They offer a generous 1000 API calls per month for free, in case anyone is interested in replicating this.
fwipsy
This is neat but maybe we could call it "pixel-art-styled?" Pixel art is all about attention to detail; this is more like applying a shader (though I see some AI artifacts in there too.)
kenferry
…not actually pixel art though, no?
show comments
dllu
Here's a 7388 x 5097 photo I took from a friend's Cessna of the Mission from a similar angle in 2018 which provides a nice point of reference for comparing the fine details:
You can see some buildings, like 350 Treat Ave, which is a white warehouse in the middle of the photo, are blended from two colors in this isometric viewer. It's yellow on the left and grey on the right, when in fact it is uniformly white throughout. This is probably due to image generation running separately on two tiles and then blending them together.
Still, from a distance, this looks great.
30minAdayHN
This is so beautiful! Something soothing and ultra clean about it. Maybe all the maps should have this rendered version as default.
I thought I already saw that project few months ago, but turns out it's a similar submission under the same concept: "Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF "!
Looks great, I love the style you chose, it was enjoyable to move around and explore
I've done something similar with generating pixel-style images of Stockholm. Unfortunately imagegen models are quite bad at localised details. It looks good on the surface, but when you look closer or zoom in you see structurally things that don't make sense, like windows disappearing, or walls just not making any sense at all.
nphardon
this is really cool, but I wish it was oriented north south (maybe thats not as pleasing re the isometry?), just because that's how I think about the city and navigating it, so this makes me like, instinctually rotate my head.
show comments
ubasu
This misses large parts of the Bay Area, which is nine counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Here, pretty much everything east of 680 and north of the Richmond Bridge is missing. No Mt. Diablo, no Livermore, only bits of Dublin, Pleasanton, San Ramon etc.
leugim
How much it cost you paint per km2 after training the model? I did (and publish here) https://www.tinyvalencia.com and got to 0.4$ per km2 after training the model (for 15$ or so).
show comments
kristopolous
lat/lng mapping would be great
cmdoptesc
Hi Justin, great writeup!
I really appreciate your human-written documentation because it's nice to read your thought process instead of LLM marketing soundbites.
re: orientation. I know it's creator's choice, but for me, it's either north or west towards the ocean. East makes me want to hold shift to rotate. :)
Thanks for making and sharing this!
show comments
dnlzro
I've been seeing a lot of these kinds of projects make the rounds on Twitter lately. Yours is just as good as the best of them, so great job making it more efficient without loss of quality!
But... I'm always disappointed when I zoom in and see that it's not actually pixel art, and it's full of the kinds of artifacts that are typical of any AI-generated imagery :(
thot_experiment
It's always heartening to see stuff like this because it really throws into stark illumination just how much AI just can't make up for a lack of taste.
Conscat
Wow, it captured the pool in my apartment complex. I love this! I was a bit disoriented by north being left.
packeted
Found my house in East Bay and it looks accurate, cool.
gojomo
Is there any way to rotate the perspective, as in Google Maps with 2-finger gestures (touchscreens) or shift-drags (mice/etc)?
(I couldn't find it, if it already exists.)
show comments
va3ndf
This is my favorite one yet! I used to live in SoMa and this captured my apartment and the nearby Caltrain wonderfully!
modeless
This style seems achievable while retaining 3D rendering if the tiles are preprocessed in 3D instead of 2D and some clever shaders are used.
show comments
xixixao
Awesome. Next step: Make the trains and cars move!
NeuraCryption
This is amazing and is 1:1 global map. Did you use google maps API to build this or UE5?
show comments
blobbers
Just wanted to say... this is beautiful!
EarlKing
Grossly inaccurate due to lack of pixelized piles of human feces.
yboris
Impressive! And the aesthetics look great!
ex-aws-dude
Can't seem to find Computer History Museum
Anyone able to?
show comments
bastiilling
Looks great!
jeffbee
Not bad. I feel like instead of using an image-mode model, it would be better to use a code model that generates the scene. Reason I think this is that the image generators aren't respecting the rules of "pixel art". Straight lines and flat planes are straight and flat in pixel art. These images are wavy and irregular.
