https://github.com/tangrams/heightmapper

interactive heightmaps from terrain data
https://github.com/tangrams/heightmapper

Last synced: 5 days ago
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interactive heightmaps from terrain data

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/tangrams/heightmapper
• Owner: tangrams
• License: mit
• Created: 2016-07-18T17:49:06.000Z (over 8 years ago)
• Default Branch: main
• Last Pushed: 2024-07-23T20:43:08.000Z (4 months ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-08-01T12:32:53.451Z (3 months ago)
• Language: JavaScript
• Homepage: http://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper
• Size: 409 KB
• Stars: 395
• Watchers: 28
• Forks: 115
• Open Issues: 22
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
# heightmapper

http://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper

Heightmapper is an interactive grayscale heightmap browser, which can generate heightmaps for use in 3D applications. By default, it "auto-exposes" the display so that the highest visible elevation in the current view will be white, and the lowest will be black.

Uses [Mapzen's](http://mapzen.com/tangrams/tangram) global [elevation service](https://mapzen.com/blog/elevation).



### Usage

- Uncheck "auto-expose" to set min and max height levels manually.

- Check "show lines" and "show labels" to see more map data.

- Click "export" to open the current view as an image in a new tab - "Save As" to save the image to disk.

- Import the resulting image as a "displacement map" in a 3D application to generate a 3D model of the terrain. ([Here's a tutorial for doing this in Blender.](https://github.com/tangrams/heightmapper/blob/master/exporting_to_blender.md))

- The "z:x scale factor" describes how "high" the current view is, on the z-axis, in terms of how wide the current view is on the x-axis. Multiplying this scale factor by the width of a 3D mesh in units x will tell you how high in units z your mesh should be after displacement in order to be true-scale.

- Press the "h" key to toggle UI visibility.

### Rendering

- Render Multiplier (1 - 8) will split the view up into that number of cells on the x and y axis. i.e., a Render Multiplier of 4 will render a 4x4 grid.

- Render Name is the name of the output file you want.

- render will automatically zoom to each area and stitch together a high quality render, then save the render as `{render name}.png` to your downloads.

> This comes with a gotcha: the map must take up the entire view (no whitespace above or below) for the renderer to work properly.

>

> Do not resize the view or move the map during render as this will interfere with the render process.

### Todo

- add a GeoTIFF export option which includes metadata

- fix Render Multiplier issue when the view bounds exceeds the tile latitude limit.

- **Super Extra Credit:** further export options including lat/lon bounding boxes, country/boundary masking using OSM vector tiles

### To run locally:

Start a web server in the repo's directory:

    python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

    

If that doesn't work, try:

    python -m http.server 8000

If running this produces CORS errors on your local machine, try:

    python run-server.py

or

    python3 run-server.py (on mac)

    

Then navigate to: [http://localhost:8000](http://localhost:8000)