Not directly related to this project but in a similar spirit.
Recently, while exploring france’s national geography department (Institut de Géographie Nationale [1]) website, I came across a page [2] which allows anybody to download a Minecraft world representing any 25km^2 area of France.
The page lets you set the precise center and many other parameters such as whether to include buildings or even stylistic options.
The maps are generated on the fly and make use of a combination of the department’s own datasets (digital elevation, road networks, land parcels, building dimensions and height, and even forests).
I wish they would release whatever code they use for the terrain generation as I’m sure the open-source community would enjoy extending it with OpenStreetMap data!
Swedish Lantmäteriet (The Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority) provides Minecraft maps for the whole country in various resolutions.
Yes, my initial skim-reading thought was something something, France geography in minecraft, something something WAIT did I just read 'government program'?!
I think this is an absurdly untapped function of governments agencies regardless of country; figuring out how to make interesting things that are also useful for public education.
Being able to "trick" people into exploring game/internet media that immediately translates to the real world must be some kind of holy grail of education. I bet if we (usa for example) threw a few tens of millions at trying this kind of random crap to see what sticks, the results would be amazing even if the immediate cultural(/economic) value would be hard to calculate.
I have personally experienced this with Europa Universalis IV. A great game that allows you to learn a lot about the geography of Europe, and maybe even some of its history. Although some a-historical gameplay elements are introduced in an effort to make the game more likely to simulate certain future events (relative to the game's starting date of 1444).
One example is making Philip the Good, who was notoriously promiscuous, unable to father any children, so that the in-game Burgundian Succession Crisis will happen, which historically happened when Charles the Bold (Philip the Good's heir) died without having produced a male successor.
It is interesting how this game is still evolving, with new DLC's adding loads of historical context to regions outside of the Europe (which was the original target of the game). This historical context is a mix of events that happened in the real world, as well as stated ambitions of the different rulers. It is not uncommon for a very specific event to cause a deep-dive into wikipedia articles related to that event.
I'm surprised we aren't already tricking people into doing 'real' office administration by gameifying the role, look up this, match it with that, move it to this stack, move it to that stack, it's looks like Animal Crossing but actually you're cross referencing disparate sets of information in a real world dataset to deliver the required "manual last mile'.
I'm guessing they used FME, it's certainly how I would do it. FME makes it surprisingly easy to turn arbitrary geographic data into Minecraft worlds. They also have an Unreal Engine writer[1] (although I've never used it) so in theory you should be able to output the same data to both Minecraft and UE with the push of a button.
Autodesk Infrastructure is used in the architecture/engineering/construction world for this sort of thing. It is essentially a prototyping tool to combine any early stage data you have (aerial surveys, a mockup 3D model for a building, etc.) with existing geospatial data. It will give you terrain, roads, and buildings to varying degrees of accuracy.
A lot of the more experimental Autodesk products are of limited use outside of America due to forcing you to use their own cloud services. Many governments and defence-contractors don't allow use of foreign servers/cloud services external to the country they're in.
It's pretty frustrating, because it's rare for Autodesk to consider hosting servers anywhere OTHER than America, and I wanna play with the new toys :S
Here's the full Google Translate translation. Skip down to "How are the maps made?" for the OSM part.
---- Start of translation ----
In regards to
Minecraft® à la carte is an online service offered by IGNfab, allowing you to generate Minecraft® maps (or other similar formats like Minetest) from geographic data, namely:
for France, the National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN) and elements of its data catalog, in particular: BD TOPO®, BD CARTO®, RGE ALTI® and BD ORTHO®. This service also uses the data available from the Graphic Plot Register (RPG)
for Wallonia, the Wallonia Public Service (SPW) and elements of its data catalog, in particular: Continuous Cartography Computer Project (PICC), Walloon Hydrographic Network, Bati 3D 2013-2014 Administrative limits (Apn_AdRe), Occupation map du sol (COSW), Relief MNT 2013-2014, Anonymous agricultural plot
for the whole world (France and Wallonia included if desired), from Bing (satellite imagery service), OpenStreetMap (OSM) and layers of its Planet OSM database listed in particular on https: //wiki.openstreetmap. org / wiki / FR: Standard_tile_layer
The service can also use the IGN Autocompletion (via REST), SPW Geolocation (via REST), and Bing Locations services for geocoding.
