# Adding a world map to a 3D Volume graph (python)

**URL:** <https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592>\
**Category:** 📊 Plotly Python\
**Created:** [January 14, 2020, 9:50am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592 "2020-01-14T09:50:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![stavnahum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@stavnahum](https://community.plotly.com/u/stavnahum)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 9:50am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592/1 "2020-01-14T09:50:06Z")

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Hi everyone  
As a weather guy I’m working on creating 3D animation of various atmospheric fields  
I’ve managed to create a 3D graph but now I’d like to add a 2d map world within the same graph so the viewer will get the reference on where we are located in the world

Is that possible? can anyone direct me here?

Many thanks  
Stav!

[image|493x500](https://community.plotly.com/uploads/short-url/dcLXIKraWH7wHXJtzgqOfYnuSIQ.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![empet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@empet](https://community.plotly.com/u/empet)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592/2 "2020-01-16T19:26:28Z")

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Hi @stavnahum,  
Welcome to forum!! You can plot a map included in a plane, like this one:  
[[https://plot.ly/~empet/14375/](https://plot.ly/~empet/14375/)] ([https://plot.ly/~empet/14375/](https://plot.ly/~empet/14375/)).  
You have to read the geometry of a continent, country or region boundary from a geojson fiile or a shapefile, and plot it as a `go.Scatter3d` instance, `mode ='lines'`.

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**Author:** ![guidocioni](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/community.plotly.com/guidocioni/32/31836_2.png) [@guidocioni](https://community.plotly.com/u/guidocioni)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592/3 "2022-03-08T15:49:55Z")

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I was wondering whether there has been any progress in the last 2+ years on this topic.

I’m plotting 3D flights trajectories which look like this:

 ![Screenshot 2022-03-08 at 16.44.07](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/plot/original/3X/c/5/c50587e9045ef6ab4d78a653babf5d287b344387.png)

x, y are longitude, latitude and z the altitude (in feet).

I would like to add instead a proper map with rasters, similar to what is done in all the functions used in plotly express to make 2D scatter plots. Is it really hard to extend this to the 3D scatter plot?

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**Author:** ![jfeng1996](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@jfeng1996](https://community.plotly.com/u/jfeng1996)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2022, 12:31am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592/4 "2022-03-22T00:31:24Z")

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Best I’ve seen is this [guide](https://a2i2.deakin.edu.au/2020/01/17/visualising-space-time-data/). I’m also running into the same issue and would like to insert a basemap into a 3D line plot, but so, so puzzled.

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**Author:** ![BluAstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@BluAstro](https://community.plotly.com/u/BluAstro)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2024, 4:47pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/adding-a-world-map-to-a-3d-volume-graph-python/33592/5 "2024-08-15T16:47:52Z")

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This looks really sick! I’m working on a satellite constellation network project, and this would look absolutely amazing for my paper. Is it alright if I snag a copy of this code from you?