Those who know game dev know making good isometric maps can be deceptively difficult. You grabbed that bull by the horns and did so beautifully. Well done!
Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
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Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#12Behind the scenes stuff:
https://sf.isopolis.city/dev.html
> The source is Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles. Isometric.nyc explored and rejected the use of 3d building data. It is pretty insane that US gov has free LIDAR data for every city in the US available to the public. I spent > Now that we have the 3D tiles, we need to generate the ground truth pairs for training! Similar to isometric.nyc, I generated a few ghibli-style pixel-art images using Google's Nano Banana. SF terrain is very interesting. There are quite a few distinct features like skyscrapers in FiDi, the hills in the southeast, 2 iconic bridges, lots of coastline, piers, parks, suburban grids and lots of water. I generated a ton of images and curated from them. Getting consistent style was a challenge. There was a LOT of manual trial and error. But as usual, Claude Code added this feature to the dev app that allowed me to select the best images and approve them.
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#13time to push the boundaries of your creation
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#14Incredible. It's easy to just go on browsing and exploring. The massive, scrollable pixel art aspect reminds me a little of Floor796: https://floor796.com/
This is amazing, it got everything I could think of but not all, where’s little nightmares, silent hill, naruto, men in black, for a starter. But it’s neat regardless!
Men in Black: https://floor796.com/#b2r4,541,605
Naruto: https://floor796.com/#t2l4,684,675
The author continues adding and refining the project, so if it isn't in there yet, perhaps in the future.
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#15Very cool! Yesterday my wife and I watched Inside Out, and seeing the San Francisco setting felt very familiar (last year, 2025). Last year, in 2025, my wife and I went to San Francisco for our honeymoon. This website also showed me many familiar places.
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#16Incredible. It's easy to just go on browsing and exploring. The massive, scrollable pixel art aspect reminds me a little of Floor796: https://floor796.com/
This is amazing, it got everything I could think of but not all, where’s little nightmares, silent hill, naruto, men in black, for a starter. But it’s neat regardless!
i remember seein men in black here
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#17I'm reminded of the wonderful https://cannoneyed.com/projects/isometric-nyc project, also previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721802
This could be a great anecdotal benchmark for agent/model progress. I wonder how much easier things have gotten with the latest Codex/Claude vs. when isometric.nyc was made.
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is amazing, it got everything I could think of but not all, where’s little nightmares, silent hill, naruto, men in black, for a starter. But it’s neat regardless!
Men in Black: https://floor796.com/#b2r4,541,605 Naruto: https://floor796.com/#t2l4,684,675 The author continues adding and refining the project, so if it isn't in there yet, perhaps in the future.
Nice, love it!
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#19Behind the scenes stuff: https://sf.isopolis.city/dev.html > The source is Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles. Isometric.nyc explored and rejected the use of 3d building data. It is pretty insane that US gov has free LIDAR data for every city in the US available to the public. I spent > Now that we have the 3D tiles, we need to generate the ground truth pairs for training! Similar to isometric.nyc, I generated a few ghib…
> I'm stoked for the golden era of side-projects!
Love that attitude. Me too!
Re: Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
#20Behind the scenes stuff: https://sf.isopolis.city/dev.html > The source is Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles. Isometric.nyc explored and rejected the use of 3d building data. It is pretty insane that US gov has free LIDAR data for every city in the US available to the public. I spent > Now that we have the 3D tiles, we need to generate the ground truth pairs for training! Similar to isometric.nyc, I generated a few ghib…
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