Lowsun: LiDAR relief map

Lowsun turns open LiDAR elevation data into a relief map with a sun you can move. Burial mounds, celtic fields, old cart tracks, sunken lanes and bomb craters appear that you cannot see on an aerial photo.

What you can do
• Slide between the relief and an aerial photo, or a map with roads and place names. One tap shows only the relief or only the photo.
• Turn the sun and set how low it stands. A low sun brings out the smallest differences in height, just as archaeologists wait for a winter evening.
• Switch on soft light from several directions to see shapes that a single sun leaves in shadow.
• Touch and hold the map for the measured height of that spot, straight from the AHN: not smoothed and not exaggerated.
• See protected national monuments on the map, with a link to the monument register.
• Search for a place or address, or jump to your own location.
• Save up to 20 of your own places with a name and note, with a backup to a file. Right of the divider you can also show landforms and the soil map.

Lowsun Pro
Local relief, sky view and slope (free to see in twelve sample areas), elevation colours, height with trees and buildings, 1x to 6x exaggeration, aerial photos since 2016 and infrared, two years side by side, maps from around 1900 and 1850, elevation profiles and unlimited places. Monthly, yearly (first 14 days free) or one-time. Everything above stays free.

Where it works
This version covers the Netherlands, with the national AHN elevation data at 0.5 metres. More countries will follow.

Look, and leave the ground alone
Lowsun is for looking. In the Netherlands, metal detecting is not allowed on archaeological monuments, and everywhere you need the landowner's permission. No warning on the map does not mean something is allowed: municipal and provincial monuments are not on the map.

What Lowsun does not do
No ads, no account, no usage analytics. Lowsun calculates the relief on your phone from public data. The map services only see which part of the map is loaded.

Sources: AHN (CC0), Beeldmateriaal Nederland (CC BY 4.0), BRT Achtergrondkaart (Kadaster, CC BY 4.0), Geomorfologische Kaart and Bodemkaart (BRO, CC BY 4.0) and protected monuments of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (CC BY 4.0), via PDOK, and historical maps of the RCE (CC BY 4.0).