• How it works ?
To generate a map, all you have to do is enter:
An address located in France, Wallonia or around the world. Once the location has been selected, the area corresponding to the area of the future Minecraft® or Minetest map (with a default size of 2.5 km x 2.5 km) is displayed. It is also possible to simply position yourself with your mouse on the desired location (and in this case, the area will be calculated from the center of the map).
A valid email address, which will be used to send you a notification, once your map is ready to be downloaded. You will then be provided with a link to retrieve a file (in ZIP format) containing your card data.
A platform and a card format depending on the version of the software you are going to use to use the card that will be delivered to you.
Advanced options are available to configure your request in more detail: choice of data sources used, themes selected and geometric characteristics desired.
After accepting the T & Cs, you will be able to generate your card (provided that the number of remaining generations is not zero at the time you wish to initiate the request). After validation of GDPR compliance and control code, the card calculation starts and you will immediately receive a first order confirmation email (if the email address entered is correct).
• Installation
Your map is stored in the form of several binary files which constitute a backup of the game. To install it, unzip the archive that you have recovered, and copy its content in:
Your card can then be loaded from the in-game saves screen (in Solo mode).
• Rules
Only one generation per user and per day is possible.
The total number of generations is limited per day. The counter is reset at midnight (French time - UTC / GMT + 1).
There is a fixed number of card release periods per day. The time of the next release is indicated under the counter indicating the number of generations remaining over the period.
00h00: you have 100 cards available.
8:00 am: you have the rest of the previous period as well as 100 more cards available.
4:00 p.m .: you have the rest of the previous period as well as 100 more cards available.
Once your card is generated, it will remain available to you for 72 hours. After this period, it will be deleted.
• Terms of Service
• Overview
• How are the maps made?
We have developed our own map generation engine to create Minecraft maps in Java Edition and Bedrock Edition and Education Edition format, as well as maps in Minetest format. Using the service's default options, maps are generated as follows for each requested zone:
Loading of a terrain model from the RGE ALTI®.
Loading of data from the CARTO® database (land use).
Loading of data from the TOPO® database (buildings, roads, hydrography, cemeteries, vegetation).
Loading of data from the ORTHO® database (color of the ground, color of the roofs).
Loading of data from the 2017 Graphic Plot Register (RPG) (crops, vines and orchards).
Generate a 250 meter buffer around the map to transition to the classic Minecraft world.
Generation of several map objects instead of the "spawn" to be able to find your way around.
Using other options, maps are generated in a similar way with the corresponding data from the SPW or OSM and the SRTM3 (to replace the RGE ALTI® on the world). It should be noted that the 90 m pitch of the SRTM3 available on the world can introduce, for Minecraft® maps with 1 m cubes, a strong jump in the representation of the relief inherent in the resolution of this altitude information and affecting the rendering of the map obtained in the game.
Each block represents a ground area of 1 square meter (or less), and the planimetric scale is not distorted (1 meter on the ground in reality = 1 block on the ground or more in the map). The altimetric scale is on the other hand "overwritten" on maps in Minecraft format as soon as the relief of the area is too high (Alps, Pyrenees, Massif Central, etc.), to be able to represent the entire area between levels 40 and 210 a classic Minecraft map (limit of 256 levels in Minecraft; in the case of the Minetest format where this height limitation does not exist, the maps are kept with the same scale by default (a cube is equivalent to 1 m in height) , or even exaggerated in altitude to bring out the relief of particular High relief maps (Geographic tab of the Advanced options menu).
