WSV3 Tactical Cartographer - Development footage: Performance-testing new 3D mapping graphics engine
Pardon the erratic camera motions and exaggerated graphics on this video clip of purely diagnostic tests on the responsivity and load performance of the new 3D GPU mapping engine under development for the next-gen WSV3 product announced last October. Current plans are to make an initial mapping-only product available first and then the full weather data product on top of the same graphics engine. Detail here: https://wsv3-next-gen-2025.com/forum/...
This was rendered in real-time on my 2023 ASUS Zenbook current primary development laptop which has Intel Iris Xe embedded graphics. It achieves mostly stable framerate during the recording. I used OBS Studio for this, as the in-program video capture hasn't been rebuilt yet. WSV3 Tactical Cartographer promises to serve value in generic GIS data display applications and allows me to perfect and polish the graphics engine before progressing into the development of real-time meteorological content for WSV3 Tactical Mesoanalyst (late 2025). The two phases gives me the necessary time to focus on the critical weather data content and logic for Mesoanalyst.
The clip here shows terrain rendering and vector line rendering. Polygon data and point data labeling not yet implemented. The right hand panel embraces some very bold new UI concepts. In this context, a real-time line-width color palette editor offers flexible artistic control over customizing vector line data appearance. The other line settings are revealed through clean, precise field access sliders. Eventually I want this minimalist UI system to serve as the basis for all customization in the program, which can be efficiently bundled into full "map styles" or perhaps "map data" you can share with other users in a web-based system of "map sharing". Lots of potential there, seeing how frequently people ask for and about palettes on the forum.
Let me know if there are any particular stylistic effects or graphical customization want-to-haves around the topic of customizing map styles. These components are likely to be built a certain way once and heavily relied on thereafter, so I want to make sure the new graphics engine strikes a perfect balance between non-complexity vs customizability.
On the current first-generation WSV3 product, I published a new V5.10 BETA update today on the forums adding the new Louisiana radar site, correcting some high-DPI UI quirks, and fixing the MRMS Shear/Rotation products. The NWS Advisories remains broken by the recent NWS data change and I stated on the forum I intend to redevelop that layer for V5.10 into its previous state of functionality. That will be the current subject of further V5.10-related work.
Kind regards,
Paul Maravelias
Windham, NH
https://wsv3.com
https://wsv3-next-gen-2025.com/forum/