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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to A real-world heightmap terrain with an animated energy dome (in Go)

A visually appealing terrain visualization from real-world data with some extras, such as an animated energy dome, LOD tessellation and multisampling - MauriceGit/Energy-Dome_Terrain

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. A real-world heightmap terrain with an animated energy dome (in Go) launched in 2018; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    I've been working on this project for about 4 years. It began as terrain only because world wide elevation data was publicly available. I then added buildings from OpenStreetMap (crowd sourced) and more recently from Overture Maps data. Some computer vision/machine learning advancements [1] in the past few years have made it possible to estimate tree canopy heights using satellite imagery alone making it possible to finally add trees to the map. The data isn't perfect, but it's within +/- 3 meters of so. Good enough to give a general idea for any location on Earth. Happy to answer…

    2024 · shademap.app · its alternatives →

  2. 2AR
  3. 3

    An interactive CSS terrain generator. Define a grid and generate your terrain!

    Nov 2025 · terra.layoutit.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Explore advanced web development for online casinos at Juliango 202. Learn about programming languages, RNG algorithms, and secure platform architecture.

    2018 · juliango202.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5AS

    2016 · erkaman.github.io · its alternatives →

  6. 6G3

    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…

    2025 · topography.jessekv.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7MP

    2020 · felixpalmer.github.io · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.

    17d ago · huggingface.co · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Google released an API in May to get fetch 3D Tiles of anywhere on Earth. Using this in standard 3D engines like Blender is tricky because (1) the tiles are in a geographic coordinate system (2) you get a lot of little tiles at varying quality levels I wanted to simplify this so all you need to do is get an API key, select a map region and a zoom level, and get one combined glTF file that you can throw into any engine. Especially if you're just prototyping and want to see how this data looks in your engine before investing in figuring out all the nuances of the API & coordinate system. (Note…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Flexible tool to build planet-scale vector tilesets from OpenStreetMap data fast - onthegomap/planetiler

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    I'm working on a GPS track visualizer for quite some time. It shines in hilly and mountaineous terrain (where a 3D view makes more sense), but it also offers quite a lot of Strava-like features (statistics etc.). You can upload your GPX and FIT files manually, or sync directly with Garmin, Coros and Polar. See https://cubetrek.com for the live app and check out some examples there. It's free and opens source. Also, anyone who likes to work with 3D visualizations (especially Babylon.js), let me know if you like to help polish this thing further.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!

    2022 · jason.today · its alternatives →

  13. 13MA

    Hello HN! I’m excited to share this open-source community mashup showing the power and possibility of combining 3D Gaussian splat scans with traditional mesh-based 3D tiles maps in the browser. As you've probably seen on HN a bunch lately, Gaussian splats are a new method to allow custom 3D scans of scenes and objects [1] and Google Maps 3D Tiles API are the same 3D buildings and street views your familiar with in Google Earth or Google Maps, and recently they’ve been made available for inclusion in web apps. Combining splats + 3d map mixes highly detailed real-world custom micro-scans with…

    2024 · maps-and-splats.glitch.me · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Hi HN I’ve been working on Super Map World, a creative mapping platform and just launched a new animation feature. Try it: https://supermap.world/tools/map-animation What it does: The feature lets you animate maps directly in your browser with a few clicks. You can animate routes, regions, or just simply see a globe in your chosen style rotate from point to point. It’s designed for people who want to make short visuals e.g. social clips, or storytelling maps without needing to figure out GIS tools. Under the hood: Everything runs client-side. I'm using d3.js to render the…

    2023 · supermap.world · its alternatives →

  15. 15IE
  16. 16
  17. 17

    An interactive 3D visualization of the all the buildings in Manhattan.

    2018 · tbaldw.in · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Build interactive globe visualizations with ease 🌎

    2019 · react-globe.netlify.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Dynamic Real-time Heatmaps for the Web

    2014 · patrick-wied.at · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    We added a new feature to our open-source HTML5 game engine today that allows you to create Sprite GPU Layers. These pack together simple JS object definitions onto the GPU and renders them using a custom vertex shader. This skips all CPU computation and GPU upload operations, resulting in vastly increased performance. For objects that don't need to be updated by input, physics, or other interactive behaviors, we found it to be a great solution. In testing, we've easily managed to blast millions of sprites around on moderate desktop-grade GPUs. Indeed, we hit the fill rate limitation of the…

    2025 · phaser.io · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Water-Simulation with real time specular reflection on the waters surface. The reflection is implemented in GLSL and runs on the GPU and in screen space. The water itself is implemented using a pressure based approach for the surface calculation. - MauriceGit/Water_Simulation

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    An interactive tour of four Seattle landmarks reconstructed using photogrammetry and presented in 3D with dynamically-projected photographic textures.

    2022 · arcsineimaging.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    We built a robotic plotter that creates ephemeral visualizations of website carbon footprints using water vapor on glass. It analyzes website energy data and translates it into misty patterns, making the invisible impact of digital infrastructure visible. Built during a residency at a cultural venue in Belgium. Code and build details here : https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/gijs/carbon-aware/-/tree/main....

    2024 · vimeo.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    3D geographic visualization library. Contribute to w3reality/three-geo development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →