[RELEASED] World Political Map - Globe Edition

Hi community!

We're happy to announce the availability of

World Political Map - Globe Edition​

New in V10:
• Fog of War!
• Integration with Online Map Systems
• Hexagonal Grid with Path Finding
• Unity 2017 compatible

World Political Map - Globe Edition adds to your scene a beautiful, customizable and fully interactive 3D globe political map with selectable countries, states/provinces and many awesome features.

Great for games (mission briefings, showing and/or selecting destinations and locations, conquer/strategy games, Earth HUD locator,...), educational or statistical software, data-viz applications, ...

Just drag the map prefab and customize the look & feel. Read after the screenshots for the full list of features.

Screenshots

​

​

Features​

- Procedurally draws the frontiers of 240 countries, +4100 provinces and states and the location of the 7144 most important cities in the world!

- Fully interactive map: regions of countries, provinces/states and cities highlight as you pass the mouse over them. The interactive functionality is provided as API and a demo scene is included showing how you can add mouse rotation, zooming with the wheel mouse, show tooltips, fly between countries or cities, etc.

NEW! - Three types of classified cities, including country and region capitals.

NEW! - Mount Points support: add your custom strategic locations from the Editor and find/navigate/position objects on them easily.

NEW! - Two Camera Modes available: either navigate between locations rotating the Earth (Camera is not moved) or make the camera rotate around the Earth.

- Automatically draws country labels with placement options.

- Colorize countries, provinces/states or entire continents! highlight any region of the world from code with just one call (example: ToggleCountrySurface("Russia", visible, Color.Red).

- Per country texture support! Assign your own textures to any number of countries, with offset, scale and rotation options.

- Can add Markers and Line drawing/animation to the globe map.

- Bake Earth texture command! This new command allows you to render the colorized regions into the texture itself, boosting the performance when lots of countries are colorized.

- Inverted view mode! Sit at the center of the Earth and get surrounded by the map, great for VR applications (watch one of the videos below for a demo).

- Find and fly smoothly to any country, state, province or city by its name from current position: you can make the globe rotate smoothly from current position to any country or city just calling one method and provide the name of the destination. You can also set the movement speed or go instantly (set time to zero).

- Two levels of details for frontiers at 110.00.000:1 and 30.000.000:1 scale.

- Imaginary lines: draw latitude, longitude and cursor lines.

- Lots of customization options: frontiers colors, highlight color, visibility of cities/frontiers/Earth, labels, ... 7 Earth styles including one high-res (8K) and a custom planetary shader with relief and clouds effects + advanced glow compatible with mobile.

- New physically-based atmospheric scattering shader.

- Additional high-res Earth textures available on our support forum (free).

- Can be instantiated and controlled by code (API and documentation provided).

- Custom editor inspector with 4 extra awesome components:
# Calculator (converter between spherical and lat/lon),
# Tickers (scrolling, blinking or fading texts over the map)
# Decorator (customize countries with specific labels, colors and textures!)
# Map Editor (yes, you can now create or modify the borders of the countries, provinces and change cities!). Watch videos below for a quick tour.

- No internet access required. Geographic data included in the asset, which does not use Google Maps nor any other map provider. Make it very fast and works offline!

- Mobile friendly: tested on Android and iOS.

- Source code included (C#) and documented so you can adapt it to your project easily.

- Dedicated support forum (kronnect.com)

Videos

Get it now on the Asset Store!
Full Edition: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/41890
Lite Edition: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/48429​

Support forum
http://kronnect.me

WIP thread:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/world-political-map-globe-edition.343485/​

 

Version 1.1 now available on the Asset Store!

New features:
- added 3 new material/textures for Earth
- extended city catalog (now 1249 cities included!)
- can filter cities by population

Improvements:
- better frontiers line quality and fasterer render
- better poly-fill algorithm
- can change navigation time in Editor
- moved mouse interactions (rotation/zoom) to the main script and expose that as part of the API
- reorganized project folder structure

 

Version 2.0 has been published on the Asset Store.