You can adjust the scale during your map generation request.
• FAQ
Q. I ordered my card, but I still haven't received anything. Is this normal?
A. If you entered the correct email address, you should receive a delivery email. Depending on demand and the size of the card, delivery time can vary from a few minutes to a few hours, or even over a day.
Q. There are 0 generations available at the time I visit the site, what can I do?
A. The time of the next calculable card release is indicated on the site. Wait until that hour.
Q. Are the generated maps compatible with Minecraft Pocket Edition?
A. Yes. Minecraft Pocket Edition as well as Windows 10 Edition are now supported. All you need to do is select the Minecraft Bedrock format when you request to generate a map.
Q. I want to play on console. Is it possible ?
A. It depends on the type of console. Currently, we only support Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. We are working on the integration of the format specific to the Playstation 4. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 will not be supported due to technical constraints (limited surface area on these consoles).
Q. What areas are currently supported?
A. The service covers mainland France, the following overseas territories: Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion Island, Mayotte, French Guyana as well as Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Wallonia via the SPW, and the whole world via OpenStreetMap.
• Contact
For any information, please write to us at the following address: Contact us.
• Cookies and statistics
In order to adapt the Minecraft® site to the map to the demands of its visitors, the IGN measures the number of visits, the number of pages viewed as well as the activity of visitors to the site and their frequency of return. Piwik, the statistics tool used by IGN, generates a cookie with a unique identifier, the retention period of which is limited to 13 months. The tool used also collects your IP address, in order to determine the city from which you are connecting. This is immediately anonymized after use. The IGN can therefore under no circumstances trace this back to a natural person. The data collected is not transferred to third parties or used for other purposes.
Here you can choose NOT to allow tracking of your computer via a cookie assigning it a unique identification number. Our web analysis tool will not record your computer's activity.
To make this choice and install an opt-out cookie, please click below.
You are currently being followed. Click here to exclude your computer.
---- End of translation ----
Found a video of this Minetest thing they mention.
Thank you for the translation. So the maps are also available for the free and Open Source Minetest equivalent which doesn't have height limitations? Great if true!
Yes, I've used this in the past, though it can take a while for maps to be generated from their website, and the API is rate-limited. It's quite impressive overall, though it could use some help, especially as buildings are quite bland.
Screens from the world I generated for Minetest in January 2021 around Lyon, France: https://imgur.com/a/N2gVIeU
It takes a really long time to cross the generated city, even when boosting the in-game speed. That goes to show how much more smaller videogame worlds really are in general, especially when those are walkable.
Maybe we can. If you assume the mind is the constant in our reality - opposite to the traditional view, in which the physical world is supporting the mind - then we should be able to move into a virtual one. Maybe we're just layering worlds on top of each other, and old ones can become irrelevant, forgotten and disappear. Our current world could be just a virtual one, built on top something long forgotten, and will in time vanish when we move into Minecraft.
I'm not sure about that. Spending any decent time in nature has a wholeness to it, it can feel "attuning" to some weird sense of self and how we fit in with it, maybe having to do with an evolved response?
Why would this not work in the traditional view? I have a hard time imagining a mind that can only operate in one specific reality, even in principle. How would you condition on it?
Can't say I've seen anyone being hyped about it other than that guy whose last name starts with Zuck and ends with berg and like 3 weirdos online that work for him.
...how? Minecraft is flat, the Earth is a sphere. What projection will be used? Mercator? What will that mean for places close to the poles, like Greenland or Canada?
>Build the Earth project created a new map projection called Modified Airocean, based on the Dymaxion/Airocean projection. This map projection provides an extremely low amount of distortion of both shapes and sizes on land, at the cost of heavily distorting the oceans. Unlike a typical Airocean projection, Modified Airocean is not intended to be unfolded into a 3D object like an icosahedron, and has its continents placed such that it looks somewhat similar to an equirectangular projection
Earth surface is about 500 trillion square metres, and if they make only the ground, it will be just 133 trillion of surface cubes. IDK how Minecraft stores cubes, but probably this will be 16-byte int, which makes 266 Tb.
