Techniques for simulating three dimensional spaces, such as terrain, are disclosed herein. In some cases, a three dimensional volume may be identified and a two dimensional area corresponding to the three dimensional volume may be determined. A plurality of layers may be associated with the two dimensional area, with each of the plurality of layers including at least one third dimension value and at least one layer characteristic. A subset of the plurality of layers, having at least one similar layer characteristic, may be combined into a combined layer associated with the two dimensional area. The association between the two dimensional area and the associated combined layer may then be stored and/or rendered into image data to be presented to a user.