- Map terrain, population density, cities + more – from simple datasets to stunning 3D maps with this amazing tool!
- Free tutorial
- Rating: 5.0 out of 55.0 (164 ratings)
- 3,259 students
- 1hr 40min of on-demand video
- Created by Alasdair Rae
- English
What you’ll learn
- How to make stunning 3D maps of cities, landscapes and population density
- How to navigate your way around Aerialod
- What all the settings in Aerialod are for and what they do
- How to map landscapes
- How to map high-resolution Lidar data for an urban area
- How to map global population density
- How to export high quality images from Aerialod
- How to overcome some common problems in Aerialod
- How to add 3D text to images
- How to save different view settings in Aerialod
Requirements
- No prior experience is necessary
- Aerialod is a Windows-only piece of software (32-bit or 64-bit)
- No previous mapping experience is required
Description
Aerialod is a fantastic piece of 3D rendering software for Windows, from ephtracy
Aerialod is simple, but also deceptively powerful – and at first it can be a little confusing, so that’s why I’ve put together this short, FREE Udemy course. It doesn’t cover everything, but it has more than enough to get you up and running.
This short course is for anyone who wants to learn how to make stunning 3D visualisations of terrain data, population density data, or any other kind of data that varies across geographic space. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be geographic data – you can use it to visualise any raster image (e.g. png files, jpg files, tif files) in incredible detail. In the introduction I even show you what it looks like when I open a photo of myself in Aerialod – weird, yet also fascinating!
Want to make a 3D map of Scotland? No problem. Want to create a beautiful 3D representation of a cityscape? No problem. Want to create a 3D visualisation of population density in a country, or the entire world? Yep, no problem. Aerialod can do all of this, and much more.
To really maximise the potential of Aerialod and render images quickly then you’ll need a high-end graphics card in your computer – like the ones in most good gaming PCs. But even without that you can create some truly stunning visuals – you just need a little bit more patience.
What exactly is Aerialod?
In technical terms, Aerialod is ‘an interactive path tracing renderer for height maps’. This may not mean much to you but, to put it another way, Aerialod is a small piece of software that lets you create realistic 3D representations of real-world things like mountains and cities, or visualise patterns of human population such as population density. You could also visualise things like weather (e.g. hurricane tracks), rainfall, and a whole lot more. You just need imagination, patience and – usually – a bit of guidance to get up and running.
Structure
After the course introduction, we dive straight in with videos on how to use all the different settings in Aerialod. Don’t forget to watch the introduction though – this explains quite a lot. Here’s the basic structure of the course, with each section having multiple video tutorials within it.
- Section 1 – introduction (background, installation, navigation, adding data)
- Section 2 – visualising landscapes (using example data from Scotland)
- Section 3 – visualising cityscapes (using an example from Manchester in the UK)
- Section 4 – visualising population density (using an example dataset for Asia)
- Section 5 – The End Zone (extra tips and tricks you might find useful)
We hope you find this course useful and interesting 🙂
Check out my Map Academy courses if you want to learn QGIS!
Who this course is for:
- Data analysts
- Data journalists
- Students
- Scientists
- Researchers
- Anyone with an interest in maps and learning
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Course content
5 sections • 25 lectures • 1h 39m total lengthCollapse all sections
Introduction6 lectures • 39min
- Introduction to Section 101:22
- Thanks – and about reviews01:03
- Introduction to Aerialod22:50
- How to download and start Aerialod02:27
- Basic Aerialod navigation05:18
- Adding data to Aerialod – plus changing basic map settings05:59
Visualising landscapes: Scotland in 3D4 lectures • 15min
- Introduction to Section 201:09
- Scotland Terrain – Part 105:06
- Scotland Terrain – Part 204:34
- Scotland Terrain – Part 304:18
Visualising cities: Manchester in 3D4 lectures • 16min
- Introduction to Section 301:39
- Manchester Cityscape – Part 103:57
- Manchester Cityscape – Part 204:43
- Manchester Cityscape – Part 305:16
Visualising population density: the world in 3D!3 lectures • 13min
- Introduction to Section 401:29
- Global Population Density – Part 104:03
- Global Population Density – Part 207:51
The End Zone – tips and tricks for Aerialod8 lectures • 16min
- Introduction to Section 5 – THE END ZONE!01:11
- 3D text in Aerialod scenes – what 3D text looks like01:34
- Add 3D text in Aerialod using MS Paint first!01:38
- Add a 3D border and text before you render a scene02:07
- How to save a view in Aerialod (7 to save, 8 to zoom to saved view)02:53
- Open multiple map tiles in a single view (i.e. ‘stitch files’)01:55
- Why does blue ‘Rayleigh’ show up as orange?01:52
- Why do I just see one massive spike?03:19
