Author here, I wrote this to show how you can use the rayshader package to generate 3D maps in R using free and open data (in this case, Landsat 8 imagery and SRTM elevation data). You can check out rayshader's Github repo here:<p>Github:
<a href="https://www.github.com/tylermorganwall/rayshader" rel="nofollow">https://www.github.com/tylermorganwall/rayshader</a><p>And browse the documentation (with rendered examples) and README on its website:
<a href="https://www.rayshader.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.rayshader.com</a>
This is super interesting - I had no idea you could do this kind of thing with R. Very cool and a great step-by-step guide.<p>I also second the "rite of passage to fight with GDAL" sentiment :)<p>I'd also recommend Robert Simmon's introduction to GDAL for stitching, etc:
<a href="http://www.openvisconf.com/2017/#rsimmon-video-item" rel="nofollow">http://www.openvisconf.com/2017/#rsimmon-video-item</a>
Here I thought you'd be doing photogrammetry or something to produce 3d maps directly from 2d imagery.<p>Maybe title should be "making 3d maps with satellite imagery and 3d maps" ;)
Is this similar to what vricon[1] does?<p>I was searching around and found something noting they won a contract to build the Army's One World Terrain 3d model. This OWT appears to be some kind of classification for applying sat imagery over terrain data sets, maybe?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.vricon.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.vricon.com</a>
Has this been tried on something like a cityscape?<p>If so, it seems like you could fly a drone with two cameras at relatively low altitude and get insane resolution for things like cityscapes at a pretty low cost<p>======
EDIT: Meant to add that your webpage discussion was great & thanks for sharing!
this is super cool. i think we should do this in tiles and after that assemble a map of all of the US. The Sattelite data seems to be there, it's just time to download, build + stich, right?