Have mentioned this on the OSM mailing list, but the other thing I’ve been working on lately is “footnav”, a 3D renderer of OSM and NASA SRTM data orientated at countryside users. The eventual aim will be walkers and cyclists to be able to use it out in the field for navigation on a phone (hence the name…) but for the moment it’s a Qt based desktop application. I’ve only started working on it the past two or three weeks or so, so not that many features yet… but nonetheless, you can load in a NASA SRTM height file and visualise the relief in 3D, and then overlay OSM data on the 3D landscape. It’s available from here as well as on Sourceforge.
What I’d like it to also feature is 3D models of navigational aids relevant to walkers, such as stiles, fences, hedges, gates, trees and buildings. So if there are any open source 3D modellers out there who would like to contribute, please let me know…
As I said above currently it’s a desktop app, however I am also interested in the new WebGL technology available in nightly builds of Firefox and WebKit, which allows 3D graphics embedded within a browser. Now that there is also a JavaScript API for getting location, this raises the possibility of some very interesting web-based applications (and means that the iPhone could be supported too). I’m aiming to have a play with using WebGL with OSM and SRTM data so watch this space…