A Minecraft 3D Null Island in ArcGIS Online
Minecraft has been growing in popularity over the past several years in K12 education. This growth accelerated when Microsoft acquired the 3D adventure game in 2014. In this blog, I’ll walk through some of the steps to posting Minecraft created objects in ArcGIS Online.
My Minecraft 3D floating null island (0.0 lat, 0.0 long) example.
We’ll post a floating null island, created in Minecraft, and shared into ArcGIS Online (viewed through Scene viewer). Review Microsoft’s directions for exporting 3D objects from Minecraft (this process may vary depending on your game's platform). For this blog, we downloaded a pre-built Minecraft object (an island). Imported the object into CityEngine. Exported as an Esri Scene Layer Pack - and then uploaded and shared as a hosted service in ArcGIS Online. This workflow is outlined here.
The only differences in workflow for this null island:
- We used a blank scene in CityEngine. We did not use map data or 3D buildings. Using a blank scene sets the origin at 0,0 (null).
- In CityEngine, I wanted my island to float in the sky. So I used the moved tool to elevate the island. I mean if you’re going to create your own island, what better way to make it private than to make it float in the sky?
Don’t forget the Scene viewer can be used in StoryMaps. Using the Sidecar widget also allows you to use Map Actions, which can allow a student to show off aspects of their creation. A brief example is here.
Of course, students could also create “Slides” inside the Scene Viewer and achieve similar effects. What’s more, with Slides in Scene Viewer, students could export their null island Scene into the ArcGIS 360 VR Viewer (ideal for VR headsets, like Oculus).
Example components: