terrain and digital maps - import

[Alan Safewood]

Is it possible to import digital maps (with information on altitude) directly into Lightwave?
If so what cind of files should I look for?
And where can I get such files - from Europe?

Hope someone knows...
- Alan

[Lightwolf]

Hi Alan,
Marvin Landis has written some plugins that import elevation data:
http://amber.rc.arizona.edu/lw/elevations.html
You might want to check out his other terrain related plugins:
http://amber.rc.arizona.edu/lw
and, if you have access to the right data, look at this:
http://www.gadget.de/infiniMap (sorry for the shameless plug :D ).
A list for data sources is here:
http://www.3dnature.com/data.html
You can get free elevation data here:
http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.html

Cheers,
Mike

[Alan Safewood]

Wow, thanks for your fast and useful feedback.
I'll check it out!

:-) Alan

[Lightwolf]

Originally posted by Alan Safewood
Wow, thanks for your fast and useful feedback.
I'll check it out!

You're welcome...
I'm not new to the subject :)

[Hervé]

One is a cool link for finding sources maps... thanks LightWolf
Cheers, Hervé

[starbase1]

As we have some experts on the subject, I hope no one minds if I chip in with a question or two...

I can certainly add my endorsement to Marvin Landis stuff - very useful indeed.

Anyone got any suggestions for the missing level of detail in landscapes? What I am getting at is that the solutions suggested are great for the overall shape on the scale of tens of metres or more. And texturing provides the detail at the cm and smaller level.

But with no roughness at the metre kind of scale, it just never looks right, (or mine don't anyway). Something like the old prog vistapro would add bumpiness at all scales, which helped a lot.

I've tried doing a subdivision surface on the landscape object, and applying fractal noise displacement (or similar textures), and it helps a little, but the render times explode, and it's still not looking right.

Cheers,
Nickck

[Lightwolf]

Hi Nick,
the main problem is the fact that lw would have to handle millions of polys to achieve the kind of detail you want, and this just isn't feasable with the current renderer. I used a max of 500 to 600 thousands polys in my scenes.
On workaround that cam to my mind a couple of days ago (I haven't actually tried this...):
Create a subdiv plane, try to create one with built in level of detail (high res in the middle, lower res the further away from the middle you go), this can be done with subpatches.
Then apply all your textures (including the displacement map) with world coordinates, and parent the plane you created to the camera (or, both to a null, even better)...

If you now move the null/camera you get the plane to slide over the displacement map, always having a higher res closer to the camera. Add some fog to fade out the edges of the plane, and you ought to get some fairly decent, detailed results.

Cheers,
Mike

[starbase1]

Thanks Mike - I understand the problem, it's the solution that defeats me! :D

I'm primarily doing stills, so big render times are not a killer, if the results are good. (My current record is just over 2 weeks for one frame, when I went on a holiday!)

How do I set differing levels of subpatch within the one object? That sounds very promising.

I was considering the 'concentrated polys' approach, but have not yet combined it with nurbs.

I have experimented with going round loops of subdiv / freeze / poly reduction - this does tend to realy pile the polygons into the areas with the most detail, but its a bit painful!

I was also trying to think of a way of bringing hypervoxels into play - as they have arbitrary levels of detail for minimal geometry, I was trying to think of a way of using them enrich the landscape -
I don't just mean to scatter knobbly rocks round the landscape, but to actually build the surface up from a big mess of hypervoxels...

Or adding small scale geometry manually in a few key areas - something I am not very good at, patrticularly when there are such long thin triangles as are common in reduced poly landscapes... I always seem to end up wanting to add points in the middle of an edge.

I just have the nagging feeling that Lightwave really should be able to beat an old crumbly prog like Vistapro in every single area, if I approach it in the correct way!

Thanks Again,
Nick

[Lightwolf]

Hi Nick,
Originally posted by starbase1
How do I set differing levels of subpatch within the one object? That sounds very promising.

I'll attach a screenshot, this is a fairly good pattern and can be repeated in scale...

I just have the nagging feeling that Lightwave really should be able to beat an old crumbly prog like Vistapro in every single area, if I approach it in the correct way!

Well, terrain rendering is a very, very special tasks, because it involves tons of geometry, but geometry that can easily be generated on the fly by looking at an elevation map.
On the other hand, LW is great for non-procedural gemetry with a lower complexity...
...so much for the theory.
I'm actually doing some R&D on that subject, but that's all I can say.
Cheers,
Mike