What the source did
- Jankees rebuilt his village, Helenaveen, as an isometric pixel-art map with Claude Code. Every house and tree is in its real place, and all of it comes from open data.
- His README says the map is rendered from Dutch open data rather than painted by an image model, so it is exact, seamless and rebuilds in about two minutes.
- The pipeline downloads 3D buildings with roof shapes, ground surfaces, a 25 cm aerial photo and lidar heights, finds individual trees in the canopy height data, paints the ground, then renders it in three.js with a 2:1 isometric camera, tile by tile in headless Chromium.
- The viewer adds named places with their stories, a guided tour of twenty historical places, walking routes, little cars and cyclists on the real roads, an evening mode with street lamps, and a compass that turns the map.
- He put the prompt behind a "Make your own village" button on the map. It tells your agent to use his repo as the example and swap the Dutch data sources for the closest open data in your country.
- Since posting, he has shared maps other people made of other Dutch towns with the same prompt.
“Every house and tree in its real place, all from open data, made with Claude Code.”— Jankees (@jankeesvw), X
Summary written by Agent Cookbook from the original post. See the original for the full context. How we source recipes
Our notes
- What it takes
- Claude Code or another coding agent, his open repo as the example, your country's open data for buildings, heights, ground and roads, and somewhere to host a static site. His 'Make your own village' prompt is quoted as he wrote it.
- Where it breaks
- Expecting Dutch-level detail everywhere, skipping the data licence check, leaving Helenaveen's own tour and fixed spots in, and picking too big an area. His repo shows no licence file.
- Human checkpoint
- The agent builds and shows you screenshots. You pick the area, check the licences, write the local stories and put the map online yourself.
- Tools involved
- Claude Code or another coding agent, His open repo (github.com/jankeesvw/isometric-helenaveen) as the example, Open data for your country: buildings with heights, an elevation model, an aerial photo or land-use map, and OpenStreetMap, A machine that can render in headless Chromium, and GitHub Pages (or any static host) to put it online, The stories about your place that only people who live there know
Source check pending. How we verify
Get their template
Made and published by Jankees. Start here; it is their original, not ours.
Repo · by Jankeesisometric-helenaveen, his repoThe whole pipeline from open data to the viewer, described in the README. His prompt tells your agent to clone it and read the README first. The repo shows no licence file, so ask him before reusing the code beyond your own map.Open it ↗Example · by JankeesHis live map of HelenaveenZoom in, turn the map, switch to evening or take the tour. The 'Make your own village' button in the corner shows the prompt quoted below.Open ↗
Their prompt
From Jankees Their exact wording: the English 'Make your own village' prompt from his map. Fill in your place where the brackets are. Source ↗
Make an isometric pixel-art map of [your village or town, and the country], like Isometric Helenaveen: https://jankeesvw.github.io/isometric-helenaveen/
Use the code at https://github.com/jankeesvw/isometric-helenaveen as an example. Clone the repo and read the README first: it describes the whole pipeline, from open data to the viewer.
The example uses Dutch open data: RD coordinates (EPSG:28992), buildings from the 3D BAG, the ground from the BGT, an aerial photo from PDOK and the heights of trees and terrain from the AHN. Find the open data for my country that comes closest and adapt the scripts to it:
- a metric coordinate system for the area, for example the right UTM zone;
- buildings with heights and ideally roof shapes: a national 3D building dataset, or else the buildings from OpenStreetMap or Overture Maps with heights from an elevation model;
- a surface model and a bare-earth elevation model, for example national lidar data or a global model, for the trees and the terrain;
- an aerial photo or a land-use map to colour the ground;
- OpenStreetMap for roads, water, paths and the traffic, which works everywhere.
If my place is in the Netherlands, you can use the example's sources as they are.
Then:
1. Set the area, a few kilometres square, in scripts/config.py.
2. Run ./build.sh, look at the result with python3 -m http.server 8000 -d site and show me screenshots.
3. Replace the places in scripts/landmarks.py with buildings and places from my village or town, each with a short story. Take out or replace what belongs to Helenaveen only: the tour (scripts/build_history.py) and the fixed spots in viewer/index.html, such as the starting point, the village centre for the street lamps and the swimmers in the canal.
4. Put the map online, for example with GitHub Pages (deploy.sh).
Work step by step, check the licences of the data you use, and ask me about the stories and places that only the people who live there know.
Approval rule
🛡
The agent builds and renders on your machine and shows you screenshots; you choose the area, check the data licences, write the local stories and decide when it goes online. Sending, buying, posting and deleting always need a human.
Set it up
- Open his live map and press "Make your own village" to see the prompt (it's quoted above).
- Paste it into Claude Code or another coding agent and fill in your village or town and the country.
- Let the agent find your country's open data for buildings, heights, ground and roads, and adapt his scripts.
- Run the build, look at the screenshots it shows you, and fix the area or palette until it looks right.
- Tell it the places and stories that matter where you live, then put the map online yourself.
Common failures
⚠
- Expecting the same detail everywhere. Outside the Netherlands the agent has to find the closest open data, and buildings may come from OpenStreetMap with heights from an elevation model instead of a 3D dataset.
- Skipping the licence check. His prompt asks the agent to check the licences of the data it uses; credit them on your map.
- Leaving Helenaveen's own pieces in: the tour, the starting point and the swimmers in the canal are specific to his village.
- Picking too big an area. His prompt says a few kilometres square.
Variations
- Make one for the town you grew up in, or as a gift for a local history society.
- Add a tour of your own historical places, like his "Helenaveen van toen" tour.
- Keep the map but swap the stories for your own business's locations or a walking route.
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