Japanese Ski Resort Simulator (Part 1)

A long time ago, I attempted to make skimaps out of a sampling of GPS traces.

The idea of making better ski maps is very interesting, and it feels we're getting much closer both with the data available and also the technology and compute. Taking that data and then creating 3D maps has been my dream for a while. In fact I've been trying to do this since 2022:

This was an attempt I made using ThreeJS to take bitmap shapes and attempt to make a mesh (or I think it was a vertex shader) and draw a cartoonified version of the resort.

Nearly four years later, I'm at it again, this time using AI to help me with the mathematics and drawing part. Here is Mountain Diorama:

I'm combining OSM, OpenSkiData.org and terrain data (GSI Japan & Mapterhorn) together, with a bit of AI generated modeling and ThreeJS know how to create what I think of as a mountain resort in a snow globe. It has working ski lifts, tiny life-sized snowboards along with all the things you expect from a map - rivers, roads, buildings, carparks.

You can play with this yourself on Carto

The result of doing this is so that we can feel the real size and shape of a ski resort, which isn't something that is easy to do with resort provided ski maps. Having objects like ski lifts, trees and humans there to give you a sense of scale lets you realize how big and small it is.