I recently released my tool at https://mapng.com I’m looking for serious and thoughtful feedback and suggestions from the beamNG community. The base functionality is that you search for a location, choose a resolution, preview in 3d or direct download, and then use the downloaded files (heightmap, satellite image, geojson) to assist in your level making. I’m working on converting the geojson data to a png generator for the road spline importer, but I’m open to any new suggestions as well. Looking forward to your feedback! I’m also scouting sources for better bright map data, but so far it looks like I’ve already got the best possible source without paying a premium. I’m still reaching out to certain companies that offer higher resolution data for a fee, but that would be more like a premium feature perhaps in the future, in order to delegate the cost to the end user for the best possible (but optional) resolution.
This looks amazing, one problem is the satelite imagery seems super low resolution. Is this normal, it just seems unusable as a base texture with how low res it is? kind regards
I totally get it. I've been scouting for better imagery. For now I'm sticking with the best free, publicly available, and open datasets, because here is the potential cost of "premium" imagery:
Am I the only one to think this is awesome? Even if it isn't perfect, this'll allow to create real-world maps much more easily! So far importing this stuff is a bit of a mess as far as I know, but this does make the base much more easily! I tried Blender's GIS addon a few years ago for this (not really useful since I couldn't import the result into the terrain block), and it could achieve quite a bit of resolution. Maybe it could come from there? Or anyway, the tool is still pretty cool with the other features, maybe the satellite imagery could be imported separately? But anyway, awesome tool! It will help a lot, I hope this comes through nicely! --- Post updated --- Small question, though: Is the website working? Because I've tried accessing in a few browsers and it didn't work on either (also tried in my phone)... Or maybe it's my own connection? Is anyone else having this issue too?
check out this page: http://www.chengfolio.com/google_map_customizer thats where i get my highres images. it uses google data, and it stacks more high res images on one page, then you can just save the whole thing as a large image. (with opera browser you can easilly screenshot the whole page even if it doesnt fit in the screen) i use the sat images just for reference to paint the terrain, as they would be quite lame to use as a base texture with all the trees and shadows and stuff...
The website is up and running. its getting quite a bit more traffic as time goes on. Hopefully its not getting bogged down too much. i just checked the analytics and there was a few spikes today. it should be good right now!
My humble opinion: Even if you have satellite images with 20cm resolution it won’t help much ingame. You will have to use terrain material to make a good looking map. --- Post updated --- I have the crazy idea to use a pretrained model for landuse recognition and get the surface materials from it to autopaint it to a terrain. Not impossible but I don’t know how good the recognition rate is.
Ive found at least 10-20 github repos where this is being attempted. heres one of them: https://github.com/egronskaya/Super-Resolution-for-Satellite-Imagery
Hi Nikky! Is MapNg capable of exporting the heightmap as geotiff? I make huge progress with my custom terrain importer. I can read geotiff now. My next task is reading the osm data from overpass for road networks and land usage. My road terraforming works also quite good. But I won’t make any gis mapping tool like you did. Yours would be a perfect support when having geotiff export.
Hiya You've done some really fantastic work so far, I've been following your YouTube videos and made a first version of my dream Swiss mountain pass a few months ago, and yesterday made a much better GPXZ version thanks to your amazing website tool. I have the basic map working and googled up the road import tool in World Editor. I haven't been able to make the Terrain/Road Import Tool Icon Window appear, it somehow eludes me. But I'm already looking for ways to convert the geojson file downloaded from mapng.com to a json BeamNG can understand or to XODR. I do have QGIS-LTR installed and have used it a little bit already. The main question I have is this: I do have quite a good basic road shape this time but sometimes there are big bumps or holes in it. Would the JSON/XODR road import get rid of that and smooth it all over in one go? Have you actually already managed to do this?
My tool for generating terrain from geotiff files and make an IRL map is up and running. Should be the perfect companion to MapNG. https://www.beamng.com/threads/beamng-mapping-tools-updated-2026-02-09.89058/ just select your area of choice in MapNG, download the geotiff and use the file with my create level wizard.
I think this thread doesn't highlight how cool this tool actually is. Your Reddit posts seems to be getting way more traction and reactions. I am loving the new .zip level feature. One click on the web site and I'm driving there in BeamNG Drive. Super cool stuff! 1 tiny thing I noticed - a lot of time there are very tall spikes. Bugged terrain height I suppose.
I solved that problem in my BeamNG mapping tools. If you create the ter file you are not allowed to write a z value which is negative. Then you get a spike which has the maximum height of the whole terrain. Just set negative values to zero.
@nikluz & @AlexKidd71 I absolutely love that you guys are working together on your BeamNG tools! These are both Must Have Tools for map makers like myself. They save sooooo much time and make starting great maps from real world places really easy. Thanks Guys!
