procedural-gl.js

Procedural GL JS is a library for creating 3D map experiences on the web, written in JavaScript and WebGL. It is built on top of THREE.js.

It provides an easy-to-use, but powerful framework to allow beautiful landscapes of the outdoors to be embedded into web pages. It loads super-fast and is optimized for mobile devices.

Demo | Docs | Overlay playground | Elevation data | Source

Key features

• Novel GPU powered level-of-detail system gives butter-smooth rendering, including on mobile
• Stream in standard raster imagery tiles. Supports map tiles from a variety of providers
• Easily include elevation data for 3D terrain
• Powerful overlay capabilities. Draw crisp markers and lines
• Well-thought-out API, complex applications can be built without needing to deal with 3D concepts
• Great UX and intuitive controls, mouse-based on desktop & touch-based on mobile
• Tiny filesize means library is parsed fast. Package size is less than THREE.js thanks to code stripping

Screenshots

Install

npm install procedural-gl

Usage

import Procedural from 'procedural-gl';

// Choose a DOM element into which the library should render
const container = document.getElementById( 'container' );

// Configure datasources
const datasource = {
  provider: 'maptiler',
  // To get a free key, use https://cloud.maptiler.com/account/?ref=procedural
  apiKey: 'GET_AN_API_KEY_FROM_MAPTILER'
};

// Initialize library and optionally add UI controls
Procedural.init( { container, datasource } );
Procedural.setRotationControlVisible( true );

// Load real-world location
const montBlanc = { latitude: 45.8326364, longitude: 6.8564201 };
Procedural.displayLocation( montBlanc );

Connecting to a datasource

To actually load data using a library you will need to connect to a source of data. The quickest way to get setup is to register for a free account with MapTiler and then use the API key as shown above.

For detailed instructions for setting up the datasource, see this page in the wiki

Examples

• 🏞️ New Zealand National Parks
• 🏔️ Peaks of Austria
• 🌋 Volcanoes of Japan
• 🗺️ XYCarto(NZ 8m DEM)

Sponsor

If this library is useful to you, please consider sponsoring the project.

Blog posts / Guides

• Quickstart setup of datasources for Procedural GL JS
• Build New Zealand in an afternoon
• RGB Elevation Creation for 3D Online Mapping

License

Procedural GL JS is licensed under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0.