

Told you so! :)