Shine a Light

There are plenty of maps that show you where the world's lighthouses are. Lighthouses, live does something much more interesting: it shows you how they actually work. Instead of just showing each lighthouse as a static point on a map this map gives you a sense of what its light signal actually looks like at sea.Lighthouses, live plots charted coastal lights on a dark, night-time relief map and animates each one according to its real-world light characteristics. Some lights sweep continuously across the sea, while others flash in distinctive sequences, with the timing and colour of each beam taken from nautical charts. Impressively, terrain data is also used to block the light based on the surrounding topography, so you can actually see how each lighthouse's beam is constrained by the coastline and landscape.You can explore the whole world or choose from 27 individual coastal maps covering countries and regions including England & Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway,…