Back to the Tube: 3D London Underground in Google Maps

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We are revisiting this earlier work due to a meeting today with regards creating visualisations of the London Underground. The work started out with the movie below of the traditional tube map. Created direct from a .pdf file via London Transports website it provided a 'quick and dirty' flythrough of the map:


London Tube Map Traditional Layout from digitalurban on Vimeo.

We then looked at creating a geographical version with the aim to morph in 3D between the two.


Pictured below is the layout so far using Google Maps 'without the map'. Aimed at creating a 'plasticine' look to the routes the interactive image below illustrates a work in progress produced so we can easily identify the errors. Double click to zoom in and drag to pan:



There are a few errors here and there but it should only need a few tweaks to be near a complete version which can then be morphed and changed as needs be.

You can also view the 'Google Maps' version full screen (recommended).

Thanks go to Simon Clarke who produced the original geographic tube map. Simon's site is currently under reconstruction in the meantime take a look at other London Underground diagrams.

London 3D Tube Map in Google Maps

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Sometimes when jumping from project to project and tutorial to tutorial projects get lost and posts overlooked.

One such example is our 3D Tube Map which, despite being something we are quite proud off, sat on the shelf for a while due to lack of time. Embedded below is the project so far - click and drag to pan around and zoom in and out using the usual google map interface (created using our free Image Cutter Software):




UCL is currently working on a render farm of 250 or so processors for our London model, so fingers crossed the 3D Tube project will be back in movie form soon.

For those with eagle eyes we know of at least two 'errors' in the map :) We will get these fixed and if anyone wants the image as wallpaper let us know your resolution and we'll post up an image.

View the map full screen

Update -Digital Geography - Geographic Visualisation for Urban Environments, the booklet of the blog is now available to buy.