I do (did, retired) 3d. Easy. All you need is an image of the surface (mapped 'XY' onto a sphere in the case of Earth). Then you apply a bump map (a topographic map turned to grey scale). A grey scale image for hight. From black to white for lowest to highest points (or visa versa), just apply negative numbers as required. Varying grey scale for intermediate elevations.

Grey images reduce file sizes, & for textures there is simply no point having a colour images. You can build up a fake 3d image from a few grey scale image from different angles, & map the coloured photo onto the 3d bump map. Basically what the deep fake 3Ds are doing.

The same is applied to other surface textures. You can also animate the bump map/s to get anything moving. Often multiple animated bump maps at different scales are useful, for ocean waves.

A simple example would be the ABC QandA program graphics, where all the pins move up & down. Simply an animated grey scale bump map.

Then you can 'massage' the bump map to exaggerate height, making mountains looking ridiculous high.