Shadowmap
Codename: 'Aurora' (V0.5 Public Beta)
Welcome to Shadowmap V0.5! Featuring improved usability, stability, performance and new features. To stay in the loop and be informed about future updates, sign up to our product news:
If you have feedback, questions or feature requests, please get in contact with us:
Send us a messageHow to use Shadowmap
Regarding the 3D map, things are straightforward:
- Use one finger (or the left mouse button) to pan/move the map.
- Two fingers next to each other (or the right mouse button) allow you to rotate/tilt the camera.
- And, finally, zooming is achieved through a two-finger pinch gesture or your mouse wheel. No surprises here.
To adjust date and time, or search for a location in Shadowmap, use the side-panel:

What is new in Shadowmap Beta
- Actually see the Sun: You can now tilt the camera and see the exact position of the Sun in the sky (Shadowmap Pro only).
- International timezones: Shadowmap now shows accurate local time anywhere on Earth, including localized times for sunrise and sunset.
- Proper terrain rendering: That stuff was a little off in the Alpha version – topography is much more precise and prettier now.
- Reset time to 'now' by pressing
next to the current time. - Day/night: The yellow bar behind the time slider represents daytime. Try out moving the map to a location where the Sun never sets!
- Sunrise/sunset buttons: Use the respective buttons to set the time to 15 min after sunrise
or 15 min pre sunset
. - Zoom to cursor: You can now aim at the location you want to zoom into.
- Common multi-touch interactions on touch devices: One finger to pan the map and two fingers to rotate/zoom.
- Change the visual quality: By pressing the gear button
in the bottom panel, you can switch between low, medium and high quality. Be aware that medium and high require capable hardware, especially 'high' may lead to crashes on older devices.

Coming next
Our journey does not end here. We are working hard on the following features and fixes:
- Worldwide 3D buildings
- More trees! At real locations, based on accurate metadata. We love trees! 🌳🌲🌴
- Improve overall performance and stability across devices.
- Remove the ugly seams between tiles and significantly speed up terrain loading and visualization.
- House number precision: Right now, even though you can search house number addresses, it's not possible to locate them accurately.
- There is so much more but we'll keep it a secret for now 🤫
Acknowledgements & thanks:
We are grateful for the following people, work and data. Without these, Shadowmap would not be the same 🙏
- Basemap © Toursprung (Danke, Helge)
- Mapzen Terrain Tiles © Mapzen
- ArcticDEM terrain data DEM(s) were created from DigitalGlobe, Inc., imagery and funded under National Science Foundation awards 1043681, 1559691, and 1542736;
- Australia terrain data © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2017;
- Austria terrain data © offene Daten Österreichs – Digitales Geländemodell (DGM) Österreich;
- Canada terrain data contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada;
- Europe terrain data produced using Copernicus data and information funded by the European Union - EU-DEM layers;
- Global ETOPO1 terrain data U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Mexico terrain data source: INEGI, Continental relief, 2016;
- New Zealand terrain data Copyright 2011 Crown copyright (c) Land Information New Zealand and the New Zealand Government (All rights reserved);
- Norway terrain data © Kartverket;
- United Kingdom terrain data © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved;
- United States 3DEP (formerly NED) and global GMTED2010 and SRTM terrain data courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
- 3D buildings for Vienna, Austria © Stadt Wien
- Three.js – the best Javascript 3D engine out there
- noUiSlider
- Pikaday
- Algolia Places
- Proj4js
- Spherical Mercator
- SunCalc