
Blender GIS - ryannevius
https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS
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Waterluvian
As early as 10th grade I remember asking my GIS teacher, "why is ArcGIS so
sluggish and aliased but in my 3d animation class the viewports are
antialiased and smooth like butter?" (I didn't use these words but they're
what I meant to say)

I've been a bit obsessed with interdisciplinary mashups ever since. Robotics,
for example, badly badly needs to stop writing their own tools and use a ton
more of what already exists in GIS. And the disciplines of geography need to
do the same with the amazing vector and raster tools out there as well.

It's really awesome seeing Blender used as a GIS view.

~~~
goblin89
An interdisciplinary mashup I’m curious about is using videogame engines (e.g.
Unreal) for quality real-time 3D rendering responding to e.g. audio signal
(music) or motion, and creating cool art installations / live performances
based on that.

~~~
BubRoss
This has been done in various forms for a very long time. Winamp
visualizations were common back in the day. Look at Touch Designer if you want
to see one of the ways large concert panels are driven.

~~~
goblin89
I know about Touch Designer, but it is not a game engine and to my knowledge
does not really specialize in fully real-time high-resolution detailed 3D
rendering.

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jcagalawan
I wanna shout out David Garcia[1] for doing great stuff with Blender in the
GIS space.

This seems like a really cool project and I hope it makes that sort of work
easier.

[1] [https://mapmakerdavid.com](https://mapmakerdavid.com)

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hanoz
Looks good. I made this site I sent to Show HN last week[1] which lets you see
a 1km square at 1m resolution at any point in the UK's public lidar data,
using three.js.

Someone did ask about an export feature. What format would the export have to
be to be imported into this?

[1] [https://houseprices.io/lab/3d-lidar](https://houseprices.io/lab/3d-lidar)

~~~
zimpenfish
Nice tool - certainly a lot easier than fiddling with QGIS.

(Bizarrely, my parents' house is missing from the 2D LIDAR but appears in the
3D rendering. How's that work?)

~~~
hanoz
Thanks. The 3D view is generated from using the latest raw data but the 2D map
tiles are all pre-rendered en masse, so this spot must have been added to the
data since the tiles were lasted generated, which admittedly has been a while
- it's a long job.

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roel_v
Similarly, I've been hoping for a few people to pick up 'BlenderCAD' to add
accurate sizing/positioning and dimensions to Blender. For this sort of thing,
Sketchup is still (a lot) better.

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aikah
Nice. In retrospect, Blender choosing Python for its UI script in and API was
really a smart bet, especially given its adoption in the scientific community.
This kind of "mash up" is really great.

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pen2l
Tangentially related question: I really dig the buildings that have been
converted to 3dview on google maps. No other really comes close.

I'm 3dprinting a mini-city for someone, and want to get that data. Is there a
good way for me to get that data somehow?

~~~
yodon
See for example [https://blog.exppad.com/article/importing-
actual-3d-models-f...](https://blog.exppad.com/article/importing-
actual-3d-models-from-google-maps)

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froindt
This looks great! I've been looking at tools to do viewshed analysis. Already
being familiar with Blender, this is just the type of project I was looking
for.

I'm interested in some what's visible through the horizon. I wonder, does the
3d model import take into account the curvature of the earth, or is a
projection onto the plane they start with?

~~~
yodon
The raw data is in lat/long and elevation. You use a tool like QGIS to project
the raw data into xyz data [0]. QGIS and the projection model determine the
coordinates of the data that get rendered. Blender just renders the xyz data.

[0] See for example the FAQ for the blender project
[https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS/wiki/FAQ](https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS/wiki/FAQ)

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derefr
Seeing the height-map retrieval makes me wonder: are there any (non-AR) games
that have a game world that's not just based on the real world, but rather an
import of real-world GIS data?

~~~
CrazyStat
Flight sims, typically.

~~~
Intermernet
Especially the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator.

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xet7
I did find from YouTube this Blender GIS howto video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNtKnmRXVlo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNtKnmRXVlo)

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vmchale
Wonderful project! I'll have to get more into the Python ecosystem for GIS.

