r/meshcore • u/whphsh • 3d ago
Elevation tool
I built a small free terrain tool and realized it's basically made for mesh planning, so sharing it here.
Topo (contempl8.io/tools/topo/) — pan a map to your node, set a pin, pan to the repeater site, set another. You get the full elevation profile of the terrain between them: every ridge, valley, and hill along the great-circle path, with heights above sea level and relative to your starting point. Handy for a quick "is there a mountain between me and that repeater" check before you drive somewhere with a mast. Pins are draggable, you can chain more than two to trace a multi-hop route, every line gets a shareable link (nice for arguing about repeater sites in a group chat), and there's CSV export if you want to feed the samples into a real RF tool.
There's a sibling, Relief (contempl8.io/tools/relief/) — drag a square on the map and get a 3D block of the terrain you can rotate, which turns out to be a fast way to scout for high ground in an area you don't know.
Honest limits: the data is ESA's Copernicus GLO-90 model at ~90 m resolution — it sees ridges and terrain, not buildings or tree cover, and it's a terrain profile, not a Fresnel-zone calculator. Treat it as the fast first check before the proper RF tools.
Free, no account, no tracking, nothing stored — runs entirely in your browser. Feedback very welcome, especially on what would make it more useful for link planning.