3D Renderer for GeoTools

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3D Renderer for GeoTools

• Renders a 2D map on an infinite 3D surface
• Uses variable level of detail
• Closer areas are more detailed than far away ones
• A standard Swing Component with mouse gesture
  navigation

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Screenshot
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Implementation

• Uses a Quad Tree of tiles, to get variable level
  of detail
• The Quad Tree Nodes are expanded or collapsed as
  the camera gets closer or further away
• Has a Texture Renderer interface used to render
  the ground tiles
• Easy to provide a custom ground texture
• Tiles are rendered in a separate rendering thread
• While a tile is rendered, a section of the parent
  tile is shown instead

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Current Limitations

• Slow performance with large maps
• The 3D renderer renders every tile separately
• But the GeoTools 2D StreamingRenderer iterates
  through all the map data when rendering a small
  area
• No elevation yet
• The landscape is flat

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Future Plans

• Elevation data support
• 3D styles for features
• Buildings, roads, forests, 3D objects at points
• Tiled ground textures
• Texture to use determined by local terrain type
• Faster than rendering a 2D map on the ground
• More natural looking
• But features will need to be presented as 3D
  objects
• Will be used in an open source multiplayer game
• Skycastle.org

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Contact

• Wiki page http//docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOTOO
  LS/3DRenderingPipelineforGeoTools
• Or just google for 3D Map Renderer
• Developer Hans Häggström zzorn_at_iki.fi