3D Mode

Atlas provides 3D visualization capabilities to enhance your maps with three-dimensional buildings, terrain, and other geographic features. 3D mode is ideal for urban planning, architecture visualization, terrain analysis, and immersive map exploration.

Enabling 3D Mode

Toggle 3D/2D View

To switch between 2D and 3D mode:

1. Locate the view controls in the bottom-right corner of your map
2. Click the "3D" toggle button to enter 3D mode
3. Click "2D" to return to the flat map view

The toggle appears as a cube icon (⬜) in the map controls.

Navigating in 3D Mode

Mouse Controls

• Rotate the map: Hold Ctrl + drag your mouse left/right
• Tilt the view: Hold Ctrl + drag your mouse up/down
• Pan: Click and drag (without Ctrl)
• Zoom: Scroll wheel or pinch on touchpad

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Rotate left/right: ← / → arrow keys
• Tilt up/down: ↑ / ↓ arrow keys
• Reset view: Press Home or R to return to north-up orientation

Touchpad Gestures (Mac/Linux)

• Rotate: Two-finger drag left/right
• Tilt: Two-finger drag up/down
• Zoom: Pinch gesture

Visualizing Buildings in 3D

Displaying Building Heights

Buildings and structures can be extruded to their real-world heights for realistic 3D visualization.

To enable building extrusion:

1. Add a layer containing building data (with height attributes)
2. Open the layer's Layer Styles panel
3. Under "Extrusion" or "Height", select the data column containing building heights
4. Set the extrusion scale to control how tall buildings appear
5. Apply a fill color to distinguish buildings

Height data sources:

• GIS datasets with height, elevation, or story_count fields
• OpenStreetMap building data (uses height in meters)
• LiDAR-derived raster data
• Manual measurements or architectural surveys

Styling 3D Features

You can style buildings and 3D objects by:

• Fill color: Apply single colors or data-driven colors based on attributes
• Opacity: Make buildings partially transparent to see through them
• Outline color/width: Add borders to building footprints
• Extrusion scale: Control the vertical exaggeration for dramatic effect

See Layer Styles for detailed styling instructions.

Working with Terrain and Elevation Data

Adding Terrain Layers

Terrain can be visualized as:

• Hillshade rasters — Shaded relief showing terrain slopes and features
• DEM (Digital Elevation Models) — Raw elevation data with contour lines
• Aspect maps — Showing slope direction

To add terrain:

1. Click "Add layer" → "Atlas Data Hub"
2. Filter by "Terrain" or search for "DEM" or "Hillshade"
3. Select a dataset (e.g., GEBCO Global DEM, USGS Terrain)
4. Click "Add" to display the terrain layer

Color-Coding by Elevation

For digital elevation models, you can color-code areas by height:

1. Add a DEM or elevation raster layer
2. Open Layer Styles
3. Select "Color by elevation" or apply a custom color ramp
4. Adjust the scale to enhance visibility of elevation differences
5. Toggle "Contour lines" to overlay elevation contours

Viewing from Different Angles

Perspective View

The default 3D view uses perspective projection, which makes distant objects appear smaller — just like real-world vision.

• Tilt the camera to view buildings and terrain from an angle
• Rotate around features of interest to see all sides
• Zoom in/out to explore at different scales

Orthographic View

Some workflows require straight overhead view with less perspective distortion:

• Use 2D Mode for purely orthographic viewing
• Or adjust Camera tilt to near-vertical (nearly overhead) in 3D mode

Preset Views

Some maps include bookmark-saved views. Check the Bookmarks panel to quickly jump to saved 3D perspectives.

Creating Anaglyph 3D Images

An anaglyph is a special 3D image that can be viewed with red-blue 3D glasses. This is useful for presentations and print materials.

To create an anaglyph image:

1. Position your map in the desired 3D view
2. Right-click on the map and select "Export as anaglyph" (if available)
3. Adjust the viewing angle and tilt to optimize the 3D effect
4. Export as PNG or PDF for sharing or printing
5. Viewers wearing red-blue 3D glasses will see the depth effect

Performance Tips

Optimize 3D Rendering

Large datasets and high-resolution terrain can be resource-intensive. To improve performance:

• Simplify geometry — Reduce vertex count in polygons before uploading
• Use GeoJSON — Simpler formats render faster than complex shapefiles
• Limit layer count — Hide unnecessary layers to reduce rendering overhead
• Zoom to region of interest — Limit the visible area rather than rendering the entire globe
• Disable building shadows — If supported, turn off lighting effects for faster rendering

Browser Compatibility

3D mode works best in:

• Chrome/Edge (most stable)
• Firefox
• Safari 15+ (may be slower on older Macs)

For the best experience, use a modern browser with hardware acceleration enabled.

Troubleshooting

Buildings don't extrude or appear flat

• Check that your layer has height/elevation data in a numeric column
• Verify the height values are in reasonable ranges (not -9999 or other sentinel values)
• Confirm the extrusion style is enabled in Layer Styles
• Try zooming in to a smaller area to see the 3D effect more clearly

3D mode is slow or laggy

• Hide layers you're not using
• Simplify your datasets before uploading
• Close other browser tabs to free up memory
• Try 2D mode for initial data exploration, then switch to 3D for presentation

Can't rotate or tilt the view

• Ensure you're holding Ctrl while dragging
• Check that your mouse or trackpad is responsive
• Try using keyboard shortcuts (←, →, ↑, ↓) instead
• Disable browser extensions that might conflict with keyboard input

Terrain doesn't display correctly

• Confirm the DEM/raster file is in a supported format (GeoTIFF)
• Check that the file's coordinate system is detected correctly
• Verify the elevation values are reasonable for the geographic area
• Try a different terrain dataset from Atlas Data Hub

Sharing 3D Maps

When you publish or share a map, your 3D camera configuration is preserved for viewers. The following settings carry through to shared and embedded maps:

• Max camera pitch — the maximum tilt angle viewers can reach
• Terrain exaggeration — the vertical scale applied to terrain elevation

Configure these in the editor before publishing. Viewers will see the same 3D perspective you designed, and the camera constraints you set will apply to their interactions as well.

Next Steps

• Customize 3D appearance — See Layer Styles for color and extrusion options
• Add context layers — Combine 3D buildings with satellite imagery or street maps
• Share your map — See Sharing to share 3D maps with others
• Export for presentations — Use anaglyph export or take screenshots for reports