Terrain modeling can have some really fun aspects to it. When it was discovered that elevation data captured from airplanes could be used to create real-world Minecraft worlds, it had to be attempted.

Aerial Photograph

Beautiful Ship Bottom New Jersey, as seen from Google Maps aerial photograph. Lots of fun summers spent at the beach surfing and enjoying the ocean.

Worldpainter

Worldpainter is free software that can "paint" surface types onto Minecraft worlds. One can paint rock, sand, grass types and also insert vertical buildings. If you are a local, you might be able to spot an old favorite, The Sand Trap miniature golf course.

Modeled Dunes

First person view, looking over the dunes to the ocean. The LiDAR data captures the elevation changes of the beach dunes, which translate well into the Minecraft world. There are scaling issues from real-world to Minecraft, and in this situation the flat beaches dont help accentuate the terrain. Looking closely, it appears the Creepers are headed to the beach through the dune pass.

Buildings

Buildings can be inserted into the Minecraft model, adding a pretty realistic feel to the game model.

Baseball Diamond

Can you spot it? If you look closely it's there, but at this angle it may take some hunting.

Virtual Reality

There are entire cities modeled in Minecraft, and this is just a sample of what can be done. With Minecraft having a virtual reality component, users can go to different places in the world, all while evading spiders, creepers and endermen.