Geo Elevation
Draw a path, read its climb. Draw an area, read the ground.
How steep is that trail? Where are the slopes that matter in winter? What does the valley look like from the ridge? Geo Elevation answers on a map. Draw a path and its elevation profile draws itself, following the real trail or road. Draw an area and the app reads the ground inside it every 30 metres: its highest and lowest points, its slopes and contours, and the terrain itself in 3D.
Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Vision
One purchase for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. No account, no subscription.
See it in action
Recorded in the app. Interface shown in English.
A path that follows the trail
Add a few points and choose Walking, Cycling or Driving beside the drawing tools: each leg follows the real path or road between them, switchbacks and all. A second after your last edit the profile is there, one sample every 30 metres, with the distance, the climb and the descent, the average grade and the steepest hundred metres. Move along the chart and a ring on the map shows where you are. Straight lines are one choice away.
Draw an area. Read the ground.
Draw an area, a circle or a rectangle around the ground you care about, the summit, the valley, the whole mountain. Geo Elevation reads every 30 metres inside it and answers with the lowest, highest and mean height, the relief, the mean and the steepest slope, and marks the highest and lowest points on the map.
Slope and contours
Switch on Slope and the steep ground is coloured the way avalanche maps do it, from the angle you choose, with the share of the area in each band. Switch on Contours and the lines come at a spacing that suits the relief, every fifth one heavier. Both lie on the map and on the ground in 3D, and both can be set lighter or stronger in Settings.
The ground in 3D
Switch to 3D and the area stands up as a block, the map imagery draped over it, the slope and the contours on it if you want them, and every path drawn on the surface. Turn it, zoom, raise the heights to see a gentle hill. Move along a path’s chart and a marker climbs the surface.
Every path through it
A document holds as many paths and areas as you like. Select an area and every path that crosses it is listed with a small profile of its own; scrub along it and the ring follows on the map, without leaving the area.
Below sea level, too
Sea level is a line, and the ground below it shows as it is: the road from Jerusalem ends 357 metres below the line at the Dead Sea, the shore around it reaches 396, and the basin stands in 3D as a trench.
On paper, or in plastic
Print the page you need: the map or the 3D view as you turned it, with the slope and the contours if you want them, the profile, the numbers, the points; a preview shows the page while you choose. Or save the ground as an STL file for a 3D printer, cut to the area’s outline, on a flat base, with the trails raised on it.
Layers, like a drawing app
Paths, areas, circles and rectangles live in one document as layers, each in its own colour: show them, hide them, drag them into order. Select moves what is there and never adds a point; Add Points draws; Freehand traces an edge. Every step is undoable.
Spot heights and every point
Pick any point for the height of the ground there. The panel lists every point of a path with its coordinates, in decimal degrees or in degrees, minutes and seconds, its height, and the leg to the next one.
In and out
Import a GPX track from a watch, a KML route from Google Earth, GeoJSON from a GIS, or a file from the older Geo Elevation for Mac. Export GPX with elevations, CSV, GeoJSON, an image of the map and the chart, or a PDF report. The document itself is GeoJSON, and Quick Look shows its map and profile in the Finder and in Files.
Your units, your map
Kilometres or miles, metres or feet, hectares or acres: each document remembers its own, so the Alps stay in metres while Yosemite stays in feet. Standard, satellite, hybrid and 3D map styles. Files live in Files and iCloud Drive, so the trail you sketched on the phone opens on the Mac.
Made for the Mac
Documents open in windows, autosave and keep versions, and the menu bar has the whole app in it: ⇧⌘1 and ⇧⌘2 switch between the map and 3D, ⌃⌘1 to ⌃⌘4 pick Select, Add Points, Freehand and Spot, ⌥⌘S and ⌥⌘C show the slope and the contours, ⌘E fetches the heights, ⌥⌘P prints in 3D, ⌘F searches for a place, ⌘0 fits the map, ⌘, opens the settings. Drop a GPX, KML or GeoJSON file on the map to import it.
On iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro
The same app and the same file. On the phone the map fills the screen and a card at the bottom carries the numbers, the layers and the profiles. On the iPad and on Apple Vision Pro the panel sits beside the map, and the terrain is something you turn in front of you.
No file handy? Try these
Real documents, free to use. Download one and open it with Geo Elevation.
- Mount Washington: the summit area with the Tuckerman Ravine Trail on foot and the Auto Road by car.
- Mount Fuji: the cone in a circle, with the Yoshida Trail to the crater.
- Half Dome: the dome and Little Yosemite Valley, with the Mist Trail and the John Muir Trail.
- Mount Whitney: the highest summit in the lower 48, with the Mount Whitney Trail from the Portal.
- Jerusalem to the Dead Sea: a road down to 357 metres below sea level, and the shore around it.
Yours stays yours
Geo Elevation has no account and no tracking. Your documents are files on your device, and in your iCloud Drive if you put them there. What leaves the device: the coordinates you ask about, sent to our own elevation server for the heights (ASTER and Mapzen data at 30 metres, worldwide), the map tiles and routes Apple Maps provides, and the place search you type. One purchase, no subscription, no in-app purchases. In English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese.
Questions people ask
How do I get the elevation profile of a trail? Choose Add Points and Walking, then add the points of the trail in order: the start, a junction or two, the summit. Each leg follows the path and the profile appears after the second point.
How do I see the slope of an area? Draw an area, a circle or a rectangle around it and switch on Slope. The bands start at the angle chosen in Settings (25 degrees unless you change it), and the legend gives the share of the area in each.
How accurate is it? The heights come from ASTER and Mapzen, global elevation models with one value every 30 metres. Profiles and areas are sampled at that spacing, so nothing between the samples is invented. It is a model of the ground, not a survey: expect a few metres either way, more on cliffs and in cities, and treat slope bands as a planning aid, never as an avalanche forecast.
Can I 3D print the terrain? Yes. In 3D, choose Print in 3D and save an STL: the ground inside the area on a flat base, with the size, the base and the height stretch you pick, and the paths raised on it if you like.
Can I import a track from my watch? Yes. Import GPX, KML and GeoJSON; the app samples the ground along it, draws the profile, and exports the same track back out with elevations.
Does it work without a connection? Editing does; fetching heights, routes and new map tiles needs one.
Is there a web version? Yes, Geo Elevation on geosq.com draws the profile of a path in any browser, free, and geosq.com has slope and contour maps too. The apps add documents, areas, the terrain in 3D, routing, printing and the Mac menus.
What is Geo Elevation for Mac? The same app, sold on its own Mac-only record since 2016, with the same features and the same updates, for people who only want the Mac app or already own it. The app on this page is one purchase for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. Nobody needs both.
How much is it? One price, paid once, for all four platforms; the App Store shows it in your currency. No account, no subscription, no in-app purchases.
What changed lately? Shapes, the ground inside areas, slope and contours, routing and printing are written up in the 2.1 post.
Is there a manual? The Geo Elevation guide covers every tool, layer, setting and Mac shortcut; it is also what the app’s Help menu opens.