Woodkid Video with an elevation map

[Falconius]

So I just saw a lyric video made with a 3d rendered elevation map. It's a pretty interesting concept. There is a blue grid in the video I assume representing coordinates but what is interesting is it is set at a mid height with the rock formations around it and as the camera pans around it causes parallax with the grid ( I just thought it was a neat effect).
Here is the map video.

The only reason I know of Woodkid is because his music was in an Assassins Creed trailer, and the music is way more epic there (this video).

[johnvanvliet]

converting a Height map ( Digital Elevation Model -- DEM ) to a 3d mesh is fairly easy

import it as a displacement map
or
use one of the perl,python,or C software to directly convert a image to a mesh .