Sorry to be a downer, but this looks really bad to me. It completely lacks the sumptuous precision of real pixel art.
OP didn't mention it (or maybe I missed it), but the underlying imagery comes from the Google 3D photorealistic tiles API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/tile/3d-til...
They offer a generous 1000 API calls per month for free, in case anyone is interested in replicating this.
This is neat but maybe we could call it "pixel-art-styled?" Pixel art is all about attention to detail; this is more like applying a shader (though I see some AI artifacts in there too.)
…not actually pixel art though, no?
Here's a 7388 x 5097 photo I took from a friend's Cessna of the Mission from a similar angle in 2018 which provides a nice point of reference for comparing the fine details:
https://i.dllu.net/2018-04-14-23-31-28_DSC04018_6201e8e3a215...
You can see some buildings, like 350 Treat Ave, which is a white warehouse in the middle of the photo, are blended from two colors in this isometric viewer. It's yellow on the left and grey on the right, when in fact it is uniformly white throughout. This is probably due to image generation running separately on two tiles and then blending them together.
Still, from a distance, this looks great.
This is so beautiful! Something soothing and ultra clean about it. Maybe all the maps should have this rendered version as default.
Also see isometric Toronto: https://iso.sloptoronto.ca/#v=3&x=102672&y=64255&z=0.262
I thought I already saw that project few months ago, but turns out it's a similar submission under the same concept: "Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF "!
Looks great, I love the style you chose, it was enjoyable to move around and explore
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149966
I've done something similar with generating pixel-style images of Stockholm. Unfortunately imagegen models are quite bad at localised details. It looks good on the surface, but when you look closer or zoom in you see structurally things that don't make sense, like windows disappearing, or walls just not making any sense at all.
this is really cool, but I wish it was oriented north south (maybe thats not as pleasing re the isometry?), just because that's how I think about the city and navigating it, so this makes me like, instinctually rotate my head.
This misses large parts of the Bay Area, which is nine counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Here, pretty much everything east of 680 and north of the Richmond Bridge is missing. No Mt. Diablo, no Livermore, only bits of Dublin, Pleasanton, San Ramon etc.
How much it cost you paint per km2 after training the model? I did (and publish here) https://www.tinyvalencia.com and got to 0.4$ per km2 after training the model (for 15$ or so).
lat/lng mapping would be great
Hi Justin, great writeup!
I really appreciate your human-written documentation because it's nice to read your thought process instead of LLM marketing soundbites.
re: orientation. I know it's creator's choice, but for me, it's either north or west towards the ocean. East makes me want to hold shift to rotate. :)
Thanks for making and sharing this!
I've been seeing a lot of these kinds of projects make the rounds on Twitter lately. Yours is just as good as the best of them, so great job making it more efficient without loss of quality!
But... I'm always disappointed when I zoom in and see that it's not actually pixel art, and it's full of the kinds of artifacts that are typical of any AI-generated imagery :(
It's always heartening to see stuff like this because it really throws into stark illumination just how much AI just can't make up for a lack of taste.
Wow, it captured the pool in my apartment complex. I love this! I was a bit disoriented by north being left.
Found my house in East Bay and it looks accurate, cool.
Is there any way to rotate the perspective, as in Google Maps with 2-finger gestures (touchscreens) or shift-drags (mice/etc)?
(I couldn't find it, if it already exists.)
This is my favorite one yet! I used to live in SoMa and this captured my apartment and the nearby Caltrain wonderfully!
This style seems achievable while retaining 3D rendering if the tiles are preprocessed in 3D instead of 2D and some clever shaders are used.
Awesome. Next step: Make the trains and cars move!
This is amazing and is 1:1 global map. Did you use google maps API to build this or UE5?
Just wanted to say... this is beautiful!
Grossly inaccurate due to lack of pixelized piles of human feces.
Impressive! And the aesthetics look great!
Can't seem to find Computer History Museum
Anyone able to?
Looks great!
Not bad. I feel like instead of using an image-mode model, it would be better to use a code model that generates the scene. Reason I think this is that the image generators aren't respecting the rules of "pixel art". Straight lines and flat planes are straight and flat in pixel art. These images are wavy and irregular.
Not pixel art. Downvoted