New features:
- Second detail level for country frontiers
- New option to draw provinces/states for active country
- Option to draw an outline around highlighted/colored countries
- New options to show a cursor over custom/mouse position
- New options to show latitude/longitude lines

Improvements:
- Even faster frontier line rendering (+20%)
- Tweaked triangulation algorithm to improve poly-fill
- Can locate a country from the inspector
- Cities are now drawn as small circular dots, instead of small boxes
- Can change the color of the cities
- Additional Earth style: CutOut

Also visit our forum http://kronnect.me for up-to-date news and access to latest beta releases (customers only).

 

Version 2.1 is now available!

New features:
- Option to draw country labels with automatic placement

Improvements:
- Additional high-res (8K) Earth texture

Here's a video of the new labeling option:

 

Hi,

Can I ask some questions regarding the map itself ? I was wondering if its possible to create custom maps.

What do the Geodata/*.txt files look like ? Can you share snippets ?

I would like to understand how it is possible to feed my own custom map information, political boundaries, city info etc.

 

Hi!

Well, it could be done, just replacing the geodata files included in World Political Map asset which contains the locations of the polygons for frontiers and cities in spherical coordinates, with your own files. The data is stored as packed strings with separators in ASCII readable format (to make it more portable and allow external editing). Example:

Note that our data files are curated, so the number of points is optimized for each detail level (WPM can handle two levels of detail for your geographic data - one for bird-eye view and other for zooming for instance - for this reason there're two files with country frontiers data).

Regarding your data, are you talking about a fictional or real map? If your data is in lat/lon format, the asset contains the formulae to convert them to spherical coordinates so I think it could take you very little time to replace the data without touching any script.

You can reach us through our support forum (kronnect.com) and we can discuss your requirements over there if you wish (or by email : contact[at]kronnect.me).

 

Hi there!

V3 has been approved and is now available! Watch the new videos uploaded (links in the first post).

New features:
- New component: World Map Calculator
- New component: World Map Ticker
- New component: World Map Decorator

Improvements:
- Some shaders have been optimized
- Improved algorithm for centering destinations (produces a straighten view)
- New option: right click centers on a selected country
- Lots of internal changes and new APIs

 

V3.1 is available now!

New features:
- New Inverted Mode view, allows you to sit at the center of the Earth.
- Bake Earth texture command (available from gear's icon in the inspector title bar)

Improvements
- New buttons to straighten and tilt the Earth (also available in API)
- New option to adjust the drag speed
- New option to enable rotation using keyboard (WASD)
- x2 speed increase of colorize/highlight system

Demo of inverted mode:

Concerning the Bake Earth texture command, it's is available from the gear in the inspector title bar:



A sample texture generated by colorizing all countries with random colors is below:


This command is useful for cases where you want lots or all countries colorized. In this case, you can get a boost in performance avoiding adding the coloured surfaces onto the Earth rendering the colors directly on the texture.

 

can i make custom borders with this?

 

Hi!

Not with the Globe Edition.. you can however modify the borders with the 2D Edition which includes the Map Editor component although it's a different asset:

We are studying how to adapt the Map Editor component for the Globe but no dates yet.

 

So if I buy the 2D Edition, I can edit the borders, then use that modified map in the 3D edition?

 

Hi @gecko. Unfortunately you can't do that because the format in which the geodata is stored in both assets is a little bit different for optimisation purposes so you can't simply replace the data files of one asset with the others.

As commented above, we'll try to adapt the Map Editor component for the Globe as well. We know lots of users want that so we want also, but we're not comfortable making promises until we have at least an alpha version working.

 

Okay, thanks. I'm gonna need it in a month....

 

Is it possible to mold the terrain using heightmap. Or can this be added in the future. The map looks great currently, but I want the mountains to truly be mountains when rotating the globe. :c)

 

That's interesting and will add a cool look to the globe indeed. We'll explore that along the highlighting system and the rest of features. Thanks.

 

Other suggestions...

