[Community] 3D Map Displays - Any thoughts?

[Ludwig M Brinckmann]

I have been a bit playing with having a 3-D (or pseudo 3-D) extension to my 
map display.

As a starting point I have used the GMT mapping kit to visualize the data 
and found that it runs much quicker than I would have thought, so that it is 
not inconceivable to use GMT 'as is' as a rendering backend.

My first cut takes not much more than the current map-extend to pass on to 
GMT, which then renders a pseudo 3D image that is displayed on a separate 
page as a non-interactive image. (It would not be too difficult to take the 
current layers as well, at least vector layers, but with too many layers it 
moves into slow territory.)

My question here is if people have any thoughts on how this could be better 
integrated into the map-display from a user's perspective. It would just be 
nicer if this 3-D image would still be zoomable, pannable etc, rather than a 
static image. (Panning could be done with the handles on the side. Another 
option would be to have two map images side by side: one the traditional 
Primagis image, with its options to manipulate it, the other -- right next 
to it -- the 3 D map.)

Have other people made forays into the 3-D world and have experiences to 
tell?

You can try the current version on http://www.yunnanexplorer.com/map. Above 
the map is a 3DView button that will produce (after a few seconds hopefully) 
a 3D image. Please let me know any bugs you notice.

Ludwig

(PS the good old 2D map has an adjusted legend, which at least fulfills my 
wish of only having the symbols in there that could be seen at a particular 
scale. I will be testing this with a few more symbolizers..., again let me 
know what you see, somehow the legend sometimes does not adjust when I zoom 
out, but then a refresh of the page does the trick.)