Show HN: Low Poly Earth – The whole planet in 3D, built from OpenStreetMap data (lowpolyearth.pages.dev)

2 points by blueblazin 1mo ago ↗ HN

After seeing demos of Claude and GPT construct Manhattan and other city neighborhoods in 3D I was inspired to make something similar but for the entire Earth.

It's a low poly version of Google Earth built using open street and elevation data as a native Apple silicon Mac app. It was built entirely using Codex and Claude Code and took about 80 days.

5 comments

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ryker2000 1mo ago ↗

Wow, super cool project, would be awesome if you can manage to get it running in the browser.

blueblazin 1mo ago ↗

Thanks! I am trying to port it to the browser. Keeping those Anthropic GPUs and TPUs busy.

bmoathn 1mo ago ↗

Don't have a mac to try but site examples look cool! How did you handle arctic regions, arctic DEM? I assume it's an online app so you're serving the terrain height data or does it run offline?

Cool project. Feels like google earth mixed with a lowfi steam game i love Art of Rally :)

blueblazin 1mo ago ↗

Thanks, this is an online app and it uses protomaps[1] and mapterhorn[2] data for cities and elevation. So the app streams relevant elevation tiles based on your current location and uses those to render the terrain.

[1] https://protomaps.com [2] https://mapterhorn.com/

bmoathn 1mo ago ↗

Ah interesting thanks for the references I will take a look