Coverage & data

A shadow is only as good as what casts it.

The sun position is exact math. The buildings, trees and hills it falls on come from the most complete open datasets available, and anything Sunframe has to estimate is labeled.

Buildings

2B+

footprints worldwide

Overture Maps merges OpenStreetMap with machine-mapped footprints from satellite imagery, so rural areas and fast-growing cities are covered too. Includes heights, floors, building parts and roof shapes where known.

vsOpenStreetMap alone: strong in cities, thin in much of Africa, Asia and South America.

Trees

≈2 m

canopy height sampling

Meta and WRI's global canopy height map (CHMv2), derived from high-resolution satellite imagery. Trees are placed where canopy exists and sized to its measured height.

vsMost 3D maps: no trees, decorative trees, or only the few street trees someone mapped by hand.

Terrain

30 m

global, finer by region

Mapterhorn blends Copernicus GLO-30 with higher-resolution national elevation data where it exists. Hills cast real shadows on the streets below.

vsOlder free terrain tiles: coarse overviews with visible artifacts along coastlines.

See the difference

Drag to compare

Same place, same sun, same camera. Only the data changes, and so do the shadows.

Central Park with CHMv2 canopy trees filling the park

Central Park with only mapped Overture tree points, mostly empty

Mapped points only CHMv2 canopy

Trees · Central Park, New York

A park, not a lawn

Mapped tree points cover only the trees volunteers have added. Canopy height data fills the park the way it really looks from above.

Riverside town with CHMv2 canopy trees along the river banks and streets

Same riverside town with estimated woodland trees only in mapped forest areas

Estimated woodland CHMv2 canopy

Trees · riverside town

Street trees and river banks, too

Without canopy data, trees only appear where a forest is mapped. With it, every garden, avenue and riverbank gets trees at measured heights.

Building with a reconstructed hip roof following its L-shaped footprint

Same building shown as a flat-roofed box

Default flat roof Reconstructed roof

Roofs · straight-skeleton reconstruction

Roofs that follow the footprint

Most maps extrude every building into a box. Sunframe builds hip and gable roofs along the real footprint, wings and courtyards included, so the shadow on the lawn has the right shape.

Side by side

How Sunframe compares

	Sunframe	Typical 3D web maps	OSM-only 3D viewers
Buildings	2B+ merged footprints, global	Detailed in major cities, sparse elsewhere	Only what volunteers have mapped
Heights & roofs	Source heights and six roof types; estimates labeled	Often generic boxes	Mostly flat boxes
Trees	Measured canopy heights anywhere	None or decorative	Mapped points only
Terrain	30 m global plus regional high-res	Varies	Often flat
Sun & shadows	Any date and time, on terrain too	Rare	Rare
Edit & export	Edit anything; export GLB, glTF, OBJ, STL, 3MF	View only	Limited
Cost	Free at launch, no account, no API key	Account or API key often required	Free

Honest about limits

Open data is great, not perfect

Sunframe is for exploring, visualizing and early ideas, not surveying. Here is what to keep in mind.

Missing heights are estimated from floor counts, or a default, and marked Estimated in the editor.

Canopy data is historical imagery, not a tree survey. Tree positions and species are inferred.

Terrain resolution varies by country, and some sources include rooftops or trees in ground height.

Sunlight is clear-sky, without clouds or weather.

Sources

Dataset	Used for	License
Overture Maps	Buildings, bridges, walls, mapped trees	ODbL and source licenses
Meta / WRI CHMv2	Canopy-height trees	CC BY 4.0
Mapterhorn	Terrain elevation	Per regional source
OpenFreeMap	Basemap	© OpenMapTiles, OpenStreetMap contributors

Check your own street.

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