Factor in about 10x LZMA compression, this will take a size of ~26 terabytes of hard drive, or that order of magnitude. Not too much, I'd say.
Still I don't think this is worth a form of art, given that 99% of landscape will never be seen by anyone.
No, art does not have to be impractical. It was practical all the history of humanity, till mid XX century, when state-funded art galleries were captured by context-violating "artists", who invented this kind of excuse.
I'd appreciate if you explain in more detail what I got/put wrong.
I do attend modern art exhibitions occasionally, from garage exhibits to Venetian Biennale. I have friends working in it, recently worked at exhibition myself, and read on biographies of Renaissance and XIX century artists.
I find a large chunk of "modern art" boring and definitely not entertaining. I don't see why making something so grandiose makes it entertaining.
The impracticality argument is just one excuse that artists make when criticized for bad artwork. Other arguments are:
* art hasn't to be X => a claim that it's fine anyway
* you don't get it => a claim that there is a quality criterium, but the critic doesn't know it.
Regarding the Minecraft map in question: what if it were a small area, like just a real castle? Would it be art too or not? Or it's not art, because it's of reasonable scale? If it would be still art, then what difference does the scale make?
I think the dispute you two are having is whether or not your views are representative (respecting history as well) of the broader art community. Of course, going back to your original comment:
> Still I don't think this is worth a form of art, given that 99% of landscape will never be seen by anyone.
Oh - it's an opinion on a highly subjective matter. And indeed, you continue to use the pronoun "I" through your responses. Why anyone thought this was worth arguing against is beyond me. Similarly, why you feel that your specific opinion is obvious enough to be held by random strangers on the internet is also beyond me.
> why you feel that your specific opinion is obvious enough to be held by random strangers on the internet is also beyond me
Not feeling that at all. I understand that whether it's worth an effort or not, is a subjective matter, and sure I use the pronoun "I" to speak for myself only.
The reason I got into argument is the logical problem with the argument, that the scale or impracticality makes it art, whereas small scale would not.
Well, I’d love to explain but that is why I recommend the book :) A bit long too explain here and Cynthia does a far better job than me. Anyway, context is key. The book goes into the philosophical and cultural frameworks that existed in different times and how they relate to art creation. The book won’t tell you what art is paradoxically to the title, but it leads to a lot of understanding why works you might find “boring” for example, came to exist. They might become less boring as a result!
I am not a native English speaker so I may not have conveyed this perfectly but when writing that comment, I specifically chose to wrote "art doesn't _need_ to be practical" as opposed "art should be impractical" :P
I'm curious to check back in now that there seems to be a decent amount of stuff built. I explored a bit on a local copy last year and found the 1:1 scale combined with 1m³ resolution really disorienting.
I wonder how they handle buildings being at angles that don't line up perfectly with compass directions.
Several of the example pictures show buildings at other angles, and they look like they handle angled lines in the obvious way, recessing the wall one block for each x blocks sideways.
It looks a little odd but only in the same way a low-resolution undithered image does.
Is this all one large map? If so, since minecraft is flat, where do they cutoff the map (presumably you can’t go around the globe like in the real world)? Are they building based on the Mercator projection?
It's a Dymaxion projection. It has low distortion over land at the expense of leaving huge gaps at sea. So you can't swim or fly across the oceans, or go around the world, but distortion will be low within each continent.
That's a cool projection that I had never heard of. One thing it's also going to do is mess up the cardinal directions. E.g. in North America, north will be to the left. Might make things slightly confusing when you're trying to recreate stuff.
Considering the Minecraft (unmodded) resolution (that is, its lack of it), I cannot help but to look at this as a giant wasted effort... and I am writing this as someone who has seen some amazing looking creations. But, while it might be easier to do, one meter is just too large for any decent experience with a more personal "face-to-block" virtual street walk.
