AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Every mountain, building and tree shadow mapped for any date and time
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…
This project maps shadows cast by terrain, buildings, and trees across Earth for any date and time. It combines publicly available elevation data, OpenStreetMap building information, and machine learning analysis of… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Every mountain, building and tree shadow mapped for any date and time launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
Shadowmap▲292Interactive 3D maps app to visualize solar shadows worldwide
2021 · app.shadowmap.org · its alternatives →
- 2GM
2022 · shadowcalculator.eu · its alternatives →
- 3
Flexible tool to build planet-scale vector tilesets from OpenStreetMap data fast - onthegomap/planetiler
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4AR
2018 · tylermw.com · its alternatives →
- 5OO
Hi HN, After 9 years of running my own OpenStreetMap tile server infra for MapHub (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11389989), I've open-sourced it and launched OpenFreeMap. You can either self-host or use our public instance. Everything is open-source, including the full production setup — there’s no 'open-core' model here. Check out the repo (https://github.com/hyperknot/openfreemap). The map data comes from OpenStreetMap. I also provide weekly full planet downloads both in Btrfs and MBTiles formats. I aim to cover the running costs of the public…
2024 · openfreemap.org · its alternatives →
- 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
Hey HN, jvaclavik here from OpenClimbing team! We are thrilled to release version 2.0 of our fully opensource/opendata climbing guide. Based on OpenStreetMap for map-data and Wikimedia Commons for images, we created a (hopefully) user-friendly app which completely uses these open databases, thus contributing data back to commons. We designed a simple and powerful notation for drawing climbing routes directly over the Wikimedia pictures: - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:wikimedia_commons:pa... Check out the release article for a ton of new features, or go…
2014 · openstreetmap.org · its alternatives →
- 8
Hi all, This project release is a long time coming. It was a big uphill battle, and by far my largest endeavor so far. I built it for Sandstorm because I believe in Sandstorm's model, and I wanted to show that there's still life and potential in it. If you're inspired, joining our OpenCollective would be really helpful: https://opencollective.com/sandstormcommunity (keeping in mind that Sandstorm has now moved from its original leadership to a community project https://sandstorm.org/news/2023-11-03-from-io-to-org). You can also join our mailing list or…
2023 · sandstorm.org · its alternatives →
- 9
Sup HN, So I got tired of bouncing between Flightradar, MarineTraffic, and Twitter every time something kicked off globally, so I wrote a dashboard to aggregate it all locally. It’s called Shadowbroker. I’ll admit I leaned way too hard into the "movie hacker" aesthetic for the UI, but the actual pipeline underneath is real. It pulls commercial/military ADS-B, the AIS WebSocket stream (about 25,000+ ships), N2YO satellite telemetry, and GDELT conflict data into a single MapLibre instance. Getting this to run without melting my browser was the hardest part. I'm running this on a laptop…
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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- 11
I wanted to sit outside for coffee but there was no way to see which cafes are in the sun right now. So I built a map that shows which cafes, benches, and outdoor seats are in the sun vs. shade at any time of day. It ray-marches building shadows live in a WebGL shader over a MapLibre map. I also pre-index all places from OpenStreetMap into H3 hex cells and serve them as static JSON on Cloudflare R2, so the client just fetches the cells in view and no backend is needed. Feedback welcome, especially on shadow accuracy in your city. Currently only buildings and trees are taken into account when…
Jul 2026 · sunny.coffee · its alternatives →
- 12TCtextshader.com▲260
TLDR: Click the link to see some cool visualizations, refresh a few times for random examples, and try editing some of the code yourself. This is a small weekend project of mine inspired by shadertoy.com It's a static single-page site hosted on GitHub pages so the website design is pretty barebones. I'm not a web developer so I mainly wanted to create a Cool Thing with my free time and not have to learn tons of front-end to do it. I'd love to hear what people think about it and please post or send me any shaders you make! You can use the link button in the bottom right to share. I hope that…
2022 · textshader.com · its alternatives →
- 13
We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.
15d ago · huggingface.co · its alternatives →
- 14LW
Hi HN, I made a web game to practice country locations a while ago and HN liked it, so I thought I'd post my updated version as well. As for how the game works and feels, I'd really recommend you checking it out for yourself, it's free, no signup, no ads. The tech stack is Vue + ts + Tailwind/Daisy for the looks. The learning algorithm is a slight modification of the ts version of FSRS. If you have anything to add, it's open source as well (https://github.com/koljapluemer/learn-worldmap), although not well documented yet. In the end it's just a little sideproject,…
2025 · map.koljapluemer.com · its alternatives →
- 15FWForest Watch▲72
Keep track of forests in your area by viewing changes in tree cover over time. I’ve build this as a demo of what you can do with the ArcGIS library and the geo data that is offered by Global Forest Watch and Esri. Don’t forget to click the history button. Works best on desktop! The demo is build with React and open source: https://github.com/vnglst/koenvangilst.nl/tree/main/app/(bla...
2024 · koenvangilst.nl · its alternatives →
- 16MA
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 →
- 17SV
Discover The Sun for Everyone with Shadowmap: your global 3D map for sunpath visualization, shadow analysis and solar planning for homes and projects.
2020 · shadowmap.org · its alternatives →
- 18
UpToWhere▲28The idea came to me after spotting the sea peeking through mountains on a drive near Barcelona. It left me wondering what else was visible from different locations. Some of the features I later added include 3D maps, sun path calculation, adjustable elevation (calculate from a drone/plane POV), and mountain detection. To celebrate the launch, the first 100 HN users can get 1 month of free premium access with the code: UTWfirst100. I’d love your feedback, questions, and suggestions. What would you use this for? What features would you like to see?
2025 · uptowhere.com · its alternatives →
- 19
We built Maptoolkit.org - a free, production-grade vector maps service built on OpenStreetMap and MapLibre. Map rendering and tile hosting have historically been either expensive (Google, Mapbox) or complex to maintain yourself. (Plus: Their maps are car-focused.) Our maps feature max data zoom 15, global hill-shading, 3D terrain, contour lines, water depths, and specialized styles (like Hiking, Cycling, Winter). No sign up or API keys required. You can use it like this: ``` const map = new maplibregl.Map({ container: 'map', style: 'https://styles.maptoolkit.org/summer.json',…
Jul 2026 · maptoolkit.org · its alternatives →
- 20
Simplifying on-site data collection for forest restoration
2021 · plant-for-the-planet.org · its alternatives →
- 21
This is a service I've built to provide equirectangular cloud maps of the whole Earth, updated every 3 hours, for free. It's based on infrared and visible light data from EUMETSAT, processed to enhance the clouds and try to reduce the impact of surface temperatures on the final image. I built it because it's surprisingly hard to find these kinds of images in a format that's useful to developers and hobbyists. I was building a 3D ISS tracker and wanted to include live clouds but couldn't find anything good, so I got sidetracked, and here we are.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Green Wedge▲69Hi everyone! Last year I posted about my environmental project, but then it didn’t get much attention here. Now, as we’ve made some progress and improved our website a bit using users’ feedback, there is an occasion to give it another chance! This time I’d like to focus on the feature that allows you to check how many trees are really needed to be planted to offset one’s carbon footprint, based on emissions per capita. It includes trees’ survivability rate, as not every seedling will get a chance to mature. It is often an overlooked factor. You can also start gradually planting a whole…
2024 · greenwedge.eco · its alternatives →
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Terrapattern▲77A visual search tool for satellite imagery
2016 · terrapattern.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 →