Terrain Graph

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Render your Obsidian link graph as a 3D tilted mountain contour map: the more links a note has, the higher its peak; tightly connected notes cluster into one mountain; the most-linked note is the main peak of the whole range.

Preview

Features

• Altitude = link-count level: link counts are log-normalized and quantized into N levels; equal link counts share the same altitude
• One mountain per community: label-propagation (LPA) community detection groups tightly linked notes into a single mountain, with valleys between ranges
• Layout follows the official graph view: mountain positions come from the same d3-force simulation the built-in graph uses (forceX/Y, charge, link, collision), with parameters read from your vault's graph.json; the layout is stable across opens
• Realistic terrain: weighted Gaussian upper-envelope height field + Everest-region DEM shaping + fBm/ridge-noise micro-terrain; contours extracted with Marching Squares, then Douglas-Peucker + Chaikin smoothing
• Filled surfaces with lighting: contour rings are filled, hillshade lighting, painter's algorithm depth sorting so near mountains occlude far ones
• Adaptive circular canvas: radius scales with node/edge count, edged with a thin gold ring
• 3D interactions: drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, double-click to reset, click to open a note, right-click to deselect
• Selection highlight: clicking a node lights up its direct neighbors in gold (optional)
• Main peak marker: the highest-degree note is marked with a star at the center
• Settings panel: official-graph-style, all settings auto-saved

Install

Manual

1. Copy manifest.json, main.js, styles.css from plugin/ into .obsidian/plugins/terrain-graph/ in your vault
2. Obsidian → Settings → Community plugins → enable Terrain Graph
3. Open the view from the left sidebar icon, or run the command "Open terrain graph"

BRAT

Install BRAT and add this repository.

Usage & Settings

Click the gear button in the top-right of the view to open the settings panel:

Interactions: drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, double-click to reset, click to pin a selection (gold 1-hop highlight), right-click to deselect, hover for a note card. The bottom-right corner shows the selected note and node/edge/group/level statistics.

Development

cd plugin
npm install
npm run build    # type-check + bundle main.js
npm run dev      # watch mode

main.js bundles d3-force, so there are no runtime dependencies to install separately.

Structure

terrain-graph/
├── plugin/              # Obsidian plugin
│   ├── manifest.json
│   ├── main.js          # build output
│   ├── styles.css
│   └── src/             # TypeScript source
│       ├── main.ts      # plugin entry, settings panel, view registration
│       ├── graph.ts     # graph building, community detection
│       ├── terrain.ts   # force layout, height field, contours
│       ├── render.ts    # 3D rendering, interactions
│       └── everest.ts   # Everest-region DEM data
├── docs/                # screenshots
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

Credits

• Layout engine d3-force (MIT)
• DEM data from SRTM (Everest region)

License

MIT