Public cameras, projected into the world they watch

The idea

Transport agencies around the world publish traffic camera feeds so drivers can check conditions. Individually they are useful and dull. Collected onto a globe and projected into 3D, they become something else: a way to drop from orbit to street level in one movement and look through a real lens at a real road.

Each camera is placed at its known location, and its image is projected onto the terrain and buildings in front of it. Instead of a thumbnail floating on a map, you see the feed sitting in the geography, aligned with the intersection it covers.

Using it with the other layers

The combination is where it gets interesting. Click a tanker in the Port of Long Beach for its vessel card and wake trail, then hit NEAREST in the camera panel and look at the same stretch of water through a public camera. Or track an approaching aircraft and find a camera near the airport perimeter.

1. Enable the CCTV layer.
2. Fly to a city, or press NEAREST to snap to the closest camera.
3. Turn projection on to map the feed into the scene.
4. Use the calibration controls if heading or field of view looks off.

Accuracy and privacy

Camera poses — heading, pitch, field of view — are coarse estimates. Projection will often be approximately right rather than exactly right, which is why manual calibration controls exist.

Every feed here is one the operating agency already publishes to the public web. These are road and infrastructure cameras intended for traffic conditions, not private or residential cameras, and nothing is accessed that is not already open.