The concept for metiq.space came after playing Global Magnates with friends and realizing how fragmented live global data is. ships, aircraft, satellites, ports, weather, hazards, infrastructure, cyber, and public datasets all exist, but they usually live in separate tools and maps.
The goal was to build one interactive 3D globe where live public data could be visualized by latitude, longitude, and altitude. Surface data stays on the globe, while aircraft, satellites, and other above surface things can be represented in actual 3D space instead of being flattened onto a map.
The outcome is an interactive globe that showcases Earth, air, sea, space, cyber, defense, infrastructure, politics, and the list is continuously growing.
Majority of development right now is going into data filtering and deduping.
ProllyInfamous6 hours ago
Feedback: when you select an object (e.g. a powerstation) the targeted/crosshairs sprite should not scale with the zoom (i.e. it should remain the same pixelcount). The problem is when zoomed way-out or way-in, you cannot see the crosshairs.
Why is the zoom-out so slow while the zoom-in so quick [scrollwheel]?
Missing many TVA generating facilities.
I like your simplified windmap more than Windy.com 's!
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Added to my "maps" bookmarks
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Sick hyperlinking: the feed to the livecam from the International Space Station !!! thanks !!!
jwardbonda day ago
Very cool. The satellite views are awesome! I clicked around for 20 minutes and still felt like there was so much more to explore. Thoughts:
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Unless there is a soviet military installation in Southend, Saskatchewan, something is seriously funky with the "military installation" layer.
It would be nice if clicking didn't lower the zoom level. It's fine to zoom in and center, but having it zoom me out every time I click something was annoying.
rakedaopa day ago
Military installations currently need to be sanitized and cleaned out. Will be working on later today. The source is unreliable and much of the data can be stored internally instead of public dataset.
darth-pixit12 hours ago
Crazy cool. The idea and approach is super cool, spent 20 odd mins looking through. A timelapse is one thing that excited me on top of this - you guys already have a window to change but a play from let's say last 5 year feels different - data might be an issue I understand. Inspired to build this for some of my data.
brailsafea day ago
Cool, but the UI could use more vibing. Seems unusable on mobile because it's not responsive and the controls can't be hidden or collapsed
rakedaopa day ago
Mobile has been a common complaint that I have received. Planning on conquering this soon! (90% of all initial traffic is mobile).
noAnswer20 hours ago
I know it's "just" AI but one could think there is a forkable project out there. I have seen like tenths of projects like this. OPs explanation is different though. Usually the line is "inspired by movie".
rakedaop19 hours ago
There might be, but that would be missing out on half of the fun. Plus the real development challenge wasn't the frontend, but the database strategy, caching strategy, and edge availability. As with all my projects they serve as a way for me to learn.
vessenes9 hours ago
In Plowing the Dark (2000), Richard Powers suggests that a globe-based visualization would give you a lot more if you could put your head inside it. Nice topological idea -- can I suggest you add it?
noiv8 hours ago
Not quite inside, but removing opaque layers, this is the Earth's today wind fields only.
https://zero.hypatia.earth/?dt=2026-06-20T02h30z&ll=59.8,-21...
On Mac touchpads, one finger dragging changes position, 2 finger (horizontal scrolling) time and vertical zooms.
brownpoints11 hours ago
How much of the data is real time? And how do you interpose different timelines?
robby111020 hours ago
I really like this. Is this just pulling from free data sources? Wonder if you could also hook it up with a maps provider to show real terrain
rakedaop20 hours ago
Yup, if there is a bit more support ill begin to add in the mid-tier paid services, but I feel like its in a good spot for now. Working on terrain right now!
dwa3592a day ago
This is amazing. I have been exploring open public datasets for some GIS projects. How are you dealing with any rate limits for how much you can pull from these public servers?
rakedaopa day ago
I'm routing and caching a majority of the data into my own database so that all usage and rates are through my service. There are some client based api calls that are made (mostly around existing enrichment) but 95% of traffic hits the db my workers populate.
davidinga day ago
Very impressive! What's the stack used?
