New Feature: 3D
Looking at a route and need to visualize in a different way? Searching for a lost hiker and want to view the terrain in the search area? Change your perspective with CalTopo 3D.
After a lot of behind the scenes work, we are so happy to bring 3D to CalTopo web and mobile! This is a feature we are all incredibly excited about, and from feature requests over the years we know you will be too.
This isn’t just any old 3D map though. With CalTopo’s new 3D you can accomplish everything you are used to getting done on CalTopo in 2D.
- View all of our existing layers in either 2D or 3D.
- Planning a spring ski line? Stack sentinel weekly on top of Mapbuilder topo to view the map and snow coverage while visualizing your line.
- Climbing Mt. Rainer? View the peak in 3D and adjust your tentative route to avoid large crevasse fields visible on shaded relief. Seriously, volcanoes look so cool in 3D.
- Visualize terrain before sending a search team into the field. Create search areas based on terrain, or rank likely and unlikely routes taken by viewing a 3 dimensional representation of the area.
The use cases are unlimited. Leave a comment below on how 3D will change your mapping!
To enable 3D, click or tap the “3D” icon on the upper left side of the map viewer on both web and the mobile app. Controls will differ slightly between the versions. On the web, use the controls as follows when in 3D mode (these can be brought up at any time by clicking “3D Controls” at the bottom of the map viewer).
On mobile all perspective changes are done using your fingers. Drag two fingers vertically to change the pitch. Drag two fingers in a spinning motion to rotate the map, and drag one finger to move your location on the map (as normal). You can toggle back to 2D in the upper left corner.
For more information on using 3D in CalTopo, visit the 3D page in our user guide.
To use 3D on mobile, ensure you have the most recent app version downloaded (1.13.6 and later). To check for updates visit the app store by following this link: caltopo.com/appstore.
3D will be available to all CalTopo users (free and paid) through the end of 2024. Give it a try, tell us what you think! Starting January 1st, 3D will be available to users with a pro, desktop or team subscription. You can view our subscription levels and upgrade at caltopo.com/join.
If you have any questions or comments, please email us at help@caltopo.com or comment on this post below. Happy 3D Mapping!
3d is awesome! Very welcome addition to the product. Wondering if you can change the date of the satellite imagery?
Happy to hear that! In terms of the satellite imagery, it depends on which one you are viewing.
For aerial imagery, you can’t change the date on Global Imagery but you can choose between two different dates for NAIP (which covers the continental US). For live satellites, you can change the date using the dropdown menu (although it should be noted, Sentinel Weekly has the best resolution for 3D).
Most awesome! Love the ongoing improvements. Just played with it on my web browser, going to be great for skiing I think, esp with the Satellite Images layer, on my mobile phone especially. Thanks again for all of the hard work!
Unfortunately, enabling 3D seems to have no affect on my Ubuntu Linux desktop, running either Firefox or Chrome. I visited http://get.webgl.org/ and it shows a spinning cube, which should indicate that I have proper WebGL support (and I’m running an NVidia graphics card with up to date OpenGL drivers).
But the same thing is happening on my Windows 10 laptop running Chrome and Firefox. Clicking the 3D button has no affect. I don’t see the “3D Controls” menu indiated at the bottom of the screen or anything.
Doesn’t seem to work for me: Either on Chrome or Linux on Ubuntu Linux, or Chrome or Firefox on Windows 10.
Hi Jeff- please send us an email at help@caltopo.com and we would be happy to help you troubleshoot. I have been using it on Chrome and it works as expected for me.
So rad, can’t wait to check this out. So helpful for visualizing terrain for building trails.
Oh that will be a great use of it!
I was very happy to see this new feature added!!! I suggested this to Matt five years ago so am glad it finally worked its way into the app. I have played around with it on my desktop using Chrome and have not found any issues with manipulating the 3D function. However, using the SHIFT and ARROW keys are a little clunkee. I am use to using a mouse in Terrain Navigator Pro to manipulate their 3D function…much smoother than what I have experienced so far in SARTopo. Is it possible to upgrade this function for a mouse? TNP also gave a greater 3D function in terms of horizon magnification. All-in-all, this is a great addition to SARTopo…one I know will be used extensively in our team’s planning and operations during SAR incidents. Thanks for getting it onboard and continuing to improve the program!
Hi Nelson- thanks for the feedback! You should be able to navigate 3D with a mouse with Control + drag or right click + drag. Try that out and if you run into any issues, send us an email at help@caltopo.com.
Works great for me in Safari on the latest macOS. Thanks so much!
The performance on Android is pretty poor. When switching to 3D, the map sometimes freezes as a gray background with no layer loading. I reverted to a previous version of the APK to avoid the update for now.
Sorry to hear you are running into issues- that is not the expected performance. Please send us an email at help@caltopo.com and we would be happy to help you.
Looks great and just in time to replace FATMAP!
Vertical exaggeration option would be nice for viewing lower elevation areas, such as the foothills in the Seattle area. Would be useful for any places that don’t have extreme elevation changes.