Reality Mapping vs Digital Twins

This Esri article sounds like a lot of marketing word salad, but the animated GIF is cool!

True Orthos vs Trad Orthos & ArcGIS Reality

First, what is ArcGIS Reality?

I'm not entirely sure, here's what Esri says: ArcGIS Reality is a suite of photogrammetry software products designed to enable reality capture workflows for sites, cities, and countries.

One main feature seems to be the abilaity to create & use so-capped True Orthophotos as opposed to Traditional Orthophotos.

• True Orthophotos vs. Traditional Orthophotos: Why do pixels matter in the age of AI?
• The Different Types of Ortho Images Created in ArcGIS

The animated GIF below demonsrates the main difference between true orthos & trad orthos. 

The Global Building Atlas Downloader

The Global Building Atlas is cool, but most people (and especially my students) cannot handle a GitHub respository. But, thanks to Maps Mania, we now have a convenient downloader into GeoJSON: The Global Building Atlas Downloader. Thanks!

3D model of Sutro Tower in San Francisco

This is super-slick: https://vincentwoo.com/3d/sutro_tower/

Drowning Cities in 3D

Via Maps Mania: Sea Level Rise 3D Map is cool, but takes forever to load on a normal PC with a normal Internet connection.

Climate Trace

Incredible data & visualization from Climate TRACE!

• Track Global Emission of air pollution.
• Pollution Plumes shows how they disperse from point sources.

Sketchfab & Cannon Mountain

Sketchfab looks fun & calls itself "The leading platform for 3D & AR on the web". The free plan may be enough to get you started, but anything after that is $15 / month.

Here's an example: Cannon Mountain (New Hampshire)

I Got a Drone!

Fun series from John Nelson!

1. I Got a Drone, part 1: Unboxing & Goals

Blender & Canva

Sounds like Blender & Canva are taking over the 3D & 2D graphic design world - interesting! I'm not surprised to see Blender here, but Canva used to be considered an amateur tool. Read more about it here. 

Air Tours & UpToWhere

Here are two cool apps for exploring the world:

1. Air Tours allows you to explore cities by combining Google Maps 3D, Street View and more. For example: here's Boston.
2. UpToWhere is a basic viewshed tool, but creates a great 3D visualization.

NetCDF in ArcGIS Pro

I always wanted to try this: Explore a NetCDF file

3D Print Your World

Great compilation of tools by Maps Mania: 3D Print Your World

• Topography Explorer
• DEM Net Elevation API
• Tiel Exporter

The Street View Animator

The Street View Animator looks like great fun - more about it over @ Maps Mania.

My only concern is 'permanence' - these types of apps have a tendency to disappear after a while & then all your work disappears as well. This makes it a little risky to committ to it as a teaching tool.

GLOBAL GLACIER CASUALTY LIST

The GLOBAL GLACIER CASUALTY LIST is nicely-done Esri Story Map - good luck keeping it updated!

How Smooth Is The Earth, Really?

How Smooth Is The Earth, Really? is a cool 3D animation of Earth's topograhy (both to-scale & with vertical exaggeration). This would be great as two amimated GIFs to show side-by-side.

I actually like the chart even more - showing the layers of the Earth to-scale & showing how insignifcant Earth's topography is relative to the size of the Earth overall.

3D-PAWS

3D-PAWS =  a 3d-printed weather station!

• https://sites.google.com/ucar.edu/3dpaws/
• YouTube channel @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaxlD_Ylp3ooI8ej8ACmJDg

climatearchive.org

 climatearchive.org is an amazing 3D visualization of climate model data across time and space.

• Explore the last 545 million years.
• Explore the next 80 years.
• Explore the next million years.

Animated Fly-To Map GIFs

Animated GIFs are great: simple & easy! This Fly To app looks like a great way to make animated map GIFs. Read more about it here: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2023/12/making-animated-map-gifs.html

Our Reddening Globe

Our Reddening Globe is pretty slick: you get a 3D rotating globe, two interactive global and regional time series, and an animation option to place 2023 into the context of 1880 to 2023. Here's the issue that I have: does something like that 'move-the-needle' at all? Sure, it's a cool data viz but it lacks something: a spark, a story - something that would turn this from just another data viz to something that could trigger an emotional response.

Alternatives to Google Street View

Maps Mania has compiled a nice list of open-source alternatives to Google Street View, for example Panoramax, Mappillary, and KartaView. These apps can be useful to share your own street-level photos, for example for your own project.

More here: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2023/11/alternative-street-view.html