Possibility to draw lines and points with specific elevation/altitude

[txaiwieser]

New Feature

We need a way to draw lines on 3d maps that have specific elevation/altitude. Currently, it seems that every path is only defined by lat/long and is always glued to the terrain.

This is what we want to achieve:

Why

The value is that now paths, points, and possibility annotations wouldn't be bound to the terrain anymore.

Not sure if there's a workaround to make this possible with the current beta sdk or if there's a plan to support this soon!

Thanks!

[frabarbo]

Did you find a solution?

[txaiwieser]

Not yet :(

[richardpineo]

We have the same need for our application - showing trajectories of flights. Are there any updates for implementing this feature or potential workarounds?

[bambubr]

Same need here - showing trajectories of flights. Any news on this feature?

[amiratsita]

Same need here. We at SITA also want to display trajectories that have different altitudes. Could you please let us know when this feature will be implemented?
Thank you

[jeradhoy]

Any update on if this is a feature in the works, or if there are no plans for such a feature?

[frabarbo]

up

[entioentio]

Just peeking around. Some of you guys my find this usful: https://deck.gl/examples/mapbox/

[entioentio]

Or actually this demo: https://codesandbox.io/s/jolly-fast-ouoxgx

[codeversed]

@entioentio both great examples but I think what we need is LineString to support altitude. Height doesn't work well for flight paths and rendering webgl doesn't seem like the right solution for populating the map as a flight occurs.

The renderings do look great though! 👏

[entioentio]

Shoot, just now I've noticed we're in mapbox-maps-ios repo 😂 sorry!

[frabarbo]

@knov

[john-work-ios]

Anyone found a solution/workaround to achieve this?

[jeradhoy]

Upvote!

[john-work-ios]

Any news about this crucial missing feature?

[andrew-hossack]

Bump, any updates?

[astojilj]

Thanks for your interest in this feature, and I hope you can help to clarify the requirements.
For now, the way to achieve this is with a Metal (iOS) / OpenGL (Android) powered Custom layer.

An example from our internal test code (color encodes distance to ground)...

Untitled.mov

Custom layer code here, samples the elevation (ground elevation) for all the points along the route and elevates bottom of the wall and and calculates the top.

@codeversed :
@entioentio both great examples but I think what we need is LineString to support altitude. Height doesn't work well for flight paths and rendering webgl doesn't seem like the right solution for populating the map as a flight occurs.

@codeversed could you please explain the issue in some more details, to avoid missunderstanding?

@txaiwieser @richardpineo @bambubr @amiratsita

I'd like to verify if the altitude information height is always relative to sea level—or does it require combining (ground level offset used for landing?

[john-work-ios]

@astojilj thank you for the update. Is the sample code supposed to be behind a link somewhere?
The result looks good enough, can the line be updated live? Example: following a plane flight live.

[samYnsat]

@astojilj is there any updates on this feature?

[astojilj]

Thanks for your patience. We are working on it, and the first experimental support for a non-draped elevated line has been integrated.

https://docs.mapbox.com/ios/maps/api/11.6.0-rc.1/documentation/mapboxmaps/linelayer/linezoffset

E.g. one of the render tests:

https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/blob/fcfe0894e662be52e74689b2e004fbe2cf97841c/test/integration/render-tests/terrain/lines-elevated/style.json#L187-L191

However, the z-offset is an offset from terrain, not the mean sea level offset. So, this is not fitting the requested flight route feature here with constant line altitude.
Also, globe support is not implemented yet, line cross slope for now follows terrain slope. This is experimental code and the current state that we are extending in the following releases.

Also, already available is partial line occlusion behind terrain:

Untitled.7.mov

Let us first provide some examples of how to use this and what could already be achieved in the following days.

[samYnsat]

Thank you for your reply.

However, the z-offset is an offset from terrain, not the mean sea level offset. So, this is not fitting the requested flight route feature here with constant line altitude. Also, globe support is not implemented yet, line cross slope for now follows terrain slope. This is experimental code and the current state that we are extending in the following releases.

As you say in my case I need a thick line that is stable with respect to sea level and can be seen from the globe projection. Thanks for the progress and I'll keep an eye out for any updates.

[john-work-ios]

Thank you for this update and for your work, much appreciated.

However, the z-offset is an offset from terrain, not the mean sea level offset. So, this is not fitting the requested flight route feature here with constant line altitude.
Also, globe support is not implemented yet, line cross slope for now follows terrain slope. This is experimental code and the current state that we are extending in the following releases.

This is a very important remark, and currently a dealbreaker. For all flight-related activities (and there are a lot, planes, hot-air balloons, gliders, ...), the altitude above sea level is used.

Thank you for considering this very important aspect.

[maxmclau]

However, the z-offset is an offset from terrain, not the mean sea level offset. So, this is not fitting the requested flight route feature here with constant line altitude.

Happy to see someone working on this though! Our company would switch from ArcGIS to Mapbox in a heartbeat if this feature was added.

[astojilj]

Thanks for your messages. It is good to see all the interest.

However, the z-offset is an offset from terrain, not the mean sea level offset. So, this is not fitting the requested flight route feature here with constant line altitude.
Also, globe support is not implemented yet, line cross slope for now follows terrain slope. This is experimental code and the current state that we are extending in the following releases.

We're working on this.

[jeradhoy]

Just to chime in with our use case, it's for plotting the flight path of a free-flight aircraft, such as a hang glider, where each coordinate point has a gps altitude (msl altitude) attribute with it. Offset from terrain would require us to do a comparison with a DEM for each point in our flight track to derive height above terrain, adding a lot of error and jumpiness w/ the resolution of the DEM.

[bevan667]

I concur with @jeradhoy - it needs to be (or have the option of) an altitude AMSL and not AGL

[imedl]

Any updates?

[astojilj]

Stay tuned please, it is under work.

[astojilj]

I've provided a short update to mapbox/mapbox-gl-js#3993 (comment). The feature is also available on Mobile. We still need to work on examples and globe support.
Sea level reference, allowing flight paths over terrain, should be already supported.