TerrainStudio
Map and terrain capture for Mac & Windows

Any place on Earth. Any zoom level. 40+ years.

Every pass pixel-aligned. Ready for your pipeline.

Platform
macOS + Windows
Type
Standalone App
Version
1.0 Beta
Get TerrainStudio
Product Description

TerrainStudio is a map and terrain capture tool for anyone who builds maps for the screen. Frame anywhere on Earth, choose your sources, and it delivers every layer — elevation, imagery, borders, coastlines, streets, even 3D buildings — perfectly aligned, pixel for pixel, ready for After Effects, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, or whatever your pipeline looks like.

This is a tool I've wanted for a long time. I've worked on a lot of documentaries that involved maps, and the same problem came up on every one of them. The elevation data came from one place, the satellite imagery from another, the borders and country shapes from somewhere else again — and none of it lined up. I'd spend hours nudging layers by eye, scaling and rotating, trying to get a coastline to sit on a coastline. It was tedious, and it was never quite right.

What I really wanted was one place where I could bring all of these sources together, have them land in exactly the same frame, and then design something unique for each project, rather than settling for whatever one map provider happens to look like.

So I built it.

System Requirements

Mac: macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple Silicon (M1 or newer)

Windows: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit

An internet connection while capturing

Optional free accounts unlock more sources: Mapbox, OpenTopography, GPXZ and Copernicus Data Space

How it works
TerrainStudio interface
Frame Area
Choose Passes
Set Output
Capture
  1. Frame Area. Search anywhere on Earth, or paste coordinates, and frame your shot under the target box.
  2. Choose Passes. Pick any combination of elevation, surface imagery, map styles, vectors and 3D buildings.
  3. Set Output. Choose resolution or a custom size and file location. Save the setups as a preset.
  4. Capture. One click. Every pass, pixel-aligned, ready for your 3D or comp software.
Every pass pixel-aligned
Day & Night
Korean Peninsula and Japan, NASA GIBS
Day
Night
Time series
Las Vegas, 1986–2026 · Landsat only
1986
1996
2006
2016
2026
Vectors
Greenpoint, Brooklyn · Mapbox satellite with OpenFreeMap buildings and streets
Mapbox satellite
+ Buildings
+ Streets
3D OBJs
New York's Flatiron District, Open Street Maps, Google Tile
OpenStreetMap
Google 3D Tiles
Elevation & Surface
Tasmania coastline · GMRT, Mapzen and Mapbox, one frame
GMRT
Mapzen elevation
Mapbox satellite
Mapbox custom

Map work usually means pulling terrain from one place, imagery from another and borders from a third, then nudging them by eye until a coastline sits on a coastline.

TerrainStudio frames and projects every source onto the same pixel grid, so they land on each other exactly. Click through the passes: the coast, the streets and the buildings stay put. Only the content changes.

18 Sources, 1 Location, Endless combinations

Elevation, imagery, maps and 3D cities from public and commercial providers.

All
Elevation
Imagery
Maps & vectors
3D
No key needed
18 of 18 sources
Works the way you need it to

TerrainStudio writes plain files, not scene files, so everything it captures fits into your preferred production pipeline.

32-bit EXR
16-bit PNG
SVG splines
OBJ meshes
JSON manifest
C4D
Cinema 4D
UE
Unreal Engine
Un
Unity
Ae
After Effects
Ps
Photoshop
Ai
Illustrator
H
Houdini
Bl
Blender
M
Maya
3
3DS Max
Nu
Nuke
Ga
Gaea
Showcase
New York and the continental shelf · GMRT, Mapbox and Mapzen
New York and the continental shelf · GMRT, Mapbox and Mapzen
GMRT (Ryan et al., 2009) · © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap © Maxar · Mapzen / Tilezen terrain tiles
Bilbao · Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles
Bilbao · Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles
Map data ©Google
Meteor Crater, Arizona · GPXZ and Mapbox
Meteor Crater, Arizona · GPXZ and Mapbox
Elevation: GPXZ (gpxz.io/credit) · © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap © Maxar
Europe and the Mediterranean · Mapzen and OpenFreeMap
Europe and the Mediterranean · Mapzen and OpenFreeMap
Mapzen / Tilezen terrain tiles · © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors, via OpenFreeMap
See it in use