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Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Why don't map sites ever publish 3D as topo lines overlaid on a flat 2D map? It's computationally much cheaper, and it's not too hard to learn to read a topo map, as long as the elevations are printed in a reasonably dense manner.

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Because for a layperson, an actual 3D map is much easier (and prettier) to read than a topo line map.

Literally none of these are "actual 3D maps," they are topo maps. The only additional information they provide is the 3D extension of objects that were already discoverable in 2D.

"Can this map help me find the town hall of Whittier, Alaska?" If not, it isn't a 3D map.

> Can this map help me find the town hall of Whittier, Alaska?

For those who (like me) who didn't get the reference and were curious about this - the town appears to be mainly consolidated into a single 14-story building [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begich_Towers

Probably because it's both easier to make and more visually impressive and interactive. Contour maps made the naive way are too noisy, you need to process the height data in some way first. With 3D all you need is to put a vertex in each height data pixel and use the value as a z position.

https://hkartor.se/anteckningar/generating_graceful_contour_...

http://routegadget.net/karttapullautin/

Protip: open the hiking layer.

Why sacrifice accessibility and usability to save on a bit of computation?

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be super cool to _also_ include a topographical map feature for those who wanted/needed it, but I don't expect most people would be able to use it in lieu of a simple, visual 3D view.

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