What do the heights of the cones and pyramids mean?

Generally, the highest level in the hierarchy is at the back, the lowest at the front. And generally, the heights of the cones and pyramids indicate their position in the hierarchy as well: The taller the cone or pyramid, the higher in the hierarchy.

This applies to all the direct descendents and ancestors of the Current Topic, "CT" (Automobiles in this example), but not to indirect relatives, which is why we wrote "generally" above. For example, those smaller cones at the back - just in front of Modes of Transport - are other modes of transport, like Air and Sea. They are not directly connected to Automobiles but they do have a common ancestor and so may suggest other paths to explore.

The siblings on the left, Motor-cycles, Vans, and Trucks, are also not directly related to Automobiles, but they are much closer (they share a parent), so that have a more prominent position in the landscape.

As before, the relationships are described in this image:

(Of course, what you see above is a reduced screenshot -- too small for you to be able to read some entries. With Topicscape, you can use Quickzoom: Hold the Shift key down and click on any cone or topic and you'll zoom in to see the details. Release the mouse button to zoom out, or release the Shift key and you can stay to explore.) To see the above image from closer up, please click here.

To save you pressing the Back button, here is the 2D version once again.

To go back to Topicscape 3D mind mapping structure explained, click here: