One way is to find information regarding elevation for your area of interest and then digitize the info. You will need to digitize contour lines, hypsometric points etc. and then create a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) for your area. Afterwards you can create raster data according to what you need.

What kind of mapping you are interested in and which products you intend to use?

E.g. ArcGIS (ESRI) provide some solutions out of the box. With 3D Analyst you will have some tools allowing you use multipatches, TINs and raster surfaces for 3D mapping. Even simple 3D models can be generated. 3D objects can be visualized in ArcScene and exported to other applications.

You can import your DEM into ArcScene (ESRI product) or you can use the 3D Analyst in Arc GIS to build up a 3D terrain model.

Hi, in qgis you have two opportunities. You can create model or when do you want only map with relief then you need dem raster layer from which you make shaded relief. Then this layer load and choose transparency about 80-90%. For the real 3d model you can use grass when I good rememmber there is modul for this. I always transform my layers to grass but you need dem layer.

Here is a link for a simple way to make 3D models in Google Earth and SketchUp:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1229/

a. Open the yourproject.sxd in ArcScene (must have polyline shapefiles or points, .

b. From the 3D Analyst menu, choose Create/Modify TIN, and click Create TIN From Features. In the dialog's Layers box, check Elevation Points. Make sure the height source is ELEV( or whatever you have there) and the triangulation is mass points. Check Rivers and set its height source to < None >. Make sure it is triangulated as hard line. Check the lakes , make sure its height source is set to ELEV. Set the triangulation to hard replace. Check Boundaries (boundary shapefile if you have its better to have..). Set the height source to < None >. Make sure it is triangulated as soft clip. Set the output TIN location to your \MyData folder and name it NAMENAME. Click OK. The TIN is created and added to the scene

{ Note that if you have polylines they are also used as "mass point" and treated as a seperate points instead of a whole line. The elavation of the whole line is assigned to each of the points that originally belongs to it.}

From the UTSA & campus.esri.com)

Hy,

Look on this link where you have the details for make a 3D map on QGis, Grass !

http://www.digital-geography.com/create-3d-visualizations-qgis-grass-and-nviz/

u can make digital elevation modeling

Creating 3D buildings from OpenStreetMap data

It is fairly easy to create 3D buildings from OpenStreetMap (OSM) maps, essentially by extruding the 2D footprint polygons to 3D.

http://courses.neteler.org/creating-3d-buildings-from-openstreetmap-data/

One of the most powerful platform for creating 3D visualisations is the ESRI technology platform

http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/3d/3d-cities/

ESRI has a range of solutions including 3D Analyst and CityEngine as well as several 3rd party application development partners eg CityWorks

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine

Applications range from local government, planning approvals, military through to green industry and environmental management among others

Silburn

Sir,

I would suggest you to use ESRI CityEngine. Otherwise use the ArcGIS Pro. Link is attached below.

Hope this helps.

Harisankar

http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/help/mapping/map-authoring/go-3d-with-arcgis-pro.htm

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine