3D Locator Map Infographic –
Tham Luang Cave - Thailand
Client: Zeit Online
Year: 2018
01. The project
While working for ZEIT Online for three months in the context of my Google News Fellowship, I made this little 3D locator map of the Tham Luang Cave in Thailand where the football team “Wild Boars” went missing in June 2018.
02. The challenge:
The main challenge in creating this graphic was to work with very limited data and information: Unfortunately we were not able to show the exact location of the cave where the boys went missing. We initially wanted to show a lateral view of the cave as part of the mountain range based on its elevation. Even though we had gathered geodata for the cave as a .shp file, the exact position of the boys remained unknown until the end. Given the tight time constraints and restricted data, we had to sacrifice some crucial information.
03. The tools
The graphic was made using QGIS and the great plugin QGIS2Threejs, which allows to overlay satellite imagery onto a digital elevation model to render a 3D map. All design work and a few annotations were later added in Illustrator.