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Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

melown.com

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Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#21

Post by bri3d »

btown wrote: post #17

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... - 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 - it seems that 3D exploration in-browser is only part of their innovation; the other is the ability to…

Google have used photogrammetry to produce 3D meshes for Earth/Maps since 2012: 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.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#22

Post by tomslavkovsky »

ovidiup wrote: post #10

For Jollyturns ( 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/ )? Especially since the latter appears to be free?

Cesium will not work for large datasets and generaly it's very slow, otherwise Melown allows you to upload enourmous large data scales and works fast.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#23

Post by tomslavkovsky »

bpicolo wrote: post #16
dgreensp wrote: post #9

Wow, looks and feels great! Better than Google!

Have you tried Earth lately? Google Earth is insanely awesome. https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco,+CA/@37.8129... This is good too, but Google is doing it more performantly as far as I can tell.

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

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#24

Post by btown »

bri3d wrote: post #21
btown wrote: post #17

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... - 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 - it seems that 3D exploration in-browser is only part of their innovation; the other is the ability to…

Google have used photogrammetry to produce 3D meshes for Earth/Maps since 2012: 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.

That's awesome! I stand corrected.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#25

Post by 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/

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#26

Post by dualogy »

nathancahill wrote: post #25

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…

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 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.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#27

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Raphmedia wrote: post #4
underbluewaters wrote: post #3

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.

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.

It's not specific to any particular mouse. The clicked on point doesn't stay under the cursor as you drag, even slowly. There is too much easing applied after releasing the button.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#28

Post by microcolonel »

nathancahill wrote: post #25

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…

I feel like Multi-View reconstructions from a combination of high resolution ground and aerial photography are the only way we can hope to do better than Google Earth. Earth still suffers a lot on reversing lighting. Maybe a sunlight raytracing model could reconstruct neutral diffuse textures from a combination of time information, position information, and surrounding geometry.

Maybe some day we can get angular and spectral reflectance, normals, refraction, and subsurface diffusion maps. Each of these would be essentially the same optimization as the diffuse maps.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#29

Post by sorenjan »

bpicolo wrote: post #16
dgreensp wrote: post #9

Wow, looks and feels great! Better than Google!

Have you tried Earth lately? Google Earth is insanely awesome. https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco,+CA/@37.8129... This is good too, but Google is doing it more performantly as far as I can tell.

Google Earth is a native program, you linked to Google maps, their web based map app. While it's pretty good, it's still not as good as a native program, although I'd be very surprised if Google ever updates Earth again.

Re: Melown – 3D mapping implementation in JS, smooth and silent

#30

Post by bpicolo »

sorenjan wrote: post #29
bpicolo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Earth lately? Google Earth is insanely awesome. https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco,+CA/@37.8129... This is good too, but Google is doing it more performantly as far as I can tell.

Google Earth is a native program, you linked to Google maps, their web based map app. While it's pretty good, it's still not as good as a native program, although I'd be very surprised if Google ever updates Earth again.

I mean, it's the Earth view on Google Maps. I'm aware of the separate product, but they're the ones with colliding namespaces. ;)
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