Hacker News Reader

Comment by reustle | Hacker News Reader

https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/switzerland-in-3d

> Switzerland is one of the first countries to possess a detailed 3D buildings model covering the whole country. This digital model of Switzerland consists of approx. 70 million 3D objects. Besides every single building in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein, bridges, cable cars, forests, individual trees and geographical names are also represented in 3D. Two movement modes enable interactive navigation through space. Discover digital Switzerland from the air in flight mode or take a virtual stroll around a 3D model of your own village or neighbourhood.

View on HN

I wonder if this dataset has been added to OpenStreetMap (or what the legal restrictions could be). If I look at Zurich on https://osmbuildings.org/ it seems like it has all the buildings in 3d.

This might be a stupid question, but isn't Switzerland known for its countless hidden bunkers and defense positions? Doesn't mapping and publicly exposing basically the whole country only bring negatives and nothing positive?

One would reasonably assume threats could map surface-level objects from orbit. The Swiss (I hope) would consider this and react accordingly.

I have one of such fortifications, called Toblerone line, running around our place in canton Vaud. The whole line is maybe 15km long from Geneva lake up the Jura mountains, made up from concrete spikes (even raisable in the middle of roads), blowable bridges and around 15 tiny concrete fortresses (fortinettes), all in plain sight, mostly visible on google maps/street view.

All built around 1930s. There is popular hiking trail along all this, since nature and forests around it are pretty and well maintained. No secret really. Same for many other old stuff. New stuff should be hidden on bases/remote places.

Btw checked our building and surrounding ones and its pretty precise but not up to date with 2024 finished construction.

I though Switzerland's defense was more based around being mountainous and having explosives planted in critical tunnels/bridges and having a large percentage of the population armed and trained for national self defense. Basically in a ground invasion would be deadly and slow with no mobility and resistance everywhere.

Besides that it's hard to imagine which foreign power would have incentive and power projection to even try it.

The way I've understood it is that none of their defense is hidden, it uses the natural and societal benefits. Most of that could be gleaned by anyone with access to satellite images and wikipedia.

That might all be outdated info though, it'd be interesting to see where I'm wrong though!

There are laws in Switzerland stating that essentially every cirizen has to have a bunker close by. Thus many homes got a bunker.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/bunkers-for-all/995134

Historically that has been the case for for Sweden as well I think. Every older apartment building I've lived in (built before 1990-ish) has had bunkers in the basement, and usually it seems to be sized for more than just the buildings residents (although it is repurposed for storage these days). Thick steel doors and all the other tell-tales of old civilian bunkers.

I'm guessing other European countries did this too.

I visited a friend in Zurich recently who has such a bunker in their house. ( now a wine cellar)

Surely this was before nukes? After reading “nuclear war: a scenario”, I’m really not sure there’s much use surviving the initial blast anyway.

Non-nuclear invasions are still happening around the world.

I've definitely seen clips of heavy artillery tucked away into friendly barns and garden sheds. Maybe there's just wealthy people who like to collect large guns and there's some pride in turning away a Nazi invasion with their defenses.

Here's a cute video I found discussing the line of 12 fortresses protecting a little bottleneck of a river valley - he explains that the two camouflaged as villas are done so as not to be eyesores for the tourists.

https://youtu.be/tPL9-L2gwzo

https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/06/12/the_vil...

EDIT a few more examples here

  A former infantry bunker is camouflaged as a medieval house in the town of Duggingen. Notice the half-circle windows, which appear to have been painted on

  Nearby mountains have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them. There are weapons and soldiers under barns. There are cannons inside pretty houses. 

  If you look closely, you can see a massive door in the hillside that would swing open - A Swiss Air Force Mirage III RS outside its mountain hanger.

https://mathewingram.com/work/2022/02/14/switzerlands-hidden...

Map says it's a building, not what's in the building or how sturdy the building is. The thing that looks like a barn might not be a barn.

Crashed on my old iPhone 6SE, but could tell it was getting cool!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com