- Animated water (and/or PBR)
- Animated cloud cover

Note: can't you tell i'm bored at work :c)

 

We'd love to add that too.

We have started working on this area as well and the latest beta includes a new "Scenic Style".

 

I'm now a proud owner of the asset. Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks!!

Sign up at kronnect.com to access the latest beta releases. Currently V3.2 Beta4 includes lots of nice improvements, including performance, markers, lines and a new scenic style which uses a custom shader to add relief and clouds effects.

We'll submit an update this week to the Asset Store.

 

Sounds great! Thanks for the info.

 

Sorry to be a pest, but any news about customizing the borders? I'm gonna need that in a couple of weeks and would love to use this tool...

 

We plan to start porting the editor from the 2D edition to the Globe next week. Do you know we publish regular updates between releases at our support forum, right? You will see the first beta with the editor functionality over there, before final release to the Asset Store in October.

 

Great! That makes my day. And now I've registered on your forum so I can watch for news.

 

One other question: Is it easy/possible to show just a single country's border? Or even better, to show all the borders, but somehow highlight (color or thicker line) one country's border?

 

Well, you can highlight, color or texture the surface of any country or province.

I'll add the ability to restrict which countries or provinces borders will be drawn.
Also different line styles will be added soon.

 

Fantastic, thank you!

 

V3.2 Available on the Asset Store guys!

New features:
- New markers and line drawing and animation support
- New "Scenic" style with custom shader (relief + cloud effects)

Improvements:
- Pinch in/out support for mobile
- Improved resolution of high-def frontiers while reducing data file size
- Single city catalogue with improved size
- Significant performance improvement in detecting country hover
- More efficient highlghting system
- New option in inspector: labels elevation

Fixes:
- Corrected frontiers distortion
- Population of cities fixed and approximated to the metro area

 

Hi guys!
We'll release a beta tomorrow Monday including the new Map Editor component and many improvements, like thicker lines with custom shader, even faster performance and more.
Here's the change log:

Spoiler: Changelog

New features:

- Map Editor: new extra component for editing countries, provinces and cities.

Improvements:
- New APIs for setting/getting normalized zoom factor (SetZoomLevel/GetZoomLevel)
- New APIs in the Calculator component (prettyCurrentLatLon, toLatCardinal, toLonCardinal, from/toSphereLocation)
- New API variant for adding circle markers (AddMarker)
- New API for getting cities from a specified country - GetCities(country)
- New APIs for getting/setting cities information to a packed string - map.editor.GetCityGeoData/map.ReadCitiesPackedString
- Option for changing city icon size
- Can assign custom font to individual country labels
- Even faster country/province hovering detection
- Better polygon outline (thicker line and best positioning thanks to new custom shader for outline)
- Country outline is shown when show provinces mode is activated
- Improved low-res map generator including Douglas-Peucker implementation + automatic detection of self-crossing polygons

Fixes:
- Removed requirement of SM3 for the Scenic shader

 

Hi there.

Finally V4 is now available featuring the new Map Editor component.
Check out the new demo video:

 

Wow! Very impressive, and far more capable than I'd hoped!

 

Thank you @gecko.

I take the opportunity to announce the availability of a new Lite edition, which comes with a reduced feature set at a very competitive price! (only $30):

Globe Edition Lite
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/48429



Cheers!

 

V4.1 now available! Thanks everyone for supporting us!

New features:
- Option to show inland frontiers (now available in both low and high-res modes)
- Improved Scenic shaders including a new 8K + Scenic style (atmosphere falloff + scattering effect)

Improvements:
- New option to invert zoom direction when using mouse wheel (invertZoomDirection property)
- New option to automatically hide cursor on the globe if mouse if not over it (cursorAlwaysVisible)
- New API to obtain the country reference under any sphere position (GetCountryUnderSpherePosition)
- New option to mask grid so it only appears over oceans
- Improved Earth glow

Check out these new videos with latest features:

 

Wow the visuals improved a lot, great job!

 

Hi! We're happy to announce the general availability of V4.2 including the following new features and improvements:

New features:
- Number of cities increased from 1249 to 7144 !!