Having it built out of 20-centimeter sided blocks (with 1 meter as a starting option, and maybe even 10 cm for high-detail) would make it wastly more useful. For example, those could be useful for OpenStreetMap, a project everyone benefits of. Meanwhile, this will likely just disappear and just be written about as a footnote somewhere. Of course, the whole issue could be sidetracked if other primitives (with unconstrained sizes) were allowed/used.
This lack of detail in construction was always my main issue with Minecraft, and its large blockiness usually goes so far as to induce/exacerbate my motion sickness.
Speaking of OSM, they are currently taking the very easy-to-produce and simplistic parametric approximation approach through surveys, mainly via the StreetComplete app ("How many floors does this building have?", "Shape of the roof", etc.).
Also, and I really am compelled to say this, StreetComplete is one of the most functional and most logical complex android apps I have ever encountered. It really shows it is built by the users, for the users.
I think this is a wonderful project being worked on by dedicated people who are taking the shortcomings of the technology and creating something amazing.
Like anything art, the value is in the joy of the creator. The consumer of course has the right to dislike or like depending upon their taste. That said, I believe you should always acknowledge the skill and dedication of the creator, whatever their creative choice of media.
Minecraft data is stored in a mix of JSON and a well documented/understood custom format. It's even documented in the same wiki that players use to learn how to play: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Anvil_file_format
The world files are saved unencrypted on disk and can be backed up, edited outside the game, and even converted easily to another format if another game somehow dethrones Minecraft in this niche.
There are also a variety of viewers that render Minecraft worlds to map images or interactive maps a-la Google Maps.
Finally the official Minecraft launcher allows players to choose any archived version of the game instead of forcing the latest and greatest. The only missing versions are very early development builds from 2009/2010. This ensures that even if a newer Minecraft version is released that is incompatible with this effort, the last compatible version will always be available. (Players can and do archive these versions themselves as well, this is not reliant on the official servers)
I would love to see this in Minetest, so it would be easier for everyone to join and the lack of Minecraft feature seems completely unnecessary to me for this.
I've spliced chunks together using sh, dd, and xxd before to resurrect my gf-at-the-time's wolf.
I've also been meaning to play psuedo-multiplayer with my friends by us each claiming a region in a seed. Each region being 32x32 chunks and saved to a separate file (.mca), you can just drop their latest region into your world folder to see what they've been up to, or play on LAN and send it back after.
It certainly would be possible, though I am not sure how they are doing it. More likely there is a server constantly running and backing up data, that people can join and make edits in real-time.
EDIT:
After looking at the website a bit more, it appears that there is a sort of VCS that is managed by the admins. Users make changes and send them to the admins, and if they are OK then they get merged into the main world.
nonetheless, it’s also a game that can be run on customized servers and has the capability to import objects and run scripts during gameplay, so you certainly can merge changes in a patch kind of way.
It would be missing all of the places the US government restricts. Like Dick Cheney's house. Not that it matters, because there will be tons of cool stuff. Like the Grand Canyon or Machu Picchu.
I don't mean this as a joke, but you do it because it's fun. I and a few co-workers share a Minecraft server and find it an engaging social and creative outlet.
Recently, while exploring france’s national geography department (Institut de Géographie Nationale [1]) website, I came across a page [2] which allows anybody to download a Minecraft world representing any 25km^2 area of France.
The page lets you set the precise center and many other parameters such as whether to include buildings or even stylistic options.
The maps are generated on the fly and make use of a combination of the department’s own datasets (digital elevation, road networks, land parcels, building dimensions and height, and even forests).
I wish they would release whatever code they use for the terrain generation as I’m sure the open-source community would enjoy extending it with OpenStreetMap data!
[1] https://www.ign.fr/
[2] https://www.ign.fr/minecraft/