Also, is there a way to stop the 'Satellite Inspect' dialog from coming up when clicking around the globe? It obscures a bit of the map.
rakedaopa day ago
On it right now, should see the change live in 10 minutes! Was supposed to only show when imagery was selected.
sleepytimeteaa day ago
Very nice...the maritime vessels view seems very sparsely populated...especially in the Strait of Hormuz.
rakedaop21 hours ago
Satellite GIS for all vessels is pretty pricey. Waiting to see this project grow before investing in that realtime data. For now we have coastline GIS for vessels.
BobMontgomeryJr18 hours ago
horrible UX on tablet-have-to-turn-sideways-or-window-clipped. Get the basics right. Globe slice in vertical-stripmap? drifts uncontrollably. can't set roi nor reposition nor minimize nor resize any of the three panels. tremendous amounts of wasted space - all the time. map legends overlay map undismissibly. great eye-candy first glance;
rakedaop17 hours ago
Thanks for your feedback Bob, the website is currently optimized for viewports smaller than 1920x1080p but I do plan support for the future.
akashwadhwani354 hours ago
Love it!
bigjick18 hours ago
wow - very impressive, visually pleasing
one UX improvement I feel would make it nice is the mouse wheel zoom in to be smooth, atm it jumps from one zoom level to the next, if it could pan in and out that would make it feel more immersive in a subtle but pleasing way
rakedaop17 hours ago
Thank you for the advice, will incorporate smoother zooming, theres a trick between feeling snappy and responsive and smooth but sluggish.
gavmor21 hours ago
I wonder if Mollweide or Atlantis projections wouldn't be more performant?
rakedaop20 hours ago
It was less about performance and more about the visual storytelling. The globe itself isnt actually a 3d model, all of this are rendered in three.js as two dimensional wraps, but the performance is hit with the amount of data.
gavmor6 hours ago
What's the data doing that's so sluggish? Is it being correlated/transformed, or is it just so many points of light are blocking each frame?
vivzkestrel16 hours ago
- stupid question, how do you make a globe like that
crimsonalucard15 hours ago
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maximedeco9 hours ago
Looks super cool!
miniman1337a day ago
really great stuff on here, exploring any of the layers makes me want to learn more about it, maybe finding a way to link to relevant wiki articles for some of the data layers would be neat.
rakedaopa day ago
Some layers have additional enrichment, data linking everything internal external is a major goal for the project!
ionwake21 hours ago
I spent about a decade building a game that looks remarkably like this, I for one think this looks fantastic. Took me years of working with old 3d libraries and networking... and it never was finished....
Its incredible what can now be built with a little good ai tooling, just awesome.
EDIT > This is my favorite post this year (after Mythos) on HN good job
rakedaop21 hours ago
That is high praise. Thank you.
hsuduebc218 hours ago
V2 rocket owned by Israel in Poland kinda surprised me. But I understand. I'm currently working on data heavy platform. The most menial task is to clear data to be usable. Keep up the good work!
kiyeonjeon6 hours ago
awesome
fsuts21 hours ago
Very cool
What’s the tech stack?
rakedaop20 hours ago
From what I put on reddit:
"The globe itself is just a black ball that hides anything behind it. On top of that we draw the grid (lat/lng) by looping through coordinates and connecting dots on the surface (same math youd do for platpoints on a map, just wrapped around the sphere). The coastlines and borders come from free geo data files and just drawn on the sphere, anchored.
The atmosphere and a majority of the affects are just tiny shaders (maybe 10 lines of code each) which gives it a strong 3d affect.
Everything else, data points, flights, events, is just coordinates associated with database entries and drawn ui components.
So if you tried it before and went down the rabbit hole of 3D and triangulation, you were probably overthinking it the same way I did at first. The wireframe aesthetic actually works in your favour because you never have to fill anything in"
gaolei888815 hours ago
awesome work!!
ak00521 hours ago
awesome! I
0fuza day ago
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souljorje13 hours ago
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