Show HN: Follow London Trains in 3D

(ride.nexttrain.london)

71 points | by mgranados 4 days ago ago

29 comments

  • IIAOPSW 5 minutes ago ago

    This is frustratingly close to amazing. Obviously you went through all the trouble of pulling all the data from all the trains and displaying them in 3d, but then lock our view on to just one train or one station while all that interesting information zips around in the periphery. The view port needs to be more free form...less on rails.

  • Pigo 5 minutes ago ago

    This is a fun idea and interesting implementation. I know there's only so much an api can give you, but I'd love to see anything that gives more information or visuals of the surroundings.

  • darknavi 2 hours ago ago

    I'd love to see a view with all/many trains. In London I was constantly wondering what the criss-cross of underground lines looked like.

    • mgranados 2 hours ago ago

      I saw a project like that here in hn recently for all uk trains even. it'd be pretty cool to extend this to support that, busy stations might be visually confusing, thanks for suggestions

  • TheOtherHobbes 2 hours ago ago

    Interesting but quite buggy. Example: mouse dragging seems trapped in a fairly small area.

    • mgranados 2 hours ago ago

      Ah yeah i tried anchoring to the train with a threshold for panning around i'll try smoothing it. thanks for trying it!

  • dmazin 3 hours ago ago

    It would appear you are missing the High Barnet branch of the Northern line.

    • uukelele 2 hours ago ago

      And the Reading branch of the Elizabeth line

      • mgranados 2 hours ago ago

        thanks for feedback i'll have a look!

  • hokkos 2 hours ago ago

    There seems to be some parallax issues between your trip layer and your 3D Tiles layer, but nice usage of deck.gl.

    • taylorius an hour ago ago

      Is it not that certain train lines are somewhat deep underground? The Piccadilly line swims with respect to the ground in the centre of town, when it is below ground. Further out where lines are at the surface the routes stick to the ground correctly.

    • mgranados 2 hours ago ago

      thank you! i'll have a look

  • fredley 4 hours ago ago

    Very nice, but the map seems to be in the wrong position vs. the trains/3d elements.

  • adecoster 31 minutes ago ago

    A bit buggy in term of tiles jonctions

  • sdoering 3 hours ago ago

    Having just taken the Elisabeth Line to LHR T5 and sitting here, this was fun. Thanks.

    Edit: Is there a Repo to look at and learn from this?

    • mgranados an hour ago ago

      <3 thanks!! i'll clean it and share here sometime soon

  • kentonv 3 days ago ago

    This is really cool!

    Quick suggestion: When not tracking a train, the mouse wheel should zoom into / out from where the cursor is pointing, rather than the center of the window.

    • mgranados an hour ago ago

      thanks! that's a great suggestion will implement

  • ohjeez 2 hours ago ago

    This is incredibly cool. I had it open on my desktop for most of the day.

  • Falimonda 2 hours ago ago

    How do I drive the train? Arrow keys not working :(

    • mgranados an hour ago ago

      It's just following api data for now. That'd be a real cool feature for backlog!

  • Leewen 2 hours ago ago

    model rough but amazing. i cant do this

  • jrrv 3 hours ago ago

    The planes were a surprise

  • philipwhiuk 3 hours ago ago

    I'm curious what the 3D model source is - the Gherkin is kinda weird.

  • gowld 3 hours ago ago

    The train paths are drawn on a 2D layer above the buildings, not at z-index that matches the proper 3-D position. So the paths appear to weave around and over the tops of buildings.

    • mgranados an hour ago ago

      I meant to make it feel like the tube ones felt "underground" by some metres i'll have a look thanks