There’s been a great deal of interest in my mapping script for 3ds Max. This encourages me a lot to work on it in my spare time. I’ve built in a few neat updates.
Location lookup and partial OSM download
You don’t have to search for the geo-coordinates anymore on bing or google maps. Just type the name of your location and the script will find the coordinates for you.
Instead of having to download the entire OSM dataset for a location you can now pick a specific type of data. For instance, when building a quick map you just want to have the roads and the buildings. Just download those two layers and skip the rest. This makes it much faster to get results.
ESRI Shapefile support
I’ve added support for ESRI shapefiles. A shapefile is geo vector data linked to a database with information. I’ve done this to enable you to make maps on a global scale. This is not possible with openstreetmap data due to the excessive amount of detail. Natural earth has fantastic shapefiles on a global scale. You can now load them and. I’ve also added a few more map projections to make the most out of this data. Especially the Winkel Tripel projection is nice. It’s the one National Geographic uses.
Globes
While map projections are great, they are just that: projections. Since 3ds Max is a 3D program, wouldn’t it be great to build a round globe instead of a flat map? This is now possible with the help of the natural earth data.
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Any updates? This looks awesome!!
Hi John, thanks for the feedback! Sorry, no updates yet. Working hard on it though.
I am very interested in this application as well. Been checking your progress, and hope to see something final soon. Regards.
http://www.aaronscgi.net
Hi Roger, thanks for the feedback. I’ve been working hard to get Maproom (new name) up and running. I hope to show more progress end of August.
Looks awesome, working on a project for a local fire department, where can I download this? It’ll help a lot.
Some background: A local fire department asked the school to have the students create a simulation for their new fire-fighters, so our class was selected to create this simulation. Currently, I’ve been instructed to get a section of our city into 3D Studio Max or Unity Engine.
That sounds like a cool project. You can sign up for Maproom here: https://www.klaasnienhuis.nl/wp/2016/01/maproom-beta-started/. It contains the osm loading capacity you need and much more. Sign up, install the script and request the beta license (it’s free). Once you’re set up you can use the Stylesheet feature to “instantly” build a chunk of a city: https://youtu.be/3l6OY2cDiac