Guanqi icon

Guanqi

Chinese cities set back among their mountains and rivers, as 3D scenes you can turn, rain on and read.

Category
Games & Culture
Platforms
Web
Pricing
Free to use in the browser, no installation
Open Guanqi (shanshui.pomodiary.com) →

Overview

Guanqi (观气) is a free web atlas of Chinese landscapes. Instead of starting from streets and attractions, it starts from the land: where the mountains rise, where the water comes from, and how a city sits between them. Each place is an interactive 3D scene that you can rotate and zoom in the browser, and each one has its own reading page explaining the mountains, rivers, lakes and landmarks it shows.

The collection currently has 37 scenes: 36 based on real places and 1 original, imagined valley called Huilan Valley, which is clearly labelled as art rather than geography. Real places range from Dali, with the Cangshan range and Erhai Lake, to Hangzhou's West Lake and its surrounding hills, Xi'an between the Qinling foothills and the Wei River, the meeting of the Yangtze and Han rivers at Wuhan, and the gorge mouth at Yichang.

The scenes are modelled in Blender and rendered in real time with Three.js. Real-place scenes combine public elevation data and OpenStreetMap water outlines with artistic treatment: colours, vegetation, mist and lighting are stylised, and terrain height is exaggerated so that relief is easier to see (the Hangzhou scene, for example, shows elevation at 3.5 times its real scale). Every reading page has a Sources & Scope section that says what the model is based on and what it leaves out.

An honest note: Guanqi takes its starting point from traditional ideas of reading terrain, such as how mountains approach, how water bends and how a space is enclosed or opened. It treats those ideas as cultural and spatial observation only. The moving light trails are not a physical energy field, and the site gives no fortune, site-selection or feng shui verdicts. It is also not a survey map or a navigation tool; for real routes, use a map and what you see on the ground. The site is currently in Chinese.

Key features

  • 37 turnable landscape scenes

    Each scene is a 3D model you can drag to rotate and pinch or scroll to zoom. Camera presets switch between a panorama, a closer view and a top-down view, and an auto-tour button lets the camera drift slowly through the scene on its own.

  • Weather, light and rain sound

    A weather button cycles through clear, drizzle, steady rain, heavy rain and thunderstorm, and lighting can be switched to morning light or dusk. Rain sound is off by default; one sound toggle turns it on, and the sound follows how hard it is raining.

  • A reading page for every place

    Each location has its own static page with an introduction, a guide to what to look for in the scene, common questions and related places. The 3D scene is embedded at the top of the page, and the text can still be read if 3D is not loaded.

  • Clear sources and scope

    Every page lists where its terrain and water outlines come from, such as public elevation tiles and OpenStreetMap, how much the height is exaggerated, which buildings were left out, and which parts are artistic rather than measured.

  • Flowing water you can slow down

    Light trails along rivers show the downstream direction. A flow-speed slider changes how fast they move, and animation can be paused. The trails illustrate direction only; they are not real-time hydrology or tide data.

  • Shareable scene links

    Each scene has its own address, so you can send someone straight to Hangzhou or Dali rather than to the home page. Browser back and forward move between scenes you have visited.

How to use Guanqi

  1. Open shanshui.pomodiary.com in a browser that supports WebGL, on a phone or a computer. Nothing needs to be installed.
  2. Choose a place from the Landscape Atlas (山水图鉴), or open a place page such as Hangzhou, Dali or Wuhan directly.
  3. Start with the panorama to identify the main mountains and water bodies, then switch to the close view for local scale and the top-down view to compare positions and openings.
  4. Drag to rotate and pinch or scroll to zoom. Try the auto-tour if you just want to watch the landscape move.
  5. Change the weather to rain and the light to morning or dusk to see the same terrain in a different mood; turn on the sound if you want rain in the background.
  6. Scroll down on the place page to read what to look for, the common questions and the Sources & Scope notes, so you know which parts are data and which are artistic choices.

Who it’s for

  • Travellers who want a sense of how a Chinese city sits in its landscape before they visit, as a complement to an ordinary map.
  • Readers curious about traditional Chinese ways of describing mountains and water, presented as culture rather than fortune-telling.
  • Anyone who likes a calm, slowly moving landscape with rain sound on a second screen while working or reading.
  • Teachers and students looking for an intuitive picture of features like the West Lake hills, the Qinling and Wei River, or two rivers meeting at Wuhan.

FAQ

Is Guanqi free?
Yes. All scenes and reading pages open in the browser, and you do not need to install Blender, Three.js or any app.
Are the scenes satellite images or survey maps?
No. Real-place scenes are 3D artistic models built from public elevation data and map outlines. Colours, vegetation, mist and lighting are stylised, terrain height is exaggerated for readability, and dense city buildings are usually left out. Each page explains its own scope.
Does it tell me whether a place has good feng shui?
No. Traditional terms about how mountains and water are arranged are used as a lens for observing the landscape. The site does not measure any "qi", and it gives no judgments about fortune, wealth or choosing a site.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. You can rotate and zoom with touch. Loading the 3D model needs a network connection and a browser with WebGL; the reading text is available even without the 3D scene.
Is Huilan Valley a real place?
No. It is an original, imagined landscape, labelled as such on the site. It is not a real scenic area and not a reconstruction of any illustration from a classical text.
Which languages is it available in?
The site is currently written in Simplified Chinese.

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Questions about Guanqi? Email hi@pomodiary.com or visit our contact page.