Topographic
Slowly shifting contour lines drawn with marching squares, like a living topographic map.
- Category: Backgrounds
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Topographic
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
levels | number | 12 |
About Topographic
Topographic draws slowly shifting contour lines with marching squares, like a living topographic map. It suits outdoor, mapping and data brands.
Topographic is an animated background for React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4 and animated with Motion. It drops into Next.js, Vite, Remix or Astro through the shadcn CLI as a single file you own.
When to use Topographic
- Outdoor and travel brands.
- Mapping and GIS products.
- Data visualisation heroes.
- Adventure and sports sites.
How it works
Contours are extracted from a moving noise field with marching squares at a coarse resolution. It runs on a canvas capped at 2x pixel density, pauses when scrolled off screen, and reads its colours from your theme tokens so it follows dark mode.
The whole layer is decorative and aria-hidden, sits behind your content without taking pointer events it does not need, and pauses when scrolled off screen. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Topographic
Every prop is documented in the API reference above with its type and default. The ones you will reach for first are listed here.
Style it with className like any other element. It only uses your theme's tokens, so it follows light and dark mode without extra work.
- levels (number, default 12).
Goes well with Topographic
These backgrounds pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.
- Ember Field: An animated React ember background: glowing embers drift up and flicker as they cool
- Smoke: A slow React smoke background: blurred plumes drifting over dark sections, CSS only
- Aurora: An animated React aurora background: soft light bands drifting across a section
- Grid Beams: A React grid background with beams of light running along its lines
- Meteors: A React meteor shower background: streaks falling diagonally, CSS only
Install Topographic
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/topographicTopographic is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 300 Pro components, 107 landing-page sections and 100 full templates, for every personal and client project, with updates included. Add the @charcoal registry once with your access token, then the command above copies topographic.tsx into components/ui and installs clsx, tailwind-merge.
You own the file you install: no runtime package, no lock-in, nothing to keep in sync. Change it however your product needs.
See Charcoal UI Pro pricing · Pro setup
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install Topographic?
- Topographic is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/topographic. It copies topographic.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Topographic free for commercial use?
- Topographic needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.
- Does Topographic work with Next.js?
- Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.
- Can an AI coding agent install Topographic?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Topographic's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.