forge3d

Path-traced terrain and cartography for Python.
Rust + WebGPU underneath. Real elevation data in, print-resolution maps out.

_{Mount Shasta, path-traced with global illumination and terrain shadows.

Drag to orbit it live › · USGS 3DEP elevation · 23 cloud-free Sentinel-2 composites}

Install

pip install forge3d

Optional extras

pip install "forge3d[jupyter]"   # notebook widget support
pip install "forge3d[datasets]"  # on-demand sample datasets
pip install "forge3d[all]"       # everything

Sixty seconds to a render

import forge3d as f3d

dem_path = f3d.fetch_dem("rainier")

with f3d.open_viewer_async(terrain_path=dem_path, width=1440, height=900) as viewer:
    viewer.set_z_scale(0.1)
    viewer.set_orbit_camera(phi_deg=28, theta_deg=49, radius=5400, fov_deg=42)
    viewer.set_sun(azimuth_deg=302, elevation_deg=24)
    viewer.snapshot("rainier.png", width=1920, height=1080)

fetch_dem pulls the elevation model, the viewer opens a real window you can orbit, and snapshot writes the frame at whatever resolution you ask for.

Made with forge3d

Every map below is rendered end to end by forge3d — titles, legends and scale bars included. Nothing here was hand-edited or composited in another tool.

Circular plan view of Lyon with every building extruded, the Rhone and Saone running through it

_{Lyon, LOD2 buildings
CityGML extrusion over RGE ALTI terrain}

Egypt in cold blue relief with the Nile and its delta glowing orange

_{Egypt, population
GHSL R2023A density over shaded relief}

France coloured by a two-variable temperature and precipitation scheme

_{France, climate
TerraClimate temperature × precipitation}

Iberian peninsula land cover, forest greens along the north and mountain ranges, crop yellows across the meseta

_{Iberia, land cover 2024 — Sentinel-2 at 10 m classified over terrain, legend composed in-engine}

Germany in hypsometric relief with the Rhine, Elbe and Danube drainage networks traced in blue

_{Germany, hydrology — HydroSHEDS rivers and lakes over a hypsometric DEM}

Turkiye seen at a low angle with population density extruded as thousands of spikes, Istanbul the tallest

_{Türkiye, population density — a million WorldPop 2020 cells extruded on a log scale, labelled and lit in a single pass}

Animated loop of wildfire smoke plumes drifting across California through summer 2025

And it moves.

Volumetric smoke driven by HRRR forecast fields, advected across California through the summer 2025 fire season and rendered frame by frame — same scene graph as the stills, one camera, no compositing.

Scenes are driven from Python end to end, so a time axis is just another loop: fetch the fields, step the clock, call snapshot, hand the frames to ffmpeg.

_{The renders above are downsampled for this page. Full-resolution masters — up to 7200×7200 — are on the gallery.}

What forge3d covers


Terrain	Interactive viewing via `open_viewer_async()` and `ViewerHandle`; snapshots from GeoTIFF or `numpy` DEMs; clipmaps for large regions
Rendering	Path tracing, PBR materials, subsurface scattering, water and reflections, cloud and contact shadows, AOV and EXR output
Data	COG streaming, CRS helpers, LAZ/COPC/EPT point clouds, 3D Tiles, GeoJSON, CityJSON, on-demand sample datasets
Cartography	Raster and vector overlays, labels with halo and occlusion, graticules, `Legend`, `ScaleBar`, `NorthArrow`, `MapPlate`
Offscreen	`Scene`, `Session`, `TerrainRenderer` and `TerrainRenderParams` for headless and batch work
Output	PNG and PNG16, SVG and PDF vector export, scene bundles, notebook widgets

MapPlate composition, vector export and the building import pipelines are Pro features; set a key with forge3d.set_license_key(...) to unlock them.

Documentation

Quickstart — install, first viewer session, first overlay, first notebook widget
Feature Map — repo-wide overview of the supported workflows
Tutorials — guided GIS and Python tracks
Gallery — finished recipes at full resolution
API Reference — the full public Python surface

License

The open-source core is released under Apache-2.0 OR MIT. Pro-gated features require a commercial license key.

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