Coordinate Mapper

An easy-to-use 3D visualization tool for Unity developers.

September 9, 2020 Nick Bowlin | @RedEagle120

Now available on the Unity Asset Store, Coordinate Mapper takes your chosen set of coordinates and accurately maps them onto a 3D sphere.

Even before the (many, many) global events of 2020, mapping data had become such a regular part of our digital lives. We had the idea of mapping coronavirus cases … or lightning strikes, opinions, spending habits … the type of stuff you want to visualize across the globe in a concrete way.

Coordinate Mapper is a visualization tool that’s out-of-the-box and easy-to-use for developers working in Unity. If you have a JSON or CSV file with coordinates in it, this package will parse the data out and map it to the sphere properly.

Unity made sense for the project because we wanted to visualize data on an actual 3D globe, rather than just a flat texture. Unity’s features helped facilitate the different aspects of our tool, such as heat map generation and location plotting.

In the image below, each of those little dots is a Dunkin’ Donuts location across the U.S. It’s fueled by a random JSON file I found.

Although Coordinate Mapper’s main purpose is plotting data, it doesn’t restrict users to just that function. Unity is primarily a game engine, so you could also use Coordinate Mapper to accurately map locations in your game concept (Perhaps in a Risk or flight simulator-style game).

More on Coordinate Mapper at Small Planet’s GitHub, and you can download here.

Nick is an iOS developer at Small Planet. He mostly works on mobile apps in Swift and Objective C but enjoys fiddling with Unity in his free time.