
Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent - tomslavkovsky
https://melown.com/intergeo2016
======
nathancahill
The state of the art in open source 3D mapping right now is CesiumJS[0]. From
browsing their docs, it looks like it's in a similar place, capabilities-wise.
Unfortunately, the limiting factor for most projects isn't the JS library, but
it's the availability of high-resolution DEMs (digital elevation models).
These won't become widely available until we do something about the price of
lidar.

Fortunately, there's a lot of interest in reducing the cost of lidar right now
for self driving cars, so maybe the situation will improve soon. I've seen
really high resolution scans of small areas (Boulder, Colorado had the entire
town scanned a couple years ago), and it truly blows you away. Every detail
down the the shape of trees is available.

[0] [https://cesiumjs.org/](https://cesiumjs.org/)

~~~
dualogy
DEMs: how high-res do you _really_ need the DEMs, how many petabytes will you
sacrifice for sub-meter accuracy? Unless the app is for mountaineers, what's
out there for free in lower-res (to be interpolated by varying to-be-
experimented-with smart algos/heuristics throughout academia) and affordably
handle-able on a global scale [1] should be a perfectly sufficient starting
point until users actually complain about minor inaccuracies. Whether we're
talking 30m or 90m resolution.. it's not "high" but for all sorts of startups
but the most exacting surveying/etc pro-level b2b offerings, a fine starting
point.

(Of course I'm only talking DEM here, since you mentioned them, whereas Lidar
_proper_ kinda covers details such as houses and other structures as 3d
points.)

[1]
[http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html](http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html)
seemed to be the best in the "free" (for prototypes / MVPs and such) space
when I last played in this space on-and-off from 2011 through 2014~ish.

~~~
acemarke
We use Cesium in a couple applications. We actually generated some imagery and
terrain datasets using open-source tools in 2014.

In late 2015, I spent a couple weeks researching GIS data conversion
utilities, Cesium's formats, and potential improved source datasets we could
use to generate higher-quality imagery and terrain data. I can't haul out the
relevant writeup atm, but I concluded that the EarthEnv DEM90 dataset appeared
to be highest-quality free terrain source I could find ([0]), and the
TrueMarble collection was the best free imagery source ([1]).

I generated our earlier terrain dataset using the Cesium-Terrain-Builder
utility ([2]). It generates Cesium's "heightmap" format, but does not yet
support the "quantized-mesh" format. I have seen a couple other tools that
appear to deal with quantized-mesh tiles, though. On my list to dig into at
some point.

As a related note, using the MBTiles format ([3]) for storing and moving tile
datasets around is great. Multiple gigabytes in a single SQLite database file
(or possibly a few files split by zoom level), rather than trying to move
around millions of individual 10KB images on disk. Highly recommended.

[0] [http://www.earthenv.org/DEM.html](http://www.earthenv.org/DEM.html)

[1]
[http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/global_data/true_marble/dow...](http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/global_data/true_marble/download)

[2] [https://github.com/geo-data/cesium-terrain-
builder](https://github.com/geo-data/cesium-terrain-builder)

[3] [https://www.mapbox.com/help/an-open-
platform/](https://www.mapbox.com/help/an-open-platform/)

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btown
Their landing page and interaction model doesn't do their technology justice.

Take a look here:
[https://www.melown.com/intergeo2016/?pos=obj,10.740010,47.24...](https://www.melown.com/intergeo2016/?pos=obj,10.740010,47.246125,fix,881.58,-51.36,-69.21,0.00,152.72,55.00)
\- you can drag around, and drag the edge of the compass disk to rotate the
camera.

From this press release [https://www.melown.com/blog/official-
launch.html](https://www.melown.com/blog/official-launch.html) \- it seems
that 3D exploration in-browser is only part of their innovation; the other is
the ability to create detailed 3D maps of entire cities simply from
simultaneous-localization-and-mapping of aerial imagery feeds.

I'm not sure if Google's been able to do something similar, but I recall at
one point that in order for buildings to appear as 3D in Google Maps/Earth,
they'd need to be added manually by the community in their 3D editor. There
are certainly glitches, and it's hard to know how much manual cleanup was
required for these examples, but it's clear that not every building here was
manually modeled. Regardless, it's quite an accomplishment to be able to do
this type of thing from photographic data alone.

~~~
bri3d
Google have used photogrammetry to produce 3D meshes for Earth/Maps since
2012:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Douyfa7l8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Douyfa7l8)

They also use LIDAR data from street view to provide 3D data when you're in
that mode as well.

~~~
btown
That's awesome! I stand corrected.

------
underbluewaters
Something is wrong with navigation on my machine. Mouse movements are opposite
my expectation (I guess just a preference), and the movements are so sensitive
it jumps around a lot and I can't really navigate where I intend to. I'm on an
iMac w/magic mouse.

~~~
Raphmedia
The magic mouse is really bad with maps. I get the same problem with Google
Map.

As for the direction of the movement, think of it as pushing a globe and not
moving a camera.

~~~
badlucklottery
>As for the direction of the movement, think of it as pushing a globe and not
moving a camera.

It's not the style of navigation that feels weird. It feels like they're doing
the usual arcball but with some weird multiplier attached to rotations so it
doesn't feel 1:1 but something like 1:4.

It's really obvious if you zoom out enough to see the entire globe and grab
one horizon then drag it 180 degrees to the other. The globe rotates almost
twice in that span instead of ~1/2 rotation.

Edit: or at least it does on my PC and phone.

------
ovidiup
For Jollyturns ([https://jollyturns.com](https://jollyturns.com)) I'd like to
overlay my users' ski tracks data, as well as various ski resort objects
(lifts, runs etc) on a 3D Earth, to be displayed inside a browser.

Why would I use Melown instead of CesiumJS
([https://cesiumjs.org/](https://cesiumjs.org/))? Especially since the latter
appears to be free?

~~~
harwoodr
It looks like their hosted solution has a cost - but the software is open
source.

------
mempko
Reminds me of the old HERE maps fully JS webgl implementation. (source used to
work at HERE). They have since discontinued it.

Glad to see others doing it. Very smooth. Good work.

------
whiskers
This is, sadly, a total clunker on my Macbook Retina Pro 2015. The loading was
slow, the rendering seemed to be just a couple of frames per second.

Using the touchpad the actions seemed to be inverted (zooming in the opposite
way to what I expected). I couldn't find any way to tilt the view, but didn't
spend much time looking because the frame rate was so painfully low.

------
jeremyleach
Very smooth. And it seems you can tilt the angle of the plane so you are
almost at street level. I haven't seen that yet on google/apple maps etc.

------
alexmuro
I am getting a 503 for all their js files hosted on the cdn.melowdown.com

~~~
chrishacken
As am I. It also crashed my browser somehow.

------
Lio
Works very well on my iPhone 6S+.

------
dgreensp
Wow, looks and feels great! Better than Google!

~~~
bpicolo
Have you tried Earth lately? Google Earth is insanely awesome.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco,+CA/@37.8129...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco,+CA/@37.8129142,-122.4335323,748a,20y,127.03h,74.63t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80859a6d00690021:0x4a501367f076adff!8m2!3d37.7749295!4d-122.4194155)

This is good too, but Google is doing it more performantly as far as I can
tell.

~~~
tomslavkovsky
Google has a different budget, Melown is a startup based in Prague with 10
great developers.

~~~
bpicolo
And that's great and fine. It just doesn't match up with the OPs claim.

