A few days ago I shared Chorographia, my plugin that turns your vault into a semantic map. Notes embedded, projected into 2D via UMAP, and clustered into thematic zones. The response was incredible and honestly way more than I expected. Thank you all.

I've been building since then, and I'm back with what I think is a pretty significant update. The short version: QOL updates, bug fixes and... a new mode: World Map.

## What’s new

### World Map mode

Based on [abhuva79](https://www.reddit.com/user/abhuva79/)’s I was thinking of ways to tackle the overlapping zone issue, which I suspect a lot of you would experience with the original map design in your own vaults.  I still really like the original (now called “Star Map”), so instead of redesigning I added a new mode: “World Map.”

* Instead of overlapping blob zones, zones become non-overlapping countries with fractal coastlines, continent groupings, and province sub-divisions.
* Countries have borders. Continents have coastlines. Provinces fade in as you zoom with dashed internal borders.
* It genuinely looks like a fantasy map of your knowledge, that is if you get the settings right, which can be a bit tricky (those with experience in procedural generation will know the struggle).

There are three sliders to tune the World Map to your taste:

* Land density - how much of the map is land vs ocean
* Continental unity - archipelago vs pangea
* Coast ruggedness - smooth beaches vs jagged fjords

Please note: even if you get these settings just right, some of your notes will still get the Atlantis treatment. Generation like this is tricky. If anyone has suggestions or experience in this field, please take a look at the SC and maybe we can make some improvements.

### Other updates

* OpenRouter support - Added as both an embedding and zone naming provider. You now have three options: Ollama (fully local), OpenAI, and OpenRouter.
* Map lock - This was a big ask. Once you have a layout you like, enabling lock freezes note positions, cluster assignments, and zone names. When you add new notes and re-embed, they get placed by nearest-neighbor interpolation into the existing layout instead of UMAP reshuffling everything. Your map stays stable as your vault grows. Lock is automatically enabled after your first embed, so you don’t have to think about it unless you want to unlock and recompute from scratch.
* Pullout menu - The old flat control bar is gone. There’s now a gear icon in the top-right that opens a clean menu with all your quick toggles.
* Sub-zones toggle - Province sub-divisions can now be toggled on/off independently of zoom level.
* Titles toggle - Same for note title labels.
* Minimap toggle - The minimap can now be turned off entirely or placed in any corner.
* Minimap zone contours - The minimap now shows coastlines and country borders (World Map) or zone outlines (Star Map) so you can orient yourself.
* Unified zoomable view - No more separate global and local views. It’s one continuous canvas. Zoom in and sub-zones, province shading, and note labels fade in smoothly.
* Smoother animations - The pan-to-note centering animation is slower and less jittery, and province shading fades in gradually instead of popping in.

Everything from before still works: semantic/folder/type/category coloring, link overlay, LLM zone naming, file explorer dots, mobile touch support.

## How to install (BRAT)

1. Install the Obsidian plugin: [https://github.com/TfTHacker/obsidian42-brat](https://github.com/TfTHacker/obsidian42-brat)
2. In BRAT settings, add: `teleologia/chorographia`
3. Enable Chorographia in community plugins

## Status

This is still a beta. I’m not publishing to the community plugins directory yet. I want to get more feedback and stabilize things first. If you’re already running it via BRAT, you should get the update automatically.

I still cannot believe the response from last time. Building this has been one of the most rewarding side projects I’ve ever worked on, and knowing other people are actually using it makes it even better.

Let me know your thoughts: bug reports and feature requests are all welcome.

Chorographia Update: 0.3.0 beta release