3D visualization toolkit for elevation data from anywhere on Earth.
Altitude Maps lets you explore and visualize terrain elevation data in interactive 3D. Whether you're a researcher, educator, or curious explorer, you can:
- Explore terrain interactively in 3D with smooth camera controls
- Generate static visualizations of any region's terrain
- Download elevation data for anywhere in the world
- Customize visualization - colors, viewing angles, detail level, rendering style
- WASD/QE flythrough - First-person camera movement
- F key reframe - Instantly center view on terrain
- Touch & trackpad gestures - Pinch zoom, two-finger pan
- Alt+Left rotate - Professional 3D software style rotation
- Smart typing detection - Keyboard shortcuts disabled while typing
The interactive viewer supports 89 pre-configured regions worldwide with a dropdown selector. Switch between US states, countries, and custom regions without refreshing.
- Fixed bar overlapping and gaps
- Infinite zoom capability
- Smart defaults for quick start
- Perfect tiling at any viewing angle
Vertical exaggeration uses intuitive meter-based scale:
- 1.0x = True Earth proportions
- 4.0x = Moderately dramatic (default)
- 10.0x = Very dramatic terrain
- 177 countries available with detailed boundaries
- Interactive viewer borders - Toggle country boundaries in 3D
- Country masking - Clip data to specific nations
- Auto-caching - Borders download once and reuse automatically
Generate high-quality overhead views, 3D perspectives, or dramatic side-angle renders of any terrain. Outputs include geographic coordinates, elevation statistics, and data source attribution.
Overlay country boundaries and clip elevation data to specific countries. Features include:
- Draw borders for any country
- Clip/mask data to country boundaries
- Support for multiple countries
- Three detail levels available
Download elevation data with automatic quality selection:
- USA: High-quality data with automatic quality selection
- Global: Worldwide coverage with automatic quality selection
- Europe, Japan, Australia: National datasets where available
All data is cached locally - download once, use forever. Quality is selected automatically based on your needs.
Researchers - Visualize terrain for papers and presentations
Educators - Teach geography and geology with interactive 3D
GIS professionals - Quick visualization prototyping
Hobbyists - Explore Earth's terrain beautifully
Developers - Foundation for mapping/terrain projects
- Setup (one time) - Run the setup script
- Download a region - Choose from US states or international regions
- Start interactive viewer - Explore in 3D
- Or generate a static image - Create visualizations
See install.md for installation instructions.
The viewer runs entirely in your web browser - no server-side code needed. Deploy to any static web server. See DEPLOY_README.md for deployment instructions.
- 3D terrain rendering
- Multiple color schemes
- Customizable camera angles and lighting
- Adjustable vertical exaggeration
- Generate multiple viewpoints
- USA: High-quality data with automatic quality selection
- 89 pre-configured regions worldwide
- Support for custom regions
- Add your own regions as needed
- Smooth rendering of large terrain areas
- Real-time detail adjustment
- Data caching prevents re-downloading
- Progressive loading for large datasets
- Mouse: Pan, tilt, rotate, zoom toward cursor
- Keyboard: Fly through terrain, reframe view, reset camera
- Touch/Trackpad: Pan and zoom gestures
- Smart: Keys disabled while typing in input fields
Research Publication - Generate high-quality static renders with precise viewing angles
Education - Students explore mountain ranges interactively in 3D
GIS Analysis - Quick terrain visualization before detailed analysis
Art/Design - Create terrain art with customizable colors and angles
Game Development - Preview elevation data for game level design
- Main renderer with full customization
- Multiple views at once
- Demo with sample data
- Full-featured viewer
- Real-time detail adjustment
- Multiple render modes and color schemes
- Multiple camera control schemes
- Full USA download
- Multi-region batch download
- Individual region downloads
- Automatic quality selection
- Process data for interactive viewer
- One-command environment setup
- Reusable processing modules
- install.md - Installation instructions
- technicalDetails.md - Technical specifications
- DEPLOY_README.md - Deployment guide
Visualizations are saved with timestamps and include:
- Geographic coordinates and bounds
- Elevation statistics
- Data source attribution
- Reproduction parameters
- Windows / Mac / Linux
- Modern web browser for interactive viewer
- Disk space for data cache
This is a personal project, but suggestions and feedback are welcome!
When using elevation data, please credit the data sources:
- USGS 3DEP for USA elevation data
- NASA SRTM for global elevation data
- Specific national sources as noted in downloads
Project code is available for personal and educational use. Elevation data has separate licensing from their respective sources (generally public domain or open access).
Created for: Exploring and visualizing Earth's incredible terrain
Status: Production-ready, actively maintained