The 3D Map Editor

Shape Your World

The 3D Map Editor transforms your generated terrain into a fully interactive 3D workspace powered by Babylon.js. Shape the terrain, design the environment, add data overlays, and bring your map to life. Every change happens in real time, with autosave helping to keep your latest progress safely stored.

Editing, Lighting, and Framing

Take complete control over the geometry and atmosphere of your map.

Elevation & Geometry: Exaggerate the terrain height to make topographical features pop. Apply surface smoothing to remove harsh data artifacts and adjust grid subdivision for high-end rendering.

Dynamic Lighting: Dial in the exact mood. Adjust light intensity, sun height, and rotation to cast realistic, dynamic shadows across the landscape.

Edge & Environment Design: Frame your map like a physical object. Customize the base with varying thicknesses, solid colors, or realistic bump-mapped ground textures (like soil or rock). Complete the scene by placing your map inside a 360° skybox or setting a transparent background for clean exports.

Draw Directly on the Terrain

Need custom markings that aren’t in the map data? The built-in Draw Texture Panel lets you paint directly onto the 3D surface. Use brushes, pens, and erasers to highlight specific zones, sketch out planned routes, or upload custom image files—like logos or custom markers—straight onto the terrain overlay.

3D Elements & Interactive Tours

Populate Your Map with 3D Assets & Media

Turn a static landscape into an interactive story. Drop 3D elements—like pins, buildings, trees, or transport vehicles—onto the surface, automatically anchored to the correct terrain height. Attach rich-media popups with text, links, images, or YouTube videos to create interactive points of interest.

Create Interactive Tours

Turn selected elements into waypoints and connect them into an interactive tour across your map. With a single click on Play, the camera moves from waypoint to waypoint, guiding viewers through locations, highlights, and stories in a predefined sequence. Your tour can be played directly in the 3D viewer or exported as a cinematic video.

Add Water to Your Terrain

Bring coastal regions, islands, and mountain landscapes to life with an adjustable water layer. Raise or lower the global water level to reveal how the terrain interacts with the water surface, and adjust the wave strength to fine-tune the look of your scene.

Explore the 3D Editor in Detail

Get to know the tools that make up the 3D Editor. From shaping terrain and adjusting lighting to adding interactive elements, creating tours and customizing the look of your map — the overview below shows you where everything happens. Follow the numbered sections to explore each feature in detail.

3D Map Editor interface with terrain editing tools

1. Setup

Shape Your Terrain
Adjust the terrain height, smooth the surface and fine-tune the mesh detail of your 3D map. Toggle the ground and grid for easier editing and switch to high-resolution terrain when available.

2. Lighting

Set the Perfect Light
Control light intensity, shadows, sun height and direction directly in the editor. Quickly change the mood of your scene or emphasize the shape and elevation of the terrain.

3. Elements & Media

Bring Your Map to Life
Place pins, buildings, vehicles, nature assets, labels, flags and images directly on your terrain. Add interactive popups with text, links, images or YouTube videos and turn selected elements into waypoints for your tours.

4. Interactive Tour

Guide Viewers Through Your Map
Create a guided tour from selected elements and arrange them as waypoints. Set individual pause times and use Play to let the camera travel through your map automatically. Tours are saved with your project and can also be included in interactive embeds or exported as video.

5. GPS & Routes

Customize Your Routes
Fine-tune imported GPX and KML tracks directly in the 3D Editor. Change the route color, thickness and shape, and add a customizable elevation profile to visualize altitude changes along the route.

6. Water

Add a Global Water Level
Add an adjustable water surface to your terrain and control its height and wave strength. Ideal for enhancing islands, coastal landscapes and terrain below the selected water level.

7. Draw on Terrain

Draw Directly on Your Map
Paint, draw and place custom graphics directly onto the terrain texture. Use brushes, pens and erasers, upload your own images and refine your work with selection tools, zoom, undo and redo.

8. Terrain Edges

Customize the Terrain Block
Give the sides of your 3D map their own look. Adjust edge thickness and color or choose from textured ground materials with bump effects to create more natural-looking terrain blocks.

9. Background & Skybox

Set the Scene
Choose a solid background color, keep the background transparent for clean exports, or surround your terrain with a 360° skybox to create a more immersive environment.

10. View Compass

Find the Perfect Angle
Use the built-in compass to snap your camera to eight predefined directions. Switch between perspective and orthographic isometric views for natural 3D scenes or clean, precise map presentations.

11. Map Styles

Switch Your Map Style
Instantly switch between Vector, Satellite and Topographic map textures while working on your scene. Compare different styles and choose the look that works best for your 3D map.

12. Map Attribution

Keep Your Sources Visible
The required attribution for the map and terrain data is displayed directly inside the 3D canvas and automatically included where required in supported exports.

13. Your Maps

Access Your Projects
Open your project sidebar directly from the editor to access your saved maps and continue working on existing projects without leaving your workspace.

14. Download Map

Take Your Map Anywhere
Export your finished project as 3D files, print-ready STL, high-resolution images, heightmaps and textures, interactive web embeds or video for a wide range of creative workflows.

15. Auto Save

Keep Your Progress Safe
Enable Auto Save to automatically save your current project every 10 seconds while you work, keeping your latest changes safely stored.

16. Snapshot

Capture & Share for Free
Create a free JPG snapshot of your current 3D view in 4:5, 1:1 or 9:16 format. Perfect for social media, with the required attribution automatically included in the image.

17. New Map

Start Your Next Map
Return directly to the Map Browser to choose another location, route, country or custom area and start creating a new 3D map.

18. Elevation Profile

Visualize Every Climb & Descent
Display an elevation profile for your imported GPX or KML route directly inside the 3D view. See altitude changes along the route and customize the profile’s size, colors, grid and labels.

Over 100 elements for your 3D map

Populate Your Map with 3D Assets

Choose from over 100 ready-to-use 3D elements to add landmarks, context, and visual details to your map. Place them anywhere on the terrain, adjust their size, position and rotation, and customize the color of supported elements to match your scene.

Turn any element into an interactive point of interest by adding a popup with a title, text, link, image, or YouTube video. Elements can also be used as waypoints for interactive tours, connecting your map’s visual details with guided storytelling.

Start by selecting your terrain in The Map Browser, customize it in the 3D Map Editor, then explore all available formats under Export & Downloads.