Observed arrival · 2026-10-11
Raleigh Terrarium, Built from the City’s Records
An interactive miniature of downtown Raleigh lets visitors explore the city, change its look, and watch its weather and light shift.
- For
- Raleigh residents, visitors, and open-data enthusiasts
- Worth noticing
- The city’s traffic-signal timing is unpublished, so the simulation uses cycles of about one minute.
Field notes
The mapped area includes the museums, State Capitol, performing arts center, Red Hat Amphitheater, Moore Square, and Marbles. Roads draw on OpenStreetMap, terrain on USGS elevation data, and buildings on Raleigh’s 2022 downtown model. The page says buses follow 28 real routes and trees use locations and heights from a 2015 laser survey. It distinguishes recorded infrastructure from approximations, including unpublished signal timing and estimated stop- and speed-limit-sign placement.
Observed signals
Read the marks
Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.
One card from the complete issue