Chapter 7: This chapter is about making our maps 3D and how that can be beneficial to our maps. Some advantages of a 3D GIS map are: wider applicability in storytelling, urban planning, architectural design, defense simulation, filmmaking, and many other industries. GIS technologies in 3D enable audiences to quickly understand the size and relative positions of objects. One thing I did think was really cool is that WebGIS has the ability to provide x-ray or radar vision, granted that it is some applications not all applications, which can be extremely useful in certain situations. Another useful feature brought up is the two view modes for scenes. Local mode displays features on a planar surface, and global mode displays features on a sphere. Both can be useful within our maps to display phenomena that cover a large or small geographic area, above the ground or under the ground. Another cool feature is the integrated mesh scene layers. It’s fascinating that WebGIS can take our data and create textures. This chapter also talks about how VR interacts with GIS data. The idea that as more data is updated into GIS, allowing for VR users to “interact” with the data and maps created is an amazing thing. It allows people to get a first person perspective on what has been created.Â
One application based on this chapter could be the creation of maps showing the topography of Ohio Wesleyan’s campus over multiple decades. It could be useful information to the university and just cool information to have in general.Â