Montreal Studio San Rita Creates 3D Topographic Website Interface Using Real Terrain Data

The Montreal-based design studio San Rita has developed an innovative website interface that presents their portfolio as a navigable 3D topographic landscape. Creative director Julien Sister and developer Sébastien Lempens collaborated on the project, which took approximately one year to prototype. The website, sanrita.ca, replaces traditional grid-based navigation with an interactive mountainous terrain where projects appear as hotspots. The terrain is constructed using actual GPS elevation information from Canadian and Californian locations, processed through Unreal Height Map and Blender software to create detailed yet efficient browser rendering via React Three Fiber. The visual aesthetic draws inspiration from historical mapmaking, featuring textures that mimic aged paper and navigation elements labeled with outdoor terminology like trails and viewpoints. Project pages transition to lightweight HTML and SVG formats with custom GLSL shader effects applied to photographs, giving images a textured, atmospheric quality. The technical framework employs a persistent React Three Fiber canvas alongside Next.js 16, with GSAP and Lenis managing animations and DatoCMS handling content delivery. The projects section implements infinite scrolling to emulate a continuous trail through their work. This digital design has gained recognition, being featured on platforms such as Communication Arts and Awwwards, with a detailed technical analysis available on Codrops.