Watch Tokyo's Entire Transit System Move in Real Time, in 3D
You've probably stared at a static transit map and wondered what it would look like if you could see every train, plane, and station alive at once. Static maps are useful, but they don't show you the pulse of a city. Mini Tokyo 3D answers that question by turning Tokyo's public transport into a living, breathing 3D model you can explore right in your browser.
What It Does
Mini Tokyo 3D is a real-time 3D digital map of Tokyo's public transport system. It's not a simulation or a pre-rendered animation—it pulls live data to show trains, aircraft, and stations moving and updating as they do in the real world. You can pan, zoom, tilt, and rotate around the city, watching the entire transit network operate from any angle you like.
The project is open source and lives at github.com/nagix/mini-tokyo-3d. There's a live demo at minitokyo3d.com where you can jump straight in without installing anything.
Under the hood, it's a web app that combines 3D map rendering with real-time transit data feeds. The README doesn't dive deep into the architecture, but the feature set makes it clear this is a serious piece of work—it supports multiple languages, tracks individual vehicles, and even includes an underground mode that lets you see below street level.
Why It's Cool
This isn't just a pretty map. There are several things here that make it genuinely interesting for developers and transit nerds alike.
It's real-time, not a replay. The whole point is that you're watching live data. Trains move as they actually move. Aircraft fly as they actually fly. That's a fundamentally different experience from watching a canned animation, and it makes the map a tool rather than just a visualization.
The interaction model is deep. You're not limited to pan and zoom. You can tilt the view, rotate the camera, box-zoom with Shift+drag, and even toggle an underground mode to see what's happening below ground. There's a tracking mode where you can click a train or aircraft and follow it as it moves. That's the kind of interaction that makes you feel like you're piloting a camera through the city rather than just looking at a webpage.
It's built for real users, not just demos. The project ships with a full user guide in four languages (English, Japanese, French, and Simplified Chinese) and a developer guide in the same languages. There's a cheat sheet covering every operation, from basic panning to the eco mode toggle. That level of documentation is rare in open-source projects and signals that the author cares about actual usability.
The language support is thoughtful. The UI, map labels, and transit data are all localized. English, Japanese, French, and Simplified Chinese get full coverage, while Traditional Chinese and Korean get partial coverage. Even more languages—Thai, Nepali, Portuguese, Spanish, German—have UI translations. The project explicitly invites contributions for more translations, with a clear path for how to help.
The extras go beyond transit. There's a route search panel, a layer display settings panel, a tracking mode panel, and even an eco mode (toggled by the battery button). These aren't gimmicks—they suggest the project is thinking about energy efficiency and user customization in ways most map demos don't bother with.
How to Try It
The fastest way to experience Mini Tokyo 3D is to head to the live demo and start playing. There's no install required—just open it in your browser and you're in.
Once you're there, here are a few things to try:
- Drag with your mouse or finger to pan around the city.
- Scroll to zoom in and out. Pinch works too if you're on a touch device.
- Right-click and drag (or Ctrl+drag) to tilt the view and rotate the camera. On touch, use a two-finger drag.
- Click on a train, aircraft, or station to enable tracking or select a station. Hover over any of them to see its information.
- Click the eye button to toggle underground mode and see what's below the surface.
- Click the battery button to toggle eco mode.
- Use the search button to open the route search panel and plan a trip.
If you want to dig into the code or contribute, clone the repository from github.com/nagix/mini-tokyo-3d. The README points to developer guides in multiple languages, and if you're interested in helping with translations, the dictionary-<ISO 639-1 code>.json files in the data directory are the place to start. The project also lists specific JSON files for airports, flight statuses, operators, points of interest, and rail directions that need translated titles.
There are also demo videos linked from the README—English and Japanese versions from 2019, 2021, and 2025—if you want to see the project in action before you open it yourself.
Final Thoughts
Mini Tokyo 3D is one of those projects that feels like a labor of love. It's not trying to be a commercial product or a platform—it's just a really well-executed visualization of a complex system, built with care and shared openly. If you're into transit data, 3D mapping, or just want to see what a city looks like when its infrastructure comes alive, this is worth your time. The documentation is solid, the interaction model is rich, and the fact that it's all real-time data makes it feel genuinely alive. Give it a spin—you might find yourself losing an hour just watching trains move.
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