Improvements:
- Improved performance when cities are visible on the map
- Improved straightening of globe at current position (right click or new improved API: StraightenGlobe)
- Added dragConstantSpeed to prevent rotation acceleration
- Added keepStraight to maintain the globe always straight
- Added zoom max/min distance
- Country is now highlighted as well when provinces are shown
- API: new overload for GetCityIndex to fetch the index of the nearest city around a location (lat/lon or sphere position).
- API: new events: OnCityEnter, OnCityExit, OnCountryEnter, OnCountryExit, OnProvinceEnter, OnProvinceExit

 

I want to show country labels on some countries, but not on others. Is there a way to do that? (I'm stuck on 4.0 because changes in 4.1 broke our game setup.)

 

We can add that option in next version, but as you say, you can't/don't want to upgrade for now.

One workaround would be to edit function DrawMapLabels() in WPMInternal.cs file.

Around line 1219 (in current release) a for statement starts, iterating for all countries and preparing the related label. You could add a conditional just after that line, and make it "continue" for the countries you don't want its label to be shown.

For instance,

Code (CSharp):

1.     for (int countryIndex=0; countryIndex<countries.Length; countryIndex++) {
2.                 Country country = countries [countryIndex];
3. if (country.name.Equals("")) continue;

 

Thanks for that explanation. Another question: We would really like to have realtime lighting in the game, but the map material apparently is hard-coded to use your unlit shaders. Is there a way to use realtime lighting on the globe? Also, we've put some small architectural models on the globe, but have to assign one of your unlit shaders to them or the country fill colors overlap them. Is there a way to use the standard shader on them as well?

 

1) You can use your own materials/shaders for the globe.

2) It could be done, just mind the highlight shader renders like a transparent object, so in order to use the standard shader you should mark it as transparent as well and possible pay attention to the render queue as well. It all boils down to compare both shaders and make one render before the other.

 

I assigned a new material to the Globe, but it switches to the default material at runtime.

 

You're right - you need to modify the provided materials with your own. For example, you could change EarthCustom material with your own shader and textures, and the asset will just pick it up when you choose the style "Custom".

P. S.: If you don't mind, if you have any other "support" question, please visit our support forum, kronnect.com. It's just that this thread is for announcements and general questions regarding the asset. For support and feature request we have setup a dedicated forum there. Thanks.

 

Also:
1) Even when I switch the shader on the globe at runtime, other objects don't cast shadows on it.
2) I would like more control over the camera position when we use the FlyTo action. I want the camera to be closer to the globe, and angled more. But when I set the camera transform for one FlyTo location, then it's totally wrong for others. Is there a way to have greater control over that?

 

Okay, will do. (But it would be nice if you had a support forum here; it's annoying to have to create an account for all the various asset store tools I buy.)

 

I use google translation

Why does earth turn to when displaying the selected location?
Day and night will be messed up as it's

 

Since the Earth'sSince the Earth's rotation is mad, I want you to turn the camera rotation is mad, I want you to turn the camera

 

Since the Earth's rotation is mad, I want you to turn the camera

 

Currently it's the Earth which rotates over itself to show the selected targets. Since the globe can be part of a complex UI which doesn't want to modify the camera, this is the default behaviour.

However, making the Camera rotate around the globe over the desired target is quite easy to achieve. That could be a new "Fly" mode to add and I'll add it to our wish list.

 

Very fast reply Thank you
Thank you matter of "Fly" mode

 

Hi @hiromasa fukusi !

We've just released a new beta with the new navigation options and some other improvements! Check the video below for a demonstration.
To get the new beta, please head on to kronnect.com and follow instructions over there. Of course, a future V5 will be released to the Asset Store when it's complete.

 

Wow Very fast support thank you.
I've checked the video.
I think that there is no problem.
Thank you.

 

I purchased a few days ago
Upgrade too many
You release in a state that is not able to basic functions.
Just add a little feature, it's funny to take the additional cost