Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#21

Post by mgranados » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

sdoering wrote: post #9

Having just taken the Elisabeth Line to LHR T5 and sitting here, this was fun. Thanks. Edit: Is there a Repo to look at and learn from this?

<3 thanks!! i'll clean it and share here sometime soon

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#22

Post by mgranados » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

Falimonda wrote: post #10

How do I drive the train? Arrow keys not working :(

It's just following api data for now. That'd be a real cool feature for backlog!

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#23

Post by mgranados » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

jrrv wrote: post #5

The planes were a surprise

hehe thanks!

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#24

Post by mgranados » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

kentonv wrote: post #2

This is really cool! Quick suggestion: When not tracking a train, the mouse wheel should zoom into / out from where the cursor is pointing, rather than the center of the window.

thanks! that's a great suggestion will implement

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#25

Post by mgranados » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #8

The train paths are drawn on a 2D layer above the buildings, not at z-index that matches the proper 3-D position. So the paths appear to weave around and over the tops of buildings.

I meant to make it feel like the tube ones felt "underground" by some metres i'll have a look thanks

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#26

Post by taylorius » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

hokkos wrote: post #14

There seems to be some parallax issues between your trip layer and your 3D Tiles layer, but nice usage of deck.gl.

Is it not that certain train lines are somewhat deep underground? The Piccadilly line swims with respect to the ground in the centre of town, when it is below ground. Further out where lines are at the surface the routes stick to the ground correctly.

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#27

Post by adecoster » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

A bit buggy in term of tiles jonctions

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#28

Post by ampdepolymerase » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

mgranados wrote: post #16

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #13

Interesting but quite buggy. Example: mouse dragging seems trapped in a fairly small area.

Ah yeah i tried anchoring to the train with a threshold for panning around i'll try smoothing it. thanks for trying it!

Can you add support for touch?

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#29

Post by Pigo » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

This is a fun idea and interesting implementation. I know there's only so much an api can give you, but I'd love to see anything that gives more information or visuals of the surroundings.

Re: Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

#30

Post by IIAOPSW » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

This is frustratingly close to amazing. Obviously you went through all the trouble of pulling all the data from all the trains and displaying them in 3d, but then lock our view on to just one train or one station while all that interesting information zips around in the periphery. The view port needs to be more free form...less on rails.