Windy 3D mode is back!
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@mohsen_kimia Hello, country names are gathered from Openstreetmap.org, in case you noticed any error, please contact them directly.
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I appreciate the ability to view global data - especially circulation - on a non-Mercator projection, but as a long-time teacher of cartography I think that the use of the term "3D" is highly misleading - at least when I clicked on a "3D" button I was not expecting simply the use of a different projection (all projections viewable on a flat screen or on paper are inherently 2D). Within cartography, what you have is really "2.5D". This means that each location has a 2-diensional location marker, with an additional attribute being "draped" over that location. A truly 3D representation would use each point in the dataset being represented by a 3 dimensional location coordinate (for example, northing, easting and elevation). Most 3D data would then have the attribute draped over that 3-dimensional locational grid.
A projection is a mathematically precise way of locating the locational grid on the surface that you find most useful: it introduces some kind of distortion - there is no "perfect" projection. Since computer cartography, you can choose from a huge variety of projections, adjusting the distortion to some very precise requirements, and you can introduce reprojection on the fly. This means that as one clicks and drags the centre of the representation, the distortion varies from one place to another.
I don't know the precise parameters of the projection you have chosen for your new projection; the choice of distortion seems to be such that the human eye will assume it is looking at the globe from space - this means you are compromising among all the distortions: an actual measurement of location towards the periphery of the map will be hard to do, but it will probably not matter too much since the viewer will choose to put their place of interest near the centre of the map where this effect is not required and you can extract accurate information quite easily (there is little distortion there).
I could go on forever about projections, and how to use distortion to best convey information. But my point is that they are all, as generally used and as you are using, inherently 2D + an attribute (or multiple attributes represented by different map symbols). Since 3D can be a reality (as in representing in a single diagram the attritbute - say temperature - at a range of elevations without changing anything - I think you may be shooting yourself and your subscribers in the foot as far as future improvements in information representation goes: if we already think we have true 3D (or 3.5D) then why work towards real 3.5D? BTW, there are lots of cartography/projection blogs out there for the true geeks and researchers! -
Of course "3D" is a language abuse (and so is "2.5D", too); nevertheless "3D" is nowadays generally understood as such by everyone, even by main contributors of modern GIS (e.g. ESRI).
I think the aim of Windy is not cartography (ArcGIS, Gogol Maps and other similar sites do this enough well; they hold the required money to do it); the main scope of Windy maps would be rather the Weather.
Thus, the so called "3D map" is just the Earth reduced to a dynamic sphere plotted on a flat web browser window. Of course it is a very rough approximation of the Terrestrial geoid... but finally who would like to get weather maps on such an ugly geoid, while "3D" does the deal for Weather maps? Moreover, holy "3D" actually has "4D": longitude, latitude, atmospheric level, and time validity of weather data layers.
About map projections: of course modern GIS can reproject on the fly any map data layer in thousands of different map projections, one more accurate than the other for a given point on Earth. But all this is pretty costly in terms of required hardware and map generation time. Thus, projections like the so-called Gogol (EPSG:900913), pseudo-projections like EPSG:4326, or famous "3D sphere", should be far enough pertinent for Weather maps on a free - or so cheap - web application. And I think Windy does all this at a pretty high performance rate: it is the most UI responsive public weather maps application I know.
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Excellent work!
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good...love it
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For Radar data layer, just select the goat, known to run faster than turtles and rabbits:
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@john-gp
You use 10 days forecast … not radar! There is no 10 days radar and a radar cannot predict the future. So the word ‘radar’ to mean forecast is a language abuse.
And for the 10 days forecast, there is no way to play it faster. -
Looks great and much better than 2D for more true representation, especially at higher latitudes.
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very, very good for the big overall picture; thanks!
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That is good. emphasizes the features better
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An excellent addition, thank you. If it would be possible I gave more than five stars!
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Yea! 3D more realistically illustrates weather patterns, especially in the higher latitudes. Thank you!
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It may be 3D if one wants to look at the whole world.
But I was just wanting to look at just e.g., Taiwan,
https://www.windy.com/-Weather-radar-radar?radar,23.546,119.020,9
and I saw the 3D button and expected something like Google Earth where I can
tilt the view etc.So for smaller areas it is just still 2D.
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@jidanni Hello, radar is not available on 3D mode yet, that is why you see 2D.
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@korina said in Windy 3D mode is back!:
3D Globe is being released in Beta version, available for all our users. In the later stages, 3D Globe will be part of Windy Premium only.
it is very beautiful, there is an ease in getting the data with different layers, awesome!
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I FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKING LOVE IT MANG1!
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OK, I did (logged out):
- Browse windy.com
- Click "3D".
Now I am looking at some kind of planetarium. I just see a lot of stars, no matter how I rotate the screen with the mouse.
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Cool ! e fácil de usar.
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This is excellent - Windy is such a useful tool for examining how climate change is affecting our planet.
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3D mode